Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You are tying this to your amendment, right?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Very much so. He wrote a book called Democracy in America. What he said about the United States, writing for a French audience.... He, like Lord Bryce, was writing a book explaining America—what was going on over here—for the benefit of an audience back in Europe. He commented on the American Congress in a way that applies to our Parliament.

He was struck by the mildness of the penalties for misbehaviour on the part of members. In France, at various times, they chopped off the heads of members of the National Assembly who went the wrong way. First, the revolutionaries did it to the Bourbons; then, when the Bourbons got in power, they did it to the revolutionaries. In between, there was Napoleon, who probably was not as bad as either.

Several decades after this, De Tocqueville looked back at the legacy of this and wondered, what's going on in the States? They have very mild penalties.” He said that the importance attached to the unofficial prestige or reputation that people need to maintain in order to have a successful congressional career was ultimately what allowed the sanctions to be so mild. He described impeachment, which is actually inherited from Westminster, though we think of it as an American concept. The process of impeachment, which itself seemed remarkably mild to a nation that had gone through the Reign of Terror, is almost never used. Milder sanctions are in place. This is true in the judiciary as well.

What he said about the United States is equally true of Canada. Even in those days, in the 1840s, we were the other great civilized force in North America, the other model, with sanctions just as mild. This has been our tradition, that we use the mildest possible approach, especially when it comes to the key orders, the key rules, the Standing Orders of the House. This is how we behave. Back in those days, I don't know if we always had unanimous consent for standing order changes, but it has been the practice going back through the last two governments, one Conservative, one Liberal. Beyond that, I'm not sure about the specifics.

I look at other aspects of how the House operates, though, and I see, because we rely on consensus for our most important changes, a general trend in a positive direction on almost everything. I use the election of the Speaker as an example, because that was the most recent standing order change. It was initiated by me as a proposed standing order. The change took place not by a consensus, but by a vote in the House of Commons in which party lines were dropped. It had the support of members from all parties, but not the overwhelming or unanimous support of any party, including my own.

I look at the election of the Speaker, which is now done by a preferential ballot. Before that, it was done by a series of runoff ballots, a less good system. I say that objectively, because it was less good in the eyes of the majority of members of the House of Commons, who voted to change the system. That system was an improvement on the previous system, in which the Speaker would be nominated by the Prime Minister and the nomination would be seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, which of course involved a consultation beforehand. But when you look at the history of the consultation process, you see that the further back you go, the more cursory the consultation was. As time went on, it became a more meaningful, real consultation, which had the effect of taking a speaker who initially had been a quite partisan figure and making him less and less partisan.

This takes us back to the interwar period. The Speaker was nominated by the Prime Minister, and if you had a partisan vote in the House, then the Speaker was a very partisan figure. In that area, you can see a clear move toward something that is, I think, objectively superior. The Speaker is doing that which he is supposed to do objectively, upholding the rules of the House in a way that is manifest and transparent. That's the general direction. You can look at order in the House of Commons.

As every journalist knows, the easiest story to write when you are stuck for material is about how “back in the golden days of Parliament, we did not have the terrible lapses of decorum that we now see”—about how decorum is worse than it has ever been before.

As someone who has served here for 17 years, I can tell you that this is not true. The improvement we have seen, more or less a straight-line improvement—well, it's not a completely straight line, but it has been generally and consistently in one direction, towards greater respect—is that there's been less mere noise going on during the life of a majority Liberal government, a Liberal minority, a Conservative minority, a Conservative majority, a Liberal majority. I would argue that there has been almost a straight line over that period—the trend line has been very clear—through the development of practices that empower the Speaker; that make him more and more powerful, but only because he more and more fully represents the will of the entire Commons.

The example that's happening right now that I think is salutary is the practice—I don't know whether the Speaker developed this himself or whether someone suggested it to him, but it's an excellent practice—at certain points, such as after question period, for example, when there's a lot noise and people are having discussions....

