Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

You caught me just at a weak moment there. A colleague told a joke that was not in any way funny, but I had to laugh anyway. Of course, Mr. Brassard is always funny. I won't share the joke with the committee, though. It wouldn't be right.

I've listened today to some really good arguments, some really good points from my colleagues on this side. I guess the government side is hoping to just wear us down, and they're hoping they'll get their way. They're just going to ram through these changes and hope that we'll all put up a fight for a little while and eventually get worn down and won't be able to carry on, and they can just do what they want. Justin Trudeau can be the dictator that he wants to be.

I can tell you right now that's not going to happen. If you look around this room, you'll see there are a lot of MPs who don't even need to be here right now, and it's almost 11 o'clock in the evening. What does that tell you? That tells you there's a commitment here on the part of the opposition in both parties to fight this. We're going to fight this not for ourselves, but on behalf of Canadians, because what Justin Trudeau is trying to do is take away the accountability that he and his government have to Canadians.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

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

That's what he's trying to do here. Let's not mince words. Let's not pretend anything else. That's what this is about.

Justin Trudeau talked in the past about admiring the basic dictatorship of China. He's said some wonderful words about his uncle, Fidel. At the end of the day, he wants to be them. He wants to be a dictator in Canada. I know that sounds extreme, but that's what we're seeing here. I may as well just call it what it is, because when you start looking at these changes, that is what he is trying to do. He is trying to take away any ability to be held to account.

Mr. Chair, I shared a Facebook post. It was a news article put out about the committee proceedings earlier today. In a minute, I want to share that. First of all, I went off on a tangent there and I forgot what I was actually getting at when I first talked about having heard from my various colleagues today, on their thoughts and their opinions, which I very much appreciated.

The one who really stuck out for me was my colleague Mr. Reid. When he was here earlier, he spoke for more than a few minutes. I'm not sure, I wasn't keeping track, but it was probably more hours than I can even count to, which isn't saying a lot of hours, but it's a few.

One thing stood out to me. I've sat on committee with Mr. Reid for a number of years now. I've served as a member of Parliament with him for over eight years, and one thing I've known about Mr. Reid is that he's very rational and calm. I would say he takes a very academic approach. It's actually quite atypical for a politician. A lot of politicians are about the show and about putting on a performance to ramp up the rhetoric. That's quite common among politicians, rightly or wrongly. It's something that Mr. Reid is certainly not known for. I saw him legitimately angry over this issue today. He wasn't putting on a show. It's something I've never seen from him before, and I've been through a lot of very stressful situations with him. I've been through a lot of committee hearings on difficult topics, and I've not seen that.

I think that means something. I wouldn't call it an outburst, but we saw that kind of passion and emotion come out of someone who just generally doesn't take that type of approach. He was angry. He used a word that he probably wishes he hadn't used, but it was out of a real, legitimate, and passionate concern for what this government is trying to do as far as the accountability of the government to Canadians goes. It was quite evident in his comments and in how he delivered those comments that this struck him like nothing I've ever seen. I was already well aware of how much of a problem this really was, but I think it really just drove it home for me.

If all Canadians were to see that, they would understand, if they don't already, exactly what the concern is here. I listen to other colleagues, as well, who make very impassioned cases for why it's so important in a democracy—which is what Canada is, or at least it still is at this point—for the opposition to have the ability and some tools to be able to use to hold the government to account.

As Mr. Christopherson rightly pointed out, nearly 100% correctly, the government is going to win the votes 100% of the time. We obviously saw a vote once in this Parliament that was pretty close to not being 100% of the time. At the end of the day, it's a pretty rare circumstance when the government isn't going to win the vote—extremely rare, in fact.

There's merit in that, I suppose. Some people would argue otherwise. That said, it's important the opposition have the ability to draw attention to issues that are of concern and to make the government accountable. One of the biggest reasons it's necessary is that often a government can take that power and use other powers, which they're also trying to change—I'll go through those as I speak tonight, Mr. Chair—and trying to put in place here. They can take something and ram it through, and they can do it in a rushed fashion. They can force things through, force a vote, and the goal would be for the government to try to do this—I think that's what they're trying to do in this case, frankly—before anyone can take notice and anyone can build up opposition to it.

