Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

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

It's a filibuster. Nothing's off topic.

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

I do like to take it back to...relevancy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Relevancy.

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

Exactly. I got distracted by my dear colleagues.

There is an interesting thing about the concept of naming. We talked a little bit—and I appreciated the interventions from my colleagues—on how these types of things can be used in provincial legislatures to basically cause, if not a disruption, at least an awareness to an issue at hand. No one is going to disrupt the proceedings, disrupt the flow of the House of Commons for no purpose whatsoever. That doesn't benefit anyone. That doesn't benefit the perpetrator or the government; it's simply not the case. There's always a reason to do so, whether it's to delay legislation, or to bring the media awareness or the public awareness, which I think Mr. Blaikie noted very well there, as well.

One of the challenges I think with the specific issue of Standing Order 11, with the concept of naming and removing MPs from the House of Commons in the way it's evolved and developed, is that public awareness side of things. We talk a little bit about the relative disuse of this concept in the early part of Confederation. It peaked from time to time with some exciting process, but something happened in the 1970s that really caused this issue to spike. Between 1978 and 1986, a total of 23 members of Parliament were named during that eight-year period, a significant increase from all the years prior combined. A significant number of members were named, beginning in 1978. This then begged the question of, what was so significant about the late 1970s that all of a sudden we saw a significant change?

CPAC, the televising of Parliament, was happening around that exact time. One of those things, when you're making these changes, is the law of unintended consequences. This is one great example. Opening up the doors of Parliament and bringing in the cameras was not an uncontroversial thing at the time. It was a significant controversial issue. If we look to the other place, the other place still isn't televised, and here we are in 2017. It shows the controversy that can go with making changes to the way the government operates, the way the House of Commons operates. The change in the late 1970s to televise has certainly provided members of Parliament with the opportunity to get a bit of publicity, to get a bit of opportunity to make the local news that night, which is one of the reasons why we saw so many members in this eight-year period being named by the Speaker, being removed, forcing a vote and disrupting Parliament—it was good TV. If we look at regular debate on CPAC outside of the one hour period with S.O. 31s and question period, there's some interesting information being shared, but I suspect that CPAC's viewership is somewhat lower at all times outside that period. Don't take this as gospel, but I believe from a past committee appearance that CPAC has about 90,000 viewers during that one hour of question period, which is by far its highest viewership of the day. It does show that people are tuning in to a very specific aspect of parliamentary debate. If there's an opportunity to cause a bit of excitement, members will be inclined to do so. I think this is the case with that we saw beginning in 1978 to 1986; this was being used as a tool to draw attention and to draw a bit of publicity.

It's interesting how so many things that we discuss in this committee dovetail. This discussion of the concept of naming was then addressed by the McGrath report in 1985. The recommendation that it made was that the need for a vote, the need for a minister of the crown to move a motion, should be removed. That change was implemented initially on a temporary basis in the Standing Orders. We see this from time to time: a standing order is amended and given a sunset, given a temporary status, to see how a standing order works, to see how a change works. That was what happened with the naming, as recommended by the McGrath report. At that time—June 3, 1987—the changes were made to the current wording that we today have in the House of Commons.

In the temporary period, there was only one MP who was named at that time. We already started to see a bit of a decrease. Those changes were made in 1987. We're currently in 2017, 30 years later. There have only been 12 namings in that period of time, so they're relatively rare in that period.

Even more interesting is that, in that 30-year period, all the namings took place in less than 10 years, in a relatively short period from March 1993 to December 6, 2002. In each case, the reason for the naming was the same, and it would be the same in pretty much any case, and it was for defying the authority of the Speaker. We as parliamentarians elect our Speaker. Even before the Speakers were elected, when they were effectively appointed and then moved on a voice vote, the Speaker was the ultimate authority in the House of Commons.

Speakers are put there to maintain order, yes, but also to serve as the defender of the rights of parliamentarians. Sometimes I think the Speaker gets unfairly painted as a referee, and people in the public, people watching on TV, see the Speaker as a referee, as someone who is trying to maintain order in the House of Commons. Really, the Speaker's role is so much more than that. The Speaker's role is to defend each and every parliamentarian, defend our privileges as MPs in the ability to do our duty. We've seen that in the past when the Speaker has ruled, made comments on questions of privilege, even on points of order as well, his duty is in that exception.

When we put the Speaker into that position, we elect him or her—and we have had a female Speaker, Jeanne Sauvé. It would be nice to see more female chair occupants, in politics in general but in the House of Commons speakership position as well.

When we put the Speaker in there, we invest him or her with a certain degree of authority. When members defy that authority, it is a blight on members as a whole and on the entire House. When members defy the Speaker, as in the example cited in the naming convention, there has to be some form of issue to be had. That's what happened in this case. There were 12 different examples, and in each example, the member was named for defying the authority of the Speaker.