I frequently am an offender in this regard; I'm chatting with someone who has stopped by my desk, or I've stopped by their desk to compare notes on some point. We're chatting. It's hard to get on with business, because you can't hear whoever has the next item of business.

The Speaker encourages others to say “shhh”, and that indicates the will of the House in a way that everybody gets. It is much more effective at quieting the House and letting us get on with business than anything else I've seen.

It's not incorporated into the Standing Orders anywhere; it is a practice. But the point of this.... I saw you giving a little hand signal that means “tie this back in”, so I'm tying this back in by pointing out that it is in the direction of developing greater consensus and moving away from doing things by vote, which is the default to be used only when consensus or wider consent is not possible. In the amendment, I would be talking about the need for consistency with our past practices.

I want to talk a bit about the general direction this government, very unconventionally, has taken with respect to levels of consent. It differs in this regard from the previous Conservative government and the Liberal government before that.

I know that my colleague Mr Christopherson, who was here in the last Parliament, will stoutly maintain that Stephen Harper was no angel, and while he is objectively—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What? I don't think I would put it that mildly.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

—mistaken, which I could provide an objective demonstration as to why, in his belief that Stephen Harper was no angel—

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

Hear, hear!

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

—I will temporarily, and for the purposes of this discussion, accept his premise and say that even if Stephen Harper were no angel, he nevertheless respected the practice that we don't change the Standing Orders without widespread consent.

Looking back further, we had another angel in human form, Jean Chrétien, in office, and he, too, respected this practice. But this government has been different. We've seen this twice with the Standing Orders, this time, and with motion number six, a year ago. Both times the government said, “We're going to change these without consent. We don't care. We don't care about what the practice was in the past, or alternatively, we are not aware of what the practice was in the past.” I'm not sure which of the two it is.

I say “the government”. I do not mean to suggest that there aren't people in the government who are aware. There are some very smart procedural people in the government. But the government acted on the whole as a single corporate individual, and is either unaware or uncaring about the way in which these things have worked, in the same way that its proposals on electoral reform turned out to be a matter of, “Well, if we don't get what want, we won't move forward. If we do get what we want, we can move forward, but not otherwise.” These are departures from practice in the past, where the governments had been more reticent, more cautious.

I would argue, looking at the Prime Minister, that the changes he's made to the Liberal Party constitution.... Although in that case he was working with a willing audience, one that was willing to accept his changes, they also moved in the same direction of wanting to get rid of the intermediating institutions and rules that permit others to slow down the government's implementation of what it wishes to do, which, to be clear, always means pushing aside other individuals. Ultimately, it is the individuals who exercise powers under the rules that exist at that point in time. Ultimately, he's trying to concentrate power in his own hands.

I do not believe this is because he wants to be our dictator, but I do think he has a vision of his role that is profoundly at odds with the political culture that has been deeply internalized by most of his recent predecessors, and I suspect most of his more distant predecessors in this office. It's the idea that you are inheriting a mantle of office in a great system, a great machine, that is, from a political point of view, greater than you, the individual; and you serve it and make it better.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I just want to raise, for the benefit of all members, that while I'm really enjoying what Mr. Reid is saying, it's a bit difficult to hear when there's conversation going on around the table while this is happening, including while I'm discussing this point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham.

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

It certainly is possible for members to maybe step outside the door and have those conversations there, so that we can participate fully in the debate without those kinds of interruptions. Maybe it's just me, but as I'm working through this—

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

No, me, too.

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

Mr. Simms shares my concerns here. It's good to have some unanimity on this point at least.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis.

Mr. Reid, you're on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If he gets two people with unanimity, he'll run with it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You know what I'm saying. The sharpy lawyers—

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to strike those comments from the record there—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—over there are keeping an eye on you.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to apologize. I didn't want to disturb my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Reid, you're on.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

But after the election of 2000, the agreement of two people was considered unanimity in the Canadian Alliance Ontario caucus, of which I was 50%.

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

And the PC Caucus.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Yes, and for the PC caucus in 1993, which was giant compared to our current Atlantic caucus.