What we're seeing with this motion, the discussion paper, and the timeline that's put in this motion, is an attempt to.... Let's face it, when Canadians hear that Liberal MPs want to take Fridays off, when they hear that the Prime Minister only wants to be accountable one day a week in the House of Commons, their reaction is not very good. I can tell you that the people who are aware out there.... I had a lot of people approach me when I was in my riding last week, saying, whoa, hold on. What is this government? Are they really trying to do this? Are they really trying to work fewer days? Are they really trying to make sure the Prime Minister...? I'll get to some comments directly from people in a minute or two, Mr. Chair.

The point is that when people hear about this stuff, it concerns them. The government is hoping to get this through before people can hear about it, before they can get angry, get amped up, and provide some kind of opposition.

Let's face it. Canadians are busy. They're raising their families, they're trying to run businesses—when the Liberal government isn't trying to tax them out of business, of course—they're trying to hold down their jobs, they're getting their kids around to activities, they're caring for their elderly parents. Whatever it is, they're involved in a lot of things. They have busy lives. I think people are busier now than ever before.

That means they don't have as much time as they might like to follow what goes on in Parliament or in the legislatures in their provinces, and political happenings generally. Sometimes, if the government can do a thing like this quickly enough and slide it under the radar, it can get away with it before anyone can know about it. That, I think, is what the goal is here. That's why the opposition has to tools to try to slow down the process, to allow Canadians to have a look at what's going on and allow parliamentarians to fully go through it and raise concerns on behalf of their constituents—who are Canadians—and bring those concerns out into the public forum so that Canadians can judge whether what's being done is in their best interests before it gets rammed through and not afterwards, when it's too late.

That's what's at the heart of all this, Mr. Chair. As I said just a couple of hours ago, I put the following story up on my Facebook page. It's a story from the other day on this filibuster, whatever you want to call it today—this committee meeting that has been going on for some time.

I hope you'll indulge me, Mr. Chair, because I wouldn't want to be accused of trying to go on for a long time, but I think I should read it to provide context for some of the comments I'm going to make. I won't necessarily read the whole article, but a part of the article that I put up, just to give members some sense of it.

It was actually an article from the National Post, and the headline referred to the comments that Mr. Reid made earlier that I talked about and I think really were atypical for him and showed how disgusting, I'll say, this attempt by the government is.

The heading is:

Tories accuse Liberals of ‘ramming through whatever the f— they want’ to make changes to House procedure

I'm going to click on this article so that I can pull it up, if you'll bear with me a second. I'm going to read in part from this article.

It says:

Opposition parties slammed the Liberal government on Tuesday—

It still is Tuesday, I think, but not for much longer.

—for trying to “ram through” major changes to how the House of Commons does its business.

So, it talks about ramming through major changes. The next paragraph reads:

With little notice—

—which is a key point as well—

—the Liberals moved Tuesday to have the Procedure and House Affairs committee study major changes to standing orders put forward by Liberal House leader Bardish Chagger, giving a tight June deadline and offering no indication that they wouldn’t use a majority to impose changes to House rules without opposition consent.

I'm going to stop quoting there, because I think there are so many important points being made in the first couple of paragraphs of this article. It's talking about the government trying to ram through what the author of the article calls “major changes to how the House of Commons does its business.”

We're not talking about everyday, sort of run-of-the-mill type changes. We're not even talking about changing a significant piece of legislation that the House of Commons would look at. We're talking about changing the actual rules of how the House of Commons does its business and trying to tip the scales far more toward the government.

Then it goes on to talk about little notice being provided. Again that speaks to what I was referring to earlier, the fact that the government would try to sneak something through without it being noticed.

It moved to make major changes to the Standing Orders. The other point in that sentence is that they were put forward by the Liberal House leader. It's not the committee making recommendations to the government, which the government would then consider, as I think it is trying to do—I think that's the efforts the government is trying to make to pretend that might be the case. I'll go into detail later about how in fact what's in this letter doesn't line up at all with what the committee had looked at previously. It doesn't line up with a lot of the things that were heard in the take-note debate even, which is another thing that we're hearing pointed to by the government as the opportunity when everyone got a chance to have a say.