I always like numbers. I always like to point out party affiliations and where these MPs came from. There were 12 MPs. Half of them, six, were from one political party, the Bloc Québecois. Of the remaining six, four were from the Reform Party and the remaining two were from the New Democrats. It is an interesting distribution. At the time, they were all opposition MPs. There were never government MPs named. Again, that makes sense from a procedure standpoint.

Many of the specific issues don't really necessarily have defying the authority of the Speaker as a starting point. No one is going to get up and simply defy the Speaker without a reason to do so. Going back to some of this conversation of dilatory motions, about disrupting the flow of the House of Commons, we have a reason for it. In each of these cases it typically linked to unparliamentary language, but there's a reason for that unparliamentary language.

The first example in this 10-year period was on March 24, 1993, in the 34th Parliament under the speakership of John Fraser, who incidentally was the first elected Speaker in the House of Commons. He was fisheries minister beforehand. I wasn't around in 1986 when he was elected Speaker. There was an argument that he was elected Speaker because he was seen as one of the people least likely to be favourable to the government of the day. There is some gamesmanship that can happen from time to time.

What happened in the first example, under the current Standing Orders, was that an NDP MP by the name of David Barrett, whose riding was Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, was heckling. He was implying that the House leader of the day Harvie Andre had lied. He used unparliamentary language, and that's not a word that parliamentarians can use in a debate. He implied that the government House leader did so. That was uncalled for, and Speaker Fraser demanded that the word be withdrawn. Mr. Barrett, refused to do so, was named, and was suspended for the remainder of the sitting day.

The interesting thing is that it wasn't that he used words that were unparliamentary. From time to time we sometimes slip up, and we sometimes say things that we ought not to say, both in the House and outside of the House. Typically, if we do so, and we're called out on it, we apologize. We withdraw the comment. The question is, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you, in some of these cases, do that? Often there's a reason.

In this particular case, he was making a point regarding NAFTA. The House of Commons was debating, at the time, the ratification of NAFTA, the member was referring to guerrilla tactics regarding the legislation, and it was one particular way that he wasn't going to be able to stop the legislation from going through. The PC Party at the time had a majority. He was using the concept of naming, the concept of causing a disruption, to disrupt the flow. It's an example, again, of the unintended consequences of an effort to increase decorum, but at the same time it gives the opposition, any member of Parliament, the opportunity to make a point of something.

In 1993, of course, we had the famous election in October. I was in grade 3 at the time, but I remember that election well. That was the first election I remember watching on TV. I became interested in politics incidentally in June of '93 watching the PC leadership convention on TV, and watching Kim Campbell beat out Jean Charest as leader of the PC Party. That was my first hook into politics, and I have been interested in it ever since. That was in June. Later in October, being a young expert on politics, as I thought at the time, I watched the election results come in, and saw the PC Party be reduced to two seats, Elsie Wayne and Jean Charest, at the time. We recently lost Elsie Wayne; she passed away not too long ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

What is the relevance?

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

Good point, Mr. Chair, I will return this to relevance.

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

To add to relevance, I was a reporter at that convention. I could tell you stories.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

More relevance.

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

It brings me back to the fact that it was the year we saw the election of a large number of new MPs. I'd have to go back and look at the numbers, because I'm not sure, but I think in 2015 there might have been more new members than in the 1993 election. We basically saw two new parties come into existence in the House of Commons, with a significant new cohort, both within the Bloc and within the Reform Party. Going forward, I think that contributed to why we saw this increase in namings—this increase in disruption within the House of Commons—for the remaining nine years.

The first Bloc instance of an MP being named was in September of 1994. Again, as we often see, there are issues at play that aren't necessarily related to the issues at hand. In this case, it was the discussion in the House on compensation for the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. The argument was that there was a deal between Brian Mulroney and Robert Bourassa to pay Quebec back for the costs. The MP at the time was a gentleman by the name of Gaston Leroux, MP for Richmond—Wolfe, Quebec, a Bloc Québécois MP. He made some accusations during question period, and made the comment that a member of the House was lying. Again, he was using words and parliamentary privileges that were not appropriate.

The decision was made to name him and remove him from the House of Commons. Interestingly, the Speaker actually provided him with multiple opportunities. He wasn't simply being named and being thrown out. He probably had four or five different opportunities to withdraw the offending language and it didn't happen.

The Leader of the Opposition at the time was a gentleman by the name of Lucien Bouchard. He actually tried to argue with the Speaker and disagree with the ruling. Of course, as we know, you cannot challenge the Speaker's ruling at this point, so the attempted argument by Mr. Bouchard was quickly dismissed. A former Speaker at the time, Lloyd Francis, also from the Ottawa area, said that Speaker Gilbert Parent was showing way too much patience with MPs and should have thrown him out even sooner.

I would read my thesis, but it is yet unpublished. My thesis is on the role of the caucus meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's still to come?