At any rate, I think there's a pattern here, which I think is unwise. Look, we speak here in committees and in the House for the purpose of conveying messages back to others—to those who are in the room. But given that some of the decision-makers are not in the room, and in this case it's certainly true that the key decision-makers on how the government will act are not present in this room, as I guess is always true with committee business, I am trying to convey a message to Justin Trudeau that I think he is mistaken.

Leaving aside what his end goals are for Canada, leaving aside where he's trying to take us as a country in terms of social justice, environmental stewardship, a renewed relationship with our first nations and aboriginal populations—I'm just going through the substantive things where he has a substantive policy, and those are some of the highlights. There are others, but those are three that come to mind. Leaving those aside, I would submit that I think he's less likely to get to where he wants to go if he tries to remove intermediating institutions than he is if he respects them, if he recognizes that ultimately, as part of a large machine—and the Prime Minister is a part of that machine—I wouldn't just say a gear in the machine, but as part of the machine, as opposed to being the entire machine—or if you wish to use the analogy of a driver or a pilot, he's not on his own in this matter.

I think these rule changes and the way in which they're being done takes us profoundly in the wrong direction, and ultimately will redound against him. They will make everything that the rules try to do look like dictatorship. A media that is anxious to tell the story about how the honeymoon is over—which is what all the cool kids in the media are saying now—will be all over this. Of course, there's the new media, which isn't controlled by anyone in particular, which will also be all over this. This is a mistake in direction, and I think it will push him further away rather than bringing him closer to the ultimate achievement of those goals.

I am not so sure, when I look back at the three Harper governments—two minorities, one majority—that the majority had accomplishments that, from the subjective point of view of Stephen Harper's own policy preferences, were that much further down the road than those achieved during his minority governments when he had to make compromises in order to get the support of other parties in the House. I'm not so sure that absolute administrative power is quite the prize that it appears to be, and therefore I counsel against moving in this direction in this way,

That's as opposed, Mr. Chair, to moving forward on some, and perhaps many, of the items in the discussion paper, piecemeal, one at time, which my motion would allow us to do. The motion effectively has the practical effect of saying that we'll only have those items we can agree upon unanimously by the June 2 deadline. It does not say that we can't return to other items after June 2. I anticipate that we would do so either at this committee, or perhaps the House would elect to establish a separate committee similar to the special committee on modernization and improvement of the procedures in the House of Commons, from the last decade, to accomplish that. My point is that this will allow us to stream all of these things forward.

I'm just debating now whether I want to return to the other items in the House leader's report to indicate which of them I think would be best to proceed with.

Some of the things that we're unlikely to achieve consensus on may be found in government motion number six. The reason the government is taking the approach it's taking right now—a discussion paper followed by a motion in this committee—is the enormously negative reception that it met when it tried doing it by a different means back on May 17 last year.

The government actually proposed changing, or at least one of the items in Minister Chagger's proposal is that we look at, the sitting different hours. The government proposed sitting different hours and said specifically in motion number six:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the House shall continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment until such time as a Minister of the Crown or a Parliamentary Secretary moves a motion for the adjournment of the House, such motions to be deemed adopted without debate or amendment

Just to be clear, the government can decide when the House sits at its absolute discretion and consult with nobody. It's automatically in place. It goes as late as we need to and we can cut things off as early as we want to, but only the government and specifically only members of cabinet can decide. That, of course, means the government and the ministry speak with one voice. The Prime Minister gets direct control over this. It's consistent with the theme I've been illustrating. The motion continued:

(b) the House shall continue to sit beyond June 23, 2016;

That's relevant to the matters going on at that time.

And then it stated:

(c) matters to be considered pursuant to Standing Orders 52(9) and 53.1 be taken up at 10:00 p.m. and, upon conclusion of each said debate, the House shall resume consideration of Government Orders;

Just to make the point of what that's about, I think you have the Annotated Standing Orders. May I have those?

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

Yes.

They're heavily annotated, but I'm sure you can still find it.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Wow, you really get some use out of that, apparently.

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

Yes, I have to read my kids something before bed, so....