Of course, notwithstanding the fact that another of the failed promises of this government was the electoral reform promise. A number of us who were point men for the opposition on this file travelled with the electoral reform committee. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I have to wonder a little bit as to whether that was done deliberately, especially given what has happened since then. Was it done deliberately so that the people who would maybe have the most invested in these issues and probably pay the most attention to these issues from the opposition caucuses weren't present. If it weren't done deliberately, then it was really quite reckless, at the very least.

Then the article goes on to talk about a tight June deadline and, most importantly, the government's offering no indication that it wouldn't use its majority to impose changes to House rules without the opposition's consent. Obviously, as has been said many times today, the practice has typically been and should be that, when you're talking about changes to the very rules that govern the House of Commons, all parties should have some say in that. As we're debating this motion now, that would not be the case. This amendment would, of course, enable that to be the case. We see no indication whatsoever from the government that they're even open to it and it's quite clear that their intention is not to allow that.

I certainly hope that, with the reaction they're getting, they'll choose to reconsider that. That would be really wise on their part. I think it would be in the best interests of Canadians, it would be in the best interests of Parliament, and it would even be in their own best interests, Mr. Chair.

The article it goes on to talk about some of other things. It says:

The long list of items for study includes: halting House sittings on Fridays; only requiring the Prime Minister to be in question period one day a week—

It also talks about introducing electronic voting and restricting opposition parties' ability to filibuster bills in committee. Those are a number of things it discusses. There are other things, which I'll go through in detail in a few moments.

I think people would be and are quite troubled by the idea of giving Liberal MPs Fridays off and by the idea of the Prime Minister having to be accountable to Canadians only one day a week. Electronic voting is something that could certainly be debated. It was debated by this committee previously with no decision made to proceed with it, but I'll get back to that in a minute.

As for restricting the opposition parties' ability to filibuster bills in committee, I guess I can understand, on a day like today, why the government might see that as something they'd like to see. But again, it is a tool that allows the opposition, on behalf of Canadians, to hold the government accountable and to bring to light some of the issues of the day. Those are the tools the opposition has to provide a contrary, opposing, or potentially complementary view of bills put forward before the Parliament so that Canadians can consider what an alternative, or an additional, approach might be. There is a reason those tools are there. You don't just get rid of them without some kind of agreement among all parties.

The article goes on to give some of Mr. Reid's comments. He said Liberals are trying to “ram through whatever the f... they want”, and it mentions what I pointed out earlier, Mr. Chair, that it was indeed a “rare outburst” for MP Scott Reid. I don't know if I'd call it an outburst—

[An hon. member]

I don't know if I'd call it rare.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

—but the point is that it is not something that is typical or that Mr. Reid is known for. He usually takes a very methodical and academic approach to issues, and this was a very passionate approach, so it obviously means it is something quite unusual that is happening here. It's very unusual.

He called the manoeuvres “despicable, a tissue of lies and a contemptible abuse of our system”. He also called the Prime Minister an “arrogant, selfish, rude individual” for trying to steamroll all opposition.

I think he put it really well. Trying to steamroll the opposition is what's happening here. We can go back to , as has been alluded to a couple of times earlier today, to the previous attempts by the government to curtail the abilities of the opposition to hold them to account. In response to what happened at that time—the elbow that happened, the Prime Minister's trying to forcibly have his way and ending up elbowing a female MP—there was an uproar, of course.

Frankly, what we're seeing now is even more contemptible. We have a government that just thinks they can do whatever they want, and forget the opposition. They believe they can just drive the bus right over the opposition and therefore drive the bus right over Canadians. They think that since they were elected, they have a dictatorship and can do whatever they want.