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

That's still to come. I may not make it to it tonight, but I looked at the caucus meeting from 1984 to 2011 and some of the—

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

Mr. Chair, I'll point out to Mr. Nater that we are meeting again tomorrow, continuing the meeting, so we welcome his participation.

I've been enthralled with the comments that you've made. I think they've been very helpful, in fact, and I would hope maybe even persuasive to some of the members of the government, so that maybe they would consider supporting the amendment at this point. I would certainly encourage you to come back and share that with us tomorrow, because I think it would be very helpful.

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

I'd be happy to share more of my academic research, but before I get to my thesis, I do have a couple of other articles that I'll be going through later. One is an exciting little examination of the changes to the Standing Orders regarding the election of the Speaker, going back to some of the comments that were made earlier in reference to the dean of the House doing that.

I also have an interesting discussion on some of the informal machinations of the House, including the Thursday question. The Thursday question isn't something that's heavily scripted within the Standing Orders, but is nonetheless an important part. I'd be happy to come back and discuss more of that in the weeks and perhaps months to come, provided I have the time to do so. It may take slightly longer to get through some parts of the research than others, but I will nonetheless be happy to share some information with this committee.

Again, going back to the point at hand, we have Standing Order 11 and the way in which it's interpreted. It's being used in different examples throughout this time period to really bring attention to a different issue, to an important issue at hand. In this case, it was a very topical issue related to the 1992 referendum, again a very divisive issue, probably only surpassed by the 1995 Quebec referendum three years later, again flowing from one to the other almost. It was being used by a Bloc MP to bring attention, through a standing order, frankly, to that issue.

Again, at the same time, we had a cohort of Reform Party MPs who were elected very much on a strong populace platform, “The West Wants In”, very much seeking to be a strong advocate of their region of their country. The first example of a Reform Party MP being named was on May 29, 1995. The gentleman's name was Jake Hoeppner. He was a Reform Party MP from Lisgar—Marquette, Manitoba. The area, of course, has slightly changed, and is now occupied by our current opposition House leader.

One of the controversial issues of that time, and it carried on for a number of years, involved the Wheat Board and criminal charges being laid against farmers who refused to sell their wheat through the Wheat Board. Mr. Hoeppner accused a minister of the crown of lying, and something you cannot do is imply that a minister would lie or tell mistruths. The Speaker, of course, asked him to withdraw the word, as is common practice. Again, as a slip of the tongue would happen, you would withdraw the word. He didn't, and he instead used it to bring attention. He was named. He was escorted out of the Commons. He was allowed to use this opportunity, through a House of Commons' procedure, to bring attention to the issue. Now in this case the issue was the Wheat Board, and that certainly stayed for many years as a controversial subject in our western provinces with our western colleagues.

I see Mr. Viersen from Alberta has joined us as well. He knows that's an issue.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Yes. Mr. Chairman, I can maybe do a point of order here. Can I get a little bit of clarification? Do I get my name signed here? If I'm not subbed in, can I be recognized to speak here?

I'd also like to take this opportunity to compliment you on your new haircut. I think you must have got a haircut over the week here, for sure. It looks great. You're looking well rested, so I hope that we can keep you looking that way.

It definitely pains me that we have to put you through such rigour here. This could all be avoided if we just agreed to our motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Can you just come up and talk to the clerk about your ability to speak?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

We'll let Mr. Nater carry on.

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

I wasn't encouraging an intervention. I was just making note of the controversial nature of the Wheat Board to our western colleagues. Of course, from an Ontario MP it was not an issue. Again, the purpose here is that it's an example of the use of a standing order to cause challenges to the House.

The next example is probably one of the most emotional, I would say, and that would be on November 2, 1995. We all know that three days prior to that was the Quebec referendum. It was an extremely emotional time in Canadian politics and Canadian life for all colleagues, whether they were Quebec members or not. It was an extremely controversial and emotional point in time.

On that date, November 2, 1995, there were two Bloc MPs who were named at the same time for basically the same issue, which was defying the authority of the Speaker, and more specifically, accusing the deputy prime minister of the day, Sheila Copps, of lying to the House. Again, it was a very serious charge in the House, and something that we do not do. Both members were named for the same reason. They were only given one opportunity to withdraw, and after that they were quickly removed.

The MPs were Gilles Duceppe and Michel Bellehumeur. Monsieur Duceppe, of course, wasn't leader of the Bloc at the time, but he was nonetheless a prominent parliamentarian as the first Bloc MP elected. He made note of the emotion of this challenge. He said, and I quote, “We are in pretty tense times for our nation. If it surprises you that I am going to act as quickly as I am, I do so knowing full well that my primary responsibility in the House of Commons is to see to it that the institution itself is respected by all of us.” That's a pretty serious accusation.

The response this time was certainly well picked up by the media, which I think was part of the reason this happened. All MPs of course have parliamentary privilege. We cannot be sued or held accountable for words that are spoken in the House of Commons in criminal or civil proceedings.

