I suspect the background noise is from the excitement of this discussion.
As an interesting note, what I have here is an autographed copy of Diefenbaker's memoirs, given to me by a constituent, a gentleman by the name of Lloyd Walkom. He said it was originally his father's, and his father used $50 bills as bookmarks. Unfortunately, I haven't come across any yet, but it was an interesting little anecdote that he told me about his late father.
However, I'll come back to where we are, to the manual on government procedure. This is Lester Pearson's legacy to his successors on the operation of government and the ideas, the concepts, of how you go about it. I want to quote from his letter of introduction at the beginning:
The Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada has been prepared to fill a long-recognized need for quick and thorough guidance on the many constitutional and procedural issues on which the Prime Minister, individual ministers or the Government must from time to time exercise discretion and judgement.
I think judgment is an important concept there. He continued:
The Manual examines the principal elements of government, states the legal position in given situations, and identifies the considerations relevant to decision and discretion in particular circumstances. Precedents are described and evolution outlined. Administrative procedures are defined and representative documents are included as sources or examples. The Manual is designed to be expanded to cover additional areas of interest and new practices arising from changes in law or custom.
The Manual was prepared in the Privy Council Office and is the work of its Special Advisor, Mr. Henry F. Davis, assisted by Mr. André Millar, who are responsible for its form as well as its content.
I do not believe that a guide to procedure of this nature has been produced elsewhere and I am confident that it will be of valuable assistance to my successors in the office of Prime Minister and to all those directly responsible for the process of government in Canada.
It's signed “L. B. Pearson, Prime Minister; Ottawa, 1968”.
Members will see the extent of this manual. It's an extensive document, and this is only the main part of it. It has an almost equal amount of appendices as well, which provide some of the documents, some of the issues.
The manual deals with a whole suite of issues that a prime minister or government will deal with from time to time in the execution of the details involved, whether its the appointment of a cabinet, elections, or funerals and memorial services. It contains the protocol on the passing of an individual, depending whether they were a cabinet minister who was in office or a past minister of the crown, someone who was a member of the Privy Council. There is an entire section on dealing with issues surrounding the sovereign—in this case, the Queen, but any future sovereign as well—the Governor General, different honours and awards, things such that, as well as extensive discussion on Parliament, on both the House and the Senate.
I think it's instructive as we undertake this debate here in this place, which is also being undertaken down the way in the other place. Unfortunately, it seems to be that in the other place they're doing it in a similar forced discussion. I think this is unfortunate for both Houses of Parliament, when we're forced into making decisions, debating, and having things forced upon us. That's one thing.
I want to go back to the motion at hand. The motion, despite what laudable goals there may be, is nonetheless a motion with a guillotine of June 2. We can work with this. We can work with an amendment that provides for a consensus of the committee. That's the issue we have right now: how can we get to the point where we accept this amendment and go forward with the discussion? That is often being discussed.
I want to bring the attention of the committee to the discussion in the manual on the House of Commons itself, how it's dealt with from a government perspective. We have to recognize as well that the House of Commons is part of the legislative branch of government. We do operate in a system quite unlike a congressional system or a presidential system where there's a more clear division between the executive and the legislative branches. Certainly we've seen many situations in which a legislative member, a senator or a member of the House of Representatives in the United States, is appointed to the cabinet by the President. They are immediately required to give up their seat in the legislative branch because you cannot hold a seat in both branches of government at the same time.
In the Canadian example, we don't have that. We have a fused legislature. If we want to go back to Walter Bagehot—and I think most members would probably recognize the name of this British thinker, this British political philosopher—he refers to the cabinet as the “hyphen”, the link between the legislative and executive branches. They sit in both, but they're nonetheless still separated, separated by a hyphen. I think that's something we need to bear in mind when we're dealing with these issues.
When we're talking about the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, we are dealing with the legislative branch. I want to quote from the manual, because I think this is instructive of where we're going with this motion and the need for the amendment to ensure that we have a consensus report.
Point one, page 263, first position—that's how it's labelled:
The House of Commons is master of its own rules of procedure which are set out in the Standing Orders.