That's not how it works. I think this government needs to wake up and look at what's going on here. For the members who sit here in this committee, it's not in your best interests either. As has been said earlier, at least some of you will probably sit in opposition some day, if you have any length of a career in Parliament. I know that many of them are new, but they're going to be realizing at that point why these tools are so important and why it's so important there is some government accountability. And I can tell you that if they don't realize this very quickly, the time they get to spend in opposition might come a lot quicker than they expect, and that's why it's in their best interest, too.

I see we're about to have a change of clerk here. I guess what I would like to say is thank you for your efforts today, because you've had a long day as well and have had to be here the whole time. So after about 13 hours or so, you will have a chance to get a little sleep, I hope. We just want to recognize that.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

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

I'll go back to where I was. I'm not going to quote myself because that would be weird, so I'll skip by the quote of me. In fact, I probably used those words already as I've spoken here, but it refers to my calling this attempt “disgusting and pathetic”. I probably already used that language, so I don't need to do that.

And it then the article goes on to say, “In an unusual move Tuesday”.... So again, here's that idea of it being very unusual: “In an unusual move Tuesday, Liberals repeatedly blocked opposition attempts to delay the motion, including extending the committee” and blah, blah, blah. Then it goes on to the fact that Mr. Christopherson “made much ado about the fact that opposition MPs were not given the time to bring the Liberals’ proposals to a caucus meeting”, with the next one being just hours away now. What they gained by not allowing the opposition members to go to their caucuses, I'll never understand. I guess they like listening to long speeches from opposition members so much that they.... I can understand why; there were some pretty good speeches today. Now that you have to listen to me, they might be rethinking that, as mine maybe isn't quite as interesting as some of the others, but nevertheless they're going to continue to listen to it until they smarten up and realize this is not acceptable.

Really, a delay for a half a day to allow people to have a chance to talk to their caucuses, I can't imagine what the harm in that would be. Who knows? It's anyone's guess, I suppose.

And I'll pass by the part where Mr. Christopherson calls them “clowns”. There's the part where he says:

“This is not a good day for Liberal promises”.... The Liberals had promised to work more collaboratively and openly with other parties, but instead are trying to use their majority to change rules that will have a major effect on all members of parliament.... “How the hell is that fair? How does that come anywhere near what you promised in the campaign?”

It's a good question. We still haven't had an answer because the Liberal MPs aren't really speaking. I guess they're just hoping....

Yes, fair enough, David Graham did give us 30 seconds or so there. So, maybe we'll hear a bit more from one of our colleagues on the other side later and maybe they'll explain a bit more about why they're trying to do this. Maybe they don't know. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they've just been given the orders and they don't really know why that is. I don't know. Who knows?

The bottom line is that the article I posted gives you the context. Now I'm just going to share with you some of the comments that people made. Some of them I can't share because they're referring to the Prime Minister with some language that I don't really feel is appropriate to use in a parliamentary committee; and I don't blame people for that, by the way. I understand that, because what he's doing here is frankly despicable. I can understand why people would feel that way. They probably don't need to use some of the language they've used, but it is despicable.

One person is calling for a vote of non-confidence.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

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

Another says, referring to the Prime Minister in question period currently, that he refuses to answer when he's there now.

That's a good point; he rather does.

Again, another person says, “There needs to be a vote of no confidence” and puts three exclamation points after it.

“He is destroying our country with a smile on his disgusting face.” There are four exclamation points after that sentence.

Another fellow says: “Hold him accountable, Blake. I know you're committed to that. Thank you.”

I guess what I would add to that is that I'm not the only one committed to it. There are many opposition MPs—in fact, I'm sure every single one of them—committed to it. That's why I hope they have comfortable seats on the other side: they're going to need them.

Another person said, talking about the Prime Minister: “He is never held accountable, never answers a direct question. He makes me sick.”

The next one I actually can't use, because it refers to the Prime Minister in a very uncomplimentary and unparliamentary way, so I won't cite it.

The next gives good advice, I think, for her fellow Canadians. She says: “Should start putting the heat on Trudeau MPs on 'How can they support their leader?' and make his caucus start going against him. Everybody should start calling the Liberal members of Parliament.” It's good advice, actually. People need to hear it. The Liberal MPs need to hear from people who are concerned about this.