Certainly, it was not lost on the media at the time that a lot of the comments that were being made directly to the then deputy prime minister would have been seriously libellous had they been said outside the House of Commons foyer. It's something that is very controversial, but allowing it to be done in the House of Commons means that it can be picked up by the media and reported in the media, and it means that the immunity of the member having said the offending statements is protected. I think that's another interesting situation in which we have a standing order rule of the House being used for alternate means.

Moving forward, on April 24, 1996, a Reform Party MP by the name of Randy White accused the prime minister of the day, Mr. Chrétien, of lying to Canadians on the subject of the GST during the 1993 election campaign. Once again, it was used as a tactic by the opposition party—they were actually the third party at the time—to bring about an issue. The point at the time was to focus on all the reversals of the then-government, from their election promises to what was actually happening. They were a couple of years into the mandate, and they were demonstrating what was happening at the time. That was the example involving Randy White.

Another example, and one that I find interesting because I have a great deal of respect for the member who was named, is that of a gentleman by the name of Chuck Strahl. We know him from his lengthy service in this House. His son, Mark, is now a member of our caucus. He is certainly a well-respected gentleman and someone for whom I have a great deal of respect.

It was interesting.

It's an example where a rather innocuous comment initially uttered by Mr. Strahl kind of built on itself, and eventually it got to the point where he was therefore named. We know it's not in the Standing Orders, but in O'Brien and Bosc there is a comment that you can't do indirectly what you can't do directly. That's kind of the challenge that Mr. Strahl found himself caught up in.

He was questioning the Minister of National Defence on the Somalia inquiry, which was a very controversial issue back in 1997, and he used the words “cover-up” and “whitewash”, the implication, of course, being that the government and the minister had covered something up and had whitewashed something. It's not as bad as some of the words we'd use from time to time, such as “lying”, accusing someone of lying, but nonetheless these wouldn't be the perfect words to use.

The argument expressed at the time by Mr. Strahl was that they weren't really his words and that he was actually quoting from Justice Létourneau. The full quote was, “I won't be the instrument of a whitewash in this way. It will be impossible for us to delve into this issue”. He was quoting a third party, but again, the rule of not doing indirectly what you can't do directly comes into play.

For those who know Mark Strahl, I think he and his father are very distinguished people. Mr. Strahl, senior, made the comment that he would “reluctantly withdraw” his comments, but interestingly, that wasn't good enough for the Speaker at the time. He felt that the qualifier “reluctantly” wasn't appropriate given the severity of the comments, so the Speaker at the time, Speaker Parent, took a very rigid approach. Since Mr. Strahl was not willing to fully withdraw the comments, but only did so reluctantly, he was ordered removed from the chamber, and he was—again, signifying the challenge of navigating some of these parliamentary reasons.

The eighth example of a naming during this period was of a New Democrat MP, Svend Robinson, member for Burnaby—Douglas in British Columbia. Sometimes, when we hear words in the House of Commons, we sit back and think, “Is that parliamentary or not?” Often, it's pretty clear that the words are unparliamentary, and they are dealt with very quickly. In this case, Mr. Robinson referred to the concept of “treasonous”, a pretty loaded word. It's pretty clear right off the bat that that's going to be considered unparliamentary language to be used in the House of Commons. In fact, this is one of the few examples where the implication of lying or not telling the truth is something different being used in this case.

In this case, it's more interesting. The media didn't actually pay much attention to it. The suggestion, from the small number of media that did pay attention to this exact issue, was that the member in question was more prone to these types of accusations—“theatrics” was the word that was used in one article.

You almost have to wonder whether, after this relatively short period of time, it's becoming less common, because its usefulness is being used up.

The ninth time the naming happened, it was a Bloc MP by the name of Michel Gauthier, the MP for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean. I think it was actually a rather clever exchange between MP Gauthier and the Prime Minister. Mr. Gauthier probably found himself a victim of just not knowing when to stop and when to sit down. Prime Minister Chrétien and Mr. Gauthier were both warned by the Speaker to stop using the word “hypocrite” in their exchange. They were both using it back and forth, despite interventions from the Speaker. Prime Minister Chrétien eventually did stop saying “hypocrite”; Gauthier did not. The Speaker pushed him on it and asked him to withdraw. He didn't, and he was named.

This actually got an interesting little reaction in different places. Had Twitter been involved in the 1990s, it would have been a bit of a Twitter firestorm when these things happened, but it wasn't, so we rely on print media to get an impression of how these types of things were happening.

Paul Wells wrote a little bit about it in an article in the National Post at the time. He wrote, “It appears Parliament is falling apart.” He said, “It was the ugliest Question Period in 20 years”. I'm not sure you can objectively state how bad a question period was and state definitively that it was the ugliest in 20 years. Nonetheless, it was a bit of an acknowledgement from the media that this could well be seen as a negative rather than a positive opportunity to bring attention to an issue.