It's a single sentence, but I think it carries an exceptionally high weight. The House of Commons is its own master. We often say that committees are their own masters, and that's quite correct, and the House of Commons is its own master as well. We do have the situation, in a Westminster-style parliament, where the executive branch also sits as members of the legislature, but the executive is not the masters of the legislative branch.
This is what troubles me so much about the discussion paper. It has not been tabled, as far as I know. This discussion paper has never been tabled in the House of Commons. That's a troubling concept, as a legislative branch, that a document purporting to create a conversation on the Standing Orders hasn't actually been tabled in the House of Commons, the body that will have to, at some point, make a decision on changes to the Standing Orders. It has not been tabled in the House of Commons. I think that's unfortunate, and maybe that will be remedied before too long, but it hasn't been tabled.
Whether that is inadvertent or not, I think it's a slight to us as parliamentarians and to us as legislators that the document was emailed out and posted online but wasn't tabled in Parliament. I know that sometimes some of these procedural things, like tabling a document, might seem like undue process or something that doesn't have to be done in a modern society where we have access to email, but they are symbolic, and I think they are a testament to the value that ought to be placed on the House of Commons and the other place as well—but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
The leader of the government in the House created a document. We'll have disagreements on that document, as is the case in many issues, but the fact is that there wasn't the courtesy of tabled it in Parliament, the place in which rests the ultimate decision-making on this matter.
I want to go back to this, that the House of Commons is the master of its rules of procedures, not the government. I want to take this one step further, because, again, this document is instructive in how we go about making these changes. I want to quote from the second part of the House of Commons section, subtitled, “Procedure in the House of Commons”, and labelled as point II, “Background”:
Although the Government may have a special interest in the rules of the House and a special responsibility as the major party the decision is of concern to the entire House. Preliminary agreement to any proposed changes is desirable to prevent opposition parties from blocking their adoption.
Again, this goes very much to the heart of our amendment, the heart of the discussion at hand. A motion has been tabled by Mr. Simms, as is his right, and an amendment has been made by this side.
What we're asking here is that we have this discussion without the guillotine of an end date of June 2, without the government party ramming it down our throats. Again, it goes back to what I mentioned when I introduced this document. This is a letter from a prime minister who served in troubling times—certainly difficult times—in minority governments, but prior to that, as a foreign minister as well. I always feel a little challenged when I try to heap praise on a Liberal prime minister, but I think we can learn from our predecessors in this place. Certainly, Lester B. Pearson is one of those great parliamentarians, equally with his counterpart at the time, Mr. Diefenbaker, as well.
Again, if we think of this as a letter of advice to his successors, this document is a treasure trove of advice and of opportunities to really lay the groundwork of how we ought to be proceeding, and that is by a consensual approach, by the ability of all parties to discuss it in a meaningful way, without the threat of a unilateral action. Certainly, this is the advice prime minister Pearson offered, and I think certainly in the vein of what Mr. Reid's amendment would have proposed on this issue.
I want to go a bit further into the second point on this same page, because it plays a little into what was presented yesterday by the opposition House leaders, both the House leader of the official opposition as well as the third party, the New Democrats. That is the idea of a Chrétien style of committee made up of representatives from the major parties, chaired by the deputy speaker.
This is actually what's proposed, in some manner, by the government procedure manual. Point 2, again on page 264, states:
Proposed changes in the rules of the House are examined by a committee set up by the House, usually on a Government motion. Action is taken to amend the rules on the basis of the report of the committee.
This is suggesting a separate committee. It doesn't talk about its composition, which is something that has been recommended in the House leader's document. That would allow the different parties to have the opportunity to have a discussion, have a meaningful opportunity to move forward and to develop proposals from a consensual standpoint. I think it's unfortunate that, to date, the government hasn't accepted that opportunity to go in that direction, but I'm hoping that, as we continue with this discussion tonight and in the weeks and, potentially, months to come, we might have that opportunity to have that.
I will be returning to this document a little later in my comments.