I also had an email, which I got earlier—I have my phone plugged in, so I may read it a little later—in which someone talks about feeling that there should almost be a revolt in Parliament, I guess. That's essentially what they're trying to say. I don't have it in front of me, so I won't read it word for word, but that's essentially the point they were trying to make.

The point is that this isn't just a few opposition MPs lighting their hair on fire over nothing; this is Canadians saying this is not acceptable. They get it. They even understand some of the tools that Parliament might be able to use to hold the government to account.

Maybe I shouldn't have shared those, because maybe the government will try to take them away too.

It obviously concerns me, and it concerns a lot of Canadians. I think that's something the government needs to pay attention to: the reaction of people that I'm seeing on social media, as I've outlined from some of the comments on my page. I know that a number of things have been going around on social media showing concern about this, and there have been many media articles.

This can't be going well. Next week, Liberal MPs will be back in their ridings, and maybe—I'm not sure, but maybe—they will hear from their constituents and their concerns about this. Maybe that will give them some fresh perspective. Let's hope.

I want to address this idea in a little more detail, Mr. Chair, the whole idea about this being rammed through Parliament. It's a word that's been used a lot today. It's been used in the media; Canadians are using it; it's really a good way of describing what's happening here: it's being rammed through. That's the attempt, anyway.

This also has been alluded to many times today: the so-called “discussion paper”, which I'll talk to in more detail, because I've analyzed it and see the key.... I guess what the Liberals have to do is to accomplish their marching here at committee. This was put out, as was mentioned, on a Friday as a constituency or break week, or whatever you want to call it, was starting, essentially meaning that they wouldn't have to be accountable in Parliament for the next week concerning these items.

Then of course came the motion that Mr. Simms put forward within minutes or an hour and a half or whatever it was of that meeting, which is—and I'm not casting aspersions on Mr. Simms, because I know it isn't really something he wrote himself—draconian. It's: “Ram this through. Don't let the opposition have any say. Get it back as quickly as possible.”

Where's the accountability? Where are the “sunny ways”? Where are the efforts to be open? Where's the different kind of politics? Where's any of that in this? I don't see it.

Maybe it's invisible ink or something, because the stuff I see on the paper is certainly not any of that. When I look at that, and I look at the report this committee put out previously....

We started looking at the Standing Orders. At one of our very first meetings as a committee in this Parliament, we had then House leader Dominic LeBlanc come in and break up the Standing Orders into chunks. I could be a little bit off on how he explained this, but think it was his suggestion and not the committee's—although we took it up as a committee—to look at the family friendly initiatives. I believe that came from the House leader—I could be mistaken—but in breaking it up into chunks, we certainly looked at the so-called family friendly initiatives.

Of course, one of the things the Liberals were trying to call family friendly, somehow—I'm still not sure how it really would be so—was this idea of eliminating Friday sittings so that Liberal MPs could have another day off every week. It was opposed pretty vigorously by opposition MPs. I would say it was pretty significantly opposed by Canadians as well.

I'm just trying to find the report. I have a lot of papers here in front of me. I believe this is it, but give me a second, Mr. Chair.

Yes, this is the report itself. It was a unanimous report, I believe. Was it not, Mr. Chair? I believe it was a unanimous report of the committee. We had looked at the Friday sittings, and the conclusion was this:

Given the lack of consensus the Committee has heard regarding whether the potential benefits of eliminating Friday sittings outweigh the potential drawbacks, the Committee does not intend to propose a recommendation regarding this matter.

Now I'm going to point something out here, because one could try to read into this some intention of “at this time,” or “Maybe we'll revisit this.”

I'll point out that a couple of pages later—and this is in referring to the idea of implementing proxy voting or electronic voting—it says:

The Committee has no recommendations to make at this time regarding the implementation of proxy voting or electronic voting; it may revisit this topic in further study.

There's a clear distinction between that and this other one about the Friday sittings. In the one about the electronic voting or the proxy voting, in two different ways, it indicates that though they're not going to do anything with this now, they may come back to look at it later. It says that it has no recommendations to make at this time, and that it may revisit this topic in further study.