In this example, why it may have seemed more of a negative response was that there wasn't a key policy issue. There wasn't a real purpose in Mr. Gauthier being named. There wasn't any benefit to him to bring the public's attention to it.

Moving on the 10th example, it's the same Speaker. We see most of these names under one Speaker, Monsieur Parent, all but two. The first was Mr. Fraser, and the last was a Deputy Speaker.

The 10th example is Jim Abbott, the member for Kootenay—Columbia, in British Columbia. I think it was last week we saw Mr. Abbott taking in question period from the gallery. It was nice to see him join us on the Hill a few years after his retirement.

In February 2000, the House was dealing with a rather controversial issue dealing with an HRDC program. The Minister of Human Resources Development Canada at the time was Jane Stewart. They were asking her about challenges with a program. The minister said:

Members of the party over there say they would like to kill these programs, but yet, as I pointed out individual members, the member for Skeena, the member for Nanaimo-Cowichan, and even the member for Kootenay—Columbia, keep calling my office saying “Can't you please hurry and approve the application?”

Mr. Abbott, of course, didn't like the fact that he was singled out and didn't agree with the minister's statement, so he quickly rose and accused her. He said, “That is a lie.” Again, it was a pretty clear example of unparliamentary language, so quickly, the Speaker rose and ordered him to withdraw the comments. He didn't and was quickly ordered to go out, and he left.

What I find interesting about this example is that in retrospect, the minister actually noted to the House that she had misspoken and that the individual member hadn't ever contacted her on that matter. There was a bit of discussion in the media about the fact that if we wanted to parse words, what she said was not true. It was a lie, so to speak. Again, it went beyond the veracity of the statement and reflected on decorum in the House. It didn't have to do with whether something was factual. It had to do with the words used and how they were dealt with in the House of Commons.

The 11th example comes from Madame Suzanne Tremblay, a Bloc MP from Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis. It's interesting, actually, to see some of these riding names and how they have changed over the years. Her issue was the appropriateness of how these things come apart. She was threatened to withdraw her comments about implying an untruth.

She went on to say, “This is the 21st century and we are entitled to the truth in this place.” Even that wasn't really using unparliamentary language, but the phrase that went with it was deemed unparliamentary. It warranted her being named and withdrawing for the remainder of the day.

Again, at that point there was no real significant policy issue that was associated with it. There was no media coverage, and as an effective deterrent it, obviously, simply wasn't happening at that point. It was an example of the way in which the usefulness of the traditional technique waned over the period of time, to the point that the very last time that an MP has been named in order to be withdrawn from the House of Commons was on December 6, 2002. The MP in question was Yvan Loubier, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, a Bloc Québécois MP from Quebec.

It's interesting because it was actually Deputy Speaker Kilger who had the opportunity to name the member. Again, it related to unparliamentary language, the word “liar” in this case. It was, from a national perspective, a relatively non-issue, but from a local perspective, it had to deal with an important issue in his riding. It had to do with the accreditation of a college in Saint-Hyacinthe, and it had to deal with the Minister of Agriculture basically certifying that college in his riding, so it was not a national issue.

In this case, it gave the member an opportunity to really raise a significant profile for himself defending a specific issue back in his riding. He used the standing order to raise the issue to get some coverage and to make it happen.

As I mentioned earlier, this is certainly at odds with what goes on in the Ontario legislature. The Ontario Speakers, Mr. Levac and Mr. Peters before him, were very strict in terms of these types of instances. When a person is named it is expected that he or she will be removed quickly and that it is done quickly. This happens on a relatively regular basis, so much so that in the last couple of weeks we did see an example.

One of the most famous provincial examples, though, is the one where an individual member using a standing order, using a technique at his disposal, made a significant change to government policy, to government legislation. It goes back to what has been raised before about how the Standing Orders, how the privileges of our Standing Orders and the privileges of this procedure, allow us to do certain things.

The MPP in question was Alvin Curling, who was a well-known Liberal MPP in Ontario. It was the Mike Harris government of the day. If Mr. Christopherson were still here, I'm sure he would remind us that he too was in the opposition at that time, and significantly opposed some of these measures.

The opposition members were trying to prevent Bill 26, an omnibus bill, from passing. Basically, MPPs were refusing to vote, and were being, one by one, escorted out by the Sergeant-at-Arms after being named. The idea from an opposition standpoint was to delay the vote as much as possible. As each MPP refused to rise to vote, the Speaker would order that they be named, and the Sergeant-at-Arms would remove them.

The problem was that, at the time, his Liberal colleagues neglected to tell Mr. Curling about the process. They neglected to tell him they were planning a procedural game, and that they were planning to refuse to vote and be escorted out. At the time, if you didn't vote you were offending the privileges of the House.

As his colleagues were all refusing to vote and being named, it got to him, and he simply sat there and would not move. When the Sergeant-at-Arms came to him and asked him to move, he simply would not move. The process at the time was that the Sergeant-at-Arms would then inform the Speaker that force would have to be used to remove the member. The challenge was that force had never actually been used in the Ontario legislature to actually remove a member.

Here we had an example of an MPP—a distinguished, long-serving MPP, Mr. Curling—who was sitting there and not moving. The Sergeant-at-Arms honestly didn't know what to do, so they actually called over to Westminster in the U.K. to get advice on what ought to be done. Apparently, the suggestion at the time was not to physically remove a member, but simply to wait it out and eventually, he would be removed.

The outcome was that eventually, he did leave of his own volition several hours later, but not before there was a significant amount of public attention. This was used by the opposition parties as an opportunity to raise awareness and to get some small concessions from the government on that particular omnibus bill that was being offered by the government at the time.

Again, another provincial example of the same idea happened in 2009. An MPP from Sarnia-Lambton by the name of Bob Bailey, a very soft-spoken but thoughtful MPP, made the mistake of calling the premier a liar. He then provided the further explanation that he wasn't just a liar, but that he was a cowardly liar, which served to add fuel to the fire. The Speaker named him and ordered him withdrawn from the legislature. It was interesting that it was actually the acting Speaker at the time, who was also a Conservative MPP, so there was an example of a Conservative MPP naming a Conservative MPP. Again, it was very much an opportunity for an opposition MPP in a majority context to raise an issue and have it brought forward. In a newspaper article afterwards, he wrote:

I took the drastic step of being kicked out to make my point that people need to be heard on the issue. I have heard citizens in my riding loud and clear on what they think of the HST. I strongly believe that members of government need to take the tax bill out of Toronto and give Ontarians a chance to comment.

Again, the issue is not so much about the issue at hand—the HST, which of course, eventually went through—but the opportunity to actually raise awareness and make something happen.

What we've seen here is a bit of context from the provincial standpoint, which is again a more regimented context from the federal standpoint. It brings us back to the discussion at hand. We're talking about the Standing Orders and our procedures in the House and we're looking at them from a variety of different standpoints. The naming convention, or the opportunity to name an MP, is still on the books, but it's not being used and it hasn't been used since 2002. I think we can all think of times when there's been no doubt that a Speaker could have applied the naming convention, whether it was the current Speaker or former Speakers. We've now gone through a period of three separate Speakers, Mr. Speaker Milliken, Mr. Speaker Scheer, and Mr. Speaker Regan, who have all had the opportunity to use this tool, but they haven't.

Why haven't they? It's in the Standing Orders. It's a significant tool, but this raises the question of whether it has simply fallen into a practice or a convention of misuse. That's what I would argue is happening and it shows the way in which our Standing Orders evolve, often without a conscious effort and often without MPs actively debating and amending them.

I would cite David Docherty on some of this. He has written a book, Legislatures, for the University of British Columbia Press series on the democratic audit. He wrote that evaluating a Speaker's success depends largely "on whom any decision favours”.

I find that interesting because a Speaker who is shown to be too favourable to one side or the other will quickly lose authority. Therefore, when we're evaluating these different tools that are being used, we have to see how they're implemented, how they're used by different Speakers, and whether they're used in a positive or a negative way. Some of the challenges with a standing order provide more full challenges as well.

Earlier today in the House, we debated the challenge of two MPs who missed a vote in the House of Commons about whether their privileges should be affected.

If we bring that back to our Standing Orders, and to this particular one, if an MP is ordered withdrawn from the House, their privileges cannot be exercised. An MP cannot vote after being removed from the House of Commons.

Therefore, we think of examples in minority parliaments where this could be abused, potentially, in terms of having an MP removed from the House in the wake of a very significant vote, a confidence vote, for example. It could be a significant challenge to the proper operation of the House but also to the privileges of individual MPs.

Being in Standing Orders, it would be a tough argument to make from a privilege standpoint but at the same time from a political standpoint and from that of a member. It's a challenging thing, and it could also be an example of why some of this doesn't necessarily happen from time to time.

When we look at the other tools available to Speakers, they may find those opportunities more useful. For example, Mr. Speaker Milliken, who to date is Canada's longest-serving Speaker, had a unique opportunity to serve as Speaker in minority and majority contexts as well as in an opposition context as an opposition MP serving as a Speaker.

When an MP refused to withdraw an unparliamentary comment, he failed to recognize him or her going forward. When an MP would rise to speak, whether it was in question period or debate, he simply didn't recognize the MP. Again, a pretty significant deterrent, I would say, especially when MPs are eager to stand up in question period to make things happen.

Mr. Speaker Fraser, in the Mulroney years, used it only once. His argument was that he saw it as a challenge of allowing MPs to grandstand in the hope of gaining publicity. We've seen that throughout the years, and we're seeing this example going forward.