However, when we were looking at the changes about Friday sittings, there was nothing that indicated any of that. In fact, it clearly says there was no consensus and that the Committee did not intend to propose a recommendation regarding this matter, period, full stop, end of story.

The committee has expressed its will unanimously. That means including opposition MPs from two different parties. It means government MPs, who had the majority and who, had they wanted to try to ram a change through at that time, could have done it. But they unanimously agreed with the opposition members at that time that this was not something we should proceed with.

Let's see. It looks like that was on February 2 of last year. Fast-forward about a year, and we get this letter or whatever you want to call it, a directive, whatever it is, from the new government House leader.

I'll go through it in detail in a few minutes, Mr. Chair. It does refer again to the electronic voting, but it also brings in the idea of getting rid of the Friday sittings, giving Liberal MPs that Friday off that they're so seeking, for whatever reason that might be.

Explain to me how that is any kind of effort to work with the committee, which was so promised to us by the new democratic institutions minister. Maybe this is why they keep having to replace these people. They keep making promises that....

Mind you, I guess that's not true, because then we'd have to replace the Prime Minister too, if we were going to get rid of the people who didn't keep their promises. So that can't be it, I guess.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

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

At the end of the day, they break their promises in embarrassing kinds of ways. Well, no, hold on. Actually, even breaking their promises in embarrassing kinds of ways isn't enough, because then we'd still have to get rid of the Prime Minister. I don't know. I guess I just don't understand it. At any rate, they have to keep getting rid of these people and replacing them with new people.

It's just that I don't get, Mr. Chair, how in 2016 we can say as a committee, very clearly, that we don't believe there's a consensus, that we should not be eliminating the Friday sittings, and that we're not going to make any recommendation about that. Now we get this direction out of this discussion paper, or whatever you want to call it, from the House leader of the government saying that we should get rid of them.

Then we get this motion from Mr. Simms: let's ram this stuff through, let's do it quickly, let's not give the opposition any chance to have any say on it.

I mean, they're going to claim, of course, that they are. You've already heard some of the arguments. They're claiming, oh, you know, there was this take-note debate one day in October last year; that was it; everyone got a chance to have their say.

It was one day. It was done when the critics for the official opposition and the other opposition parties were not able to be here, because they were with the electoral reform committee. I'm sure it was just a coincidence—not—that this was the date chosen. At the end of the day, is that enough to say that MPs got input?

They also said, oh, by the way, we'll give you some committee meetings, and let's get this done by June 2.

How many weeks is Parliament sitting between now and June 2? We're March 21 today. We'll take this week out of it, I guess, because I think we'll be in this discussion for some time. Even if we weren't, we wouldn't have been able to get really started, I don't think. We were seven days for witnesses.

Next week, Parliament is not sitting. There are two weeks in April and probably three weeks in May. We're talking about five weeks of parliamentary time. During that time we have a lot of work before this committee—a lot of work. We have Elections Canada and the report from the Chief Electoral Officer, which we've gone a long way through, and which, I will point out, not that long ago Liberal MPs on this committee were arguing vociferously was a huge priority and we needed to deal with it really quickly. I think even the minister had indicated to us that she wanted this done by the 19th of May or something like that.

Is that about right, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The 19th of May.

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

That's not that far in the future. We've got that strict deadline that's being imposed by the government. I'm not sure why that was necessary. At least I can see a bit of an argument, maybe, for the need to do that one a little more quickly, because we need to make sure Elections Canada has time to put it in place for the next election, and these kinds of things.

With the standing order changes, I don't see that same kind of urgency. It's never a bad thing to look at them, of course. It's never a bad thing to try to update—and I'll point out that there are some things that we could look at, when I go through some of the changes that are being proposed here in a little bit more detail and some of the things that were brought up in the take-note debate in a bit more detail, because I think that's important in this debate. There are probably some obvious things that would be no-brainers to change.