The final point I might make on this as well is that when we're looking at the specific issues in this case, it all had to deal with unparliamentary language. This was then dealt with...the authority of the chair and disregarding the authority of the chair.

The subject of decorum is much greater than simply unparliamentary language and whether or not some of these tools available for parliamentarians and the Speaker wouldn't serve an alternate purpose in decreasing decorum in the House of Commons.

I would also point out, before moving on, that in every case the Speaker never acts unilaterally. He or she—and, again, they were male Speakers—always gives the opportunity to withdraw. I think that's an important concept from a parliamentary democracy. We are all equals in the House of Commons. We are all elected independently, and we all make mistakes. It is important to provide the MP in question, if they have offended the rules of the House, offended the individuals in question, the opportunity to withdraw.

Going forward, I wouldn't want to speculate whether Mr. Speaker Regan will ever go down the road of using this tool. I think it's still on the Standing Orders, or it's something that would allow them to go that route if the decision is made.

I want to work through that specific issue because it's an example of a standing order that has evolved over the 149, almost 150, years of Confederation. It's evolved in written form in terms of the way it's structured; it's evolved in the usage in how it's applied; and it's evolved in the disuse in most recent years. It's an example that we need to be aware of when we're studying the issue at hand in that we don't go about changing standing orders without properly reviewing all the context, without properly viewing all the challenges that could be created in a change to a standing order.

I'm going to move from this point to another issue I have a personal interest in, and that's the election of the Speaker, which, again, is laid out in our Standing Orders.

It's been cited before by Mr. Blaikie and others coming out of the McGrath report. Even before that, I believe, a former Speaker actually recommended it in the 1970s, as well. His name escapes me at this point, but I wanted to cite a bit from an article.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Nater was mentioning the Speaker. I know there were a lot of things in the discussion paper before us that brought the motion on. The motion, obviously, was brought on and we're seeking to try to amend that now. I think a lot of it has been talked about, the process, and that's the important part that we're dealing with here in the motion. Certainly the amendment to reach consensus is a key part of that. Also, there has been some discussion around obviously the topics and the subject matter that have been put forward for the discussion and the discussion paper that the government House leader brought forward. Some of them have had a fair bit of discussion during the course of this meeting. I always want to say “meetings”, but it's actually one meeting that we're still on here from two and a half weeks ago when we started this meeting; and we're still on that day, apparently?

One thing we haven't heard a lot of discussion about was this idea of the Speaker having the ability to make a determination about whether a bill is an omnibus bill and how one would break that bill up if it is, and these kinds of things. I would suspect the Speaker would see it as having the imposition to do so. That would be a pretty difficult proposition for the Speaker. When I heard Mr. Nater mention it, I thought maybe he might have some thoughts on that. I would sure love to hear them. He has a very learned opinion, obviously a great amount of knowledge on these matters, with his background at university. I'd be really curious to hear his perspective on that and if he could enlighten the committee on that. I don't want to interrupt where he was going in his train of thought, but maybe if it's now or at some point he would be willing to do that, I would certainly appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Nater, you haven't started your real discussion on the election of the Speaker. Maybe you could comment on the item in the discussion paper on splitting an omnibus bill.

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

Sure. It's a fascinating proposal. I'm reminded of a very famous Speaker by the name of William Lenthall. Upon King Charles I entering the House of Commons chamber and demanding that the Speaker point out to him where the five members were seated so that he could arrest them and have them charged with treason, Speaker Lenthall famously rose, bowed to the King, and said, “...I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am....”

It very much gets to the heart of what the Speaker is. The Speaker is the servant of the House. He is the defender of the House's privileges, the defender of the House's opportunity to engage, discuss, and have fulsome debate, so that our privileges are not declined and we're able to fully participate. The proposal that's being raised, that the Speaker should have the authority to unilaterally.... And I use that word reservedly because it has a negative connotation, and I don't want to imply that any Speaker would do something in a negative context. He or she would be undertaking something on their own, and so would be entrusted with a very significant amount of power to change the course of government legislation and change the course of how something is debated within the House of Commons.

The challenge would be how that would operate in practice, how it would be determined whether something is an omnibus bill, and how the Speaker would then go about dividing that bill. Certainly, when a bill is introduced in the House of Commons, it has the benefit of an entire bureaucratic apparatus to support it. The bill is drafted by a department. It is vetted. It goes through PCO. It goes through the justice department. It's charter-proofed. It goes through a variety of steps before finally landing at the House of Commons for introduction and first reading. Certainly, in my past life before I came here, and before I even went into academia as well, I spent a year and a half at Treasury Board Secretariat. I was able to see some of the processes that are in place for the introduction of government bills, introduction of government measures. They benefit any individual piece of legislation going forward—a great deal of benefit.