But when you start talking about some of these really, incredibly significant changes that we're seeing here in the presentation that we received from the government House leader, that's a different matter, and I don't think you change those things lightly. I don't think you try to do it in some kind a rushed manner with some artificial deadline that no one has chosen to explain. Maybe there's a real reason. I have my doubts, but maybe there is. If there were, I would think it would have been explained. If there is a reason, why don't they explain it, and then maybe we could listen and say, okay, that makes some sense. Right now, it seems as if it's an artificial deadline and they're trying to ram it through. Usually where there's smoke, there's fire, right, Mr. Chair?

Maybe someone will put his or her name on the list. Are there any Liberal MPs on the list now, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

No.

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

No. Okay.

One can always hope that maybe someone's going to speak up over there and explain what the heck is the need for this rush and why it is so important that they force this through so quickly. We'd be willing to listen and see if there's some logic to it or merit to it. But I haven't heard that. I suspect there's a reason for that, and we all know what it is, and it is that there really isn't one.

At the end of the day, here we are. We've got these suggestions that are being put forward, and they're trying to force them through as quickly as they can. We don't understand why, other than to try to get the upper hand on the opposition and therefore that means not being held accountable to Canadians. I guess I can understand why they'd want that, but it starts to sound dictatorial pretty quickly. It certainly doesn't sound like the person that Justin Trudeau pretended to be during the election. I mean, he is a good actor—I'll give him that—but it's being revealed more and more that everything he does is simply an act. Canadians are waking up to that, and I'll point that out to my colleagues across the way, because it's something they want to know and should be paying attention to, as it goes to how quickly they want to sit in the opposition in the future. I guess we'll see how that goes for them.

I got off track again, Mr. Chair. I had been talking about how busy this committee was, and I don't know how I got off on the rabbit trail, but I did, so excuse me for that. It happens once in a while, right, Mr. Chair?

We've got this electoral.... That's how it happened: I was talking about the elections report and how I could see that there would be some need to potentially rush that one. We've got that to deal with. May 19 is the deadline and it's been artificially imposed on us, but I think by and large it's something we understand the need do to at least fairly quickly.

We also have received.... Actually, can I cede the floor for just a second to ask a question, so it's not on the public record?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

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

I want to ensure I'm not doing something that would be breaking in camera.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Just go and whisper to him.

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

I'll vaguely refer to it, then. Just for the benefit of full disclosure in public, I wanted to determine whether something was confidential in nature for the committee before I discussed it in public. We're not able to completely determine that.

At the end of the day, however, there has been some discussion and ongoing conversation in this committee about the Parliamentary Protective Service, and we have had some communication that would tell us that there may be something more to look at there, potentially.

This is something, I know, about which a number of members of the committee, including some government members—Mr. Graham was one of them—have displayed considerable interest and concern. It's one that I think at one point in time at least some Liberal MPs—I won't speak for Mr. Graham, but I think you included, Mr. Graham, though correct me if I'm wrong—felt we should be dealing with in a fairly expeditious manner; that we should get to; that we shouldn't just leave sitting on the backburner.

Is that a fair characterization? Would that be unfair?

There, then, is another piece of business. Of course, we always know, Mr. Chair, that there are other motions on the table, concerning which I don't see that anyone has brought any real concern about moving forward quickly, though they could be done, and so they are on our agenda as well. We always know that there can of course be privilege motions and such things, which can come our way and sidetrack the business.

What I'm trying to get at here is that we have this May 19 deadline and we have this June 2 deadline—for which there is no explanation—and we could have other things.

Frankly, if a privilege motion comes, it has to trump other items. We've always argued that such motions should trump other items, because they are a serious matter. We're talking about the privileges of a member of the House of Commons and where they've been breached. That's something this committee needs to put as a primary concern and deal with as quickly as possible.

It starts to become difficult to imagine how this will all occur. I know there is reference in the motion to the idea of sitting outside the regular meeting hours. Well, I suppose the logistics of simply having meetings.... Maybe that's possible, then; it's hard to say. It depends where the conversation goes and how open the government is to actually reconsidering allowing real input from the opposition and not just pretending that they are allowing it.

You can't just say, oh, we've had five weeks—let's say, if we even did two or three meetings a week, it would be 10 or 15 meetings—and then we just ram through the changes we want anyway, by voting with our majority.

Is that really listening? There's listening, and there's hearing, and there are things going in one ear and out the other, and then there's actually considering them and having them be a part of the end product.

When you look at this motion and at the letter from the House Leader, it sounds more like an “in one ear and out the other” kind of situation to me, a lot more like that. Pretending to have input is one thing; actually having it is another.

Even with that timeframe, even with that five weeks—even if you packed meetings in every day in those five weeks—logistically, yes, you might be able to have enough meetings to at least pretend there was a discussion. Well, there would have been a discussion, but not one that anyone really considered. We're seeing that on display today. You could logistically have those and still have the Elections Canada stuff going on and probably deal with other things, if you scheduled even more meetings.

If we could meet from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day and lock it up, and have three or four hours for each thing, logistically I suppose it's possible. To really have substantive contributions, however; to have been able, as opposition members in particular—because government members have a lot more resources and information available to them....

We saw examples of it earlier today, when they were getting direction from somewhere else—from the centre, from the PMO, from the whip's office, whatever it is—so maybe it's not as important to them to have the opportunity to do their research, to prepare properly, to do their homework, to ensure that they are well-prepared to have substantive discussions and to really question why and look at whether there are other ways in which things could be done, or to consider amendments or other alternatives.

Any of that requires a lot of effort both by the members and their staff. We're lucky; I still have a member of my staff here. What time is it? It's past 11, almost midnight, and she's dedicated enough that she's still sitting here. She cares enough about what's going on, and she's ready to help in any way she can.

When we're sitting here in meetings all day long, and probably in the evenings too, we can't do the work of properly preparing and ensuring that our questions are sharp and that we've done all our research and thought about all the different angles and considered other possibilities.

We're talking about a very weighty issue, the Elections Canada stuff. I know as we've been going through it, even just with our day-to-day parliamentary schedule, that I've found it difficult to keep on top of looking at those things in detail, and getting opinions on them and things like that. That's without adding the need to look at the Standing Orders, the very rules of the House of Commons, and trying to deal with all of those things in the same fashion, on the same track, at the same time, with a very short timeline for both. We're talking just a few weeks. It was five weeks of parliamentary time for this motion. The other one would be even less. It would probably be about three weeks to try to get that done. We've used today's meeting, which was supposed to be on that, on the government trying to ram this through.

It's looking a lot as if that's going to be the way Thursday is going to go too. We're not backing down, and the government shows no sign of making any effort to try to work with the opposition. I don't see us going anywhere besides just down the same path we're on. It could be for a long time to come.

How do you really, legitimately feel that opposition MPs can, on behalf of the millions of Canadians we represent, give this its due in that amount of time? Again, if there were some indication given of June 2 being an important deadline for a real, legitimate reason, then maybe we'd say, okay, we'll do what we have to do and make this happen somehow. We'd find some people to help, and do whatever. I don't know. We haven't heard that, and there's no indication that we're going to hear that.

The point of all of that is to say that I don't see how this committee can undertake all those things and do them properly and seriously and give them what they deserve. I just don't see how that can happen. That would be a real shame, to make those kinds of changes without really, truly considering them and all the input that could be garnered. It would be a real shame. Unfortunately, I think it's deliberate on the part of the government. To me, that's what is really despicable.

I hope they prove me wrong. I hope they do something to prove me wrong. So far, that's not looking too likely. As you said earlier, unless it has changed, there is not even a Liberal on the speaking list. They're not making any effort to try to explain what they're trying to do or why they're trying to do it. They're not trying to—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

If you give me the floor, I'll do it.

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

I would love to.

When I say that, does that mean I'm giving the floor away? If he has some points he wants to make, I'm happy to let him use some of my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

There are a bunch of people on the list before you, Mr. Simms, so they would all have to agree.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order.

We could seek unanimous consent to suspend the normal operating rules of the committee and allow Mr. Simms to offer some comments, and then revert to the existing list. We can do anything if we have unanimous consent.