To then come to the House of Commons and entrust the Speaker with the task of dividing, chopping up, and creating new legislation somewhat on the fly.... I'm not saying that he'd be doing this on a cocktail napkin in the lobby, in the Speaker's salon, but he would be required to do this on a fairly quick basis. Certainly he would have the benefit of House of Commons staff, of parliamentary counsel's office, but he would have to do this very quickly. In so doing, the Speaker would be altering the course and the context of that parliamentary piece of legislation.

Certainly there are ways around it. A government of the day could issue an edict to departments to ensure that all legislation that comes to the House is done in a form that wouldn't be considered an omnibus bill. This could be done through the cabinet processes. It could be done through a variety of different ways that wouldn't put the Speaker in what I would consider a somewhat awkward position of having to get involved in the discussion of specific legislation and of splitting specific legislation.

I think it's a challenge. That is not to say that there aren't means to get around it. As parliamentarians, we have means of dealing with these types of things. The question is how we enforce it. How do we put it into practice? Is it something that we look to the committee process to do? Do we look to, perhaps, striking a new committee that would specifically deal with that, thereby leaving it within the purview of Parliament, of parliamentarians, and not entrusting the Speaker specifically with that challenge?

Again, the Speaker is the servant of the House. The Speaker is the protector of the House's privileges. I recognize the concerns that have been raised in the past about omnibus bills. They are a legitimate tool. I don't think anyone would argue that they're somehow illegitimate. People may not agree with the use of them, and that's certainly an argument that could be made, but they are a legitimate tool that governments have used in the past and, no question, may consider using in the future.

To make the Speaker determine what may or may not be considered an omnibus bill and then go the extra step of basically redrafting legislation, and multiple pieces of legislation, I think would be putting the Speaker in a terrible position that as parliamentarians we ought not to do.

Hopefully, Blake, that was some context for you.

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

Yes, thank you, Mr. Nater; I do really appreciate that. It was one of those things on which it just occurred to me that it would be good to get your perspective, especially with your education and your background prior to coming to Parliament. You obviously display yourself as someone who has great knowledge of parliamentary proceedings. I think we all have something to learn, and it was something in a particular area where I thought you might have something to impart for us. I do appreciate that.

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

Thank you, Blake, for the kind words. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the greatest expert on all these topics. There are so many distinguished academics out there, and practitioners as well, those who have worked in the House of Commons, those who have studied these issues for so many years, who would be a huge benefit to this committee. Some of them are right here in Ottawa, both in academia and elsewhere, and I think it would be a huge benefit to this committee if we could hear from a number of those people going forward. If we can just get past this point in time, this stalemate, we have a great deal to learn from the experts out there on this matter. It's just unfortunate that we're at this impasse at this point.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, Mr. Nater is going to talk about the selection of the Speaker. I would like to share one of my stories that I thought I would take to my grave.

Mauril Bélanger was one of three or four, perhaps five, who wanted to be the Speaker of the House when we convened after the election early in November. I want to tell this story, and I've told it in the Canadian heritage committee. As a first-time MP, all of a sudden you get solicitations from people who want to be the Speaker of the House; and as I've mentioned before, I'm here on Fridays and I fly back to Saskatoon.

I would like to tell the story before you go into that, because it was kind of neat.

Geoff Regan, who actually won the vote for Speaker of the House, and my son spell their first name the same. We thought, well, we're going to vote for Geoff first because he's from Nova Scotia and they haven't had a chance from that province to be Speaker of the House, and Geoff to Geoff. However, I'm going to tell you a story about Mauril Bélanger.

As you all know, during the election his voice got very soft and nobody knew why. It was the longest campaign in the history of Parliament and of democracy here. Anyway, he was re-elected. I mean, how can you lose in Ottawa-Vanier, right? It has been decades since a Liberal has lost in that riding. However, he phoned Friday night asking for my vote to be Speaker of the House. My wife answered. My wife was an educator at an elementary school and asked, “Who are you?” He said, “I'm Mauril Bélanger and I want Kevin's vote to be Speaker of the House.”

I'm just going to tell you something about the guy. My wife isn't very political. Mr. Bélanger started at nine o'clock at night his time, so back then it would have been seven or eight o'clock Saskatchewan time. My wife said, “Listen, I'll take your number and Kevin will phone you Saturday morning when he gets home from Ottawa and you can further the discussion. I have no idea what the Speaker of the House does.” She had no idea. Do you know, Mr. Bélanger stayed on the phone for an hour and a half with my wife talking about how the Speaker, as you said, is the servant of the House, the protector of the House? Through it all, I just want to share this one story, because his voice at the end got very raspy and she could hardly hear him. He was an hour and a half on the phone speaking to a person he didn't know. It's such an important part of the parliamentary procedure, and here he was trying to get one lowly vote from a rookie MP. He spent an hour and a half on the phone speaking with my wife. I got home at 11:30 that night and my wife—

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

He talked to her longer that week than you did.