Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

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

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the intervention, because I think this is part of the discussion that is fundamental to this committee going forward. I think Ms. Kwan, Ms. May, Mr. Waugh, and Mr. Richards have all contributed to a worthwhile discussion.

Hearing some of the challenges faced for different ridings, both in terms of the ridings themselves and the MPs who represent them, I feel almost guilty, Mr. Chair, because of my travel schedule. If I fly home, I can leave Ottawa on a 4:05 flight. I can land in London, Ontario, at about 5:15, and an hour later, I'm in my front door. I feel almost guilty to say that, because it is a privilege for me to have that opportunity. Even driving, it's a six-and-a-half-hour drive, which I can do before you, Mr. Chair, are probably at your first stop along the way. I almost feel guilty.

It's part of the discussion, I think, to recognize our regions, to recognize our diverse country and how one thing may affect one MP one way and another MP a different way, as Ms. Kwan rightly pointed out. Depending on the region and depending on the family situation, each change is different.

I'm speaking from personal experience. I have two kids, but neither are school age. That means that I have the delight and the opportunity to bring my family with me to Ottawa from time to time. They don't come every week, but they come more often than not, and they have the opportunity to come up to the Hill for lunch. We have lunch together often in my office. Sometimes I'm home in time at night to put them to bed, to do the bedtime bath and the bedtime story, but that's me. That's one perspective. Others don't have their families with them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You would support my idea of a playground for Parliament Hill.

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

Absolutely. I didn't know this proposal, but I think that's an absolute—

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

I think Mr. Nater supports it more, because he wants to be able to use it, but that's a different story altogether.

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

I hadn't heard that proposal, but I think it's an exceptional proposal, Chair, and a way we can make Parliament that much more family friendly.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter was on the front lawn of Parliament blowing bubbles. She had her bubble machine out, and she was having a whale of a time. She's a little over two and a half, and she knows that this is Daddy's office, but perhaps a few years from now, she'll understand the significance of her blowing bubbles on the front lawn of Parliament.

Going back, that's my family's perspective, and others have different viewpoints. Those who have school-age children are more eager to return to their ridings as quickly as they can, because that's where their families are. I'm lucky that they can come with me. Others don't have that opportunity.

Others have different considerations as well. Travel is one of them. Acknowledging the diversity of viewpoints and diversity of family situations I think is essential in this debate. I think these interventions, operating under the Simms' protocol, are exceptionally important, so I appreciate these interventions.

Briefly, before I move on, my staff was kind enough to look at my schedule in November. From November 5 to November 10, leading up to Remembrance Day, I had 14 different remembrance events, whether they were school visits or at Legions. That's in addition to the other meetings I took that week. For us, especially in the rural communities, that week prior to Remembrance Day encourages the opportunity to remember those who have served our country. This year, it fell on a Saturday and we missed a lot of those opportunities to encourage remembrance. I thank my staff, Mr. Keith Mitchell, for reminding me of that.

I think perhaps this is relevant. Ms. Kwan brought up the concept of staff who work for us on the Hill. We need to be mindful of that going forward. I know that often I need to send my staff home at the end of the day. They are often still in the office at eight or nine o'clock at night, and I try to tell them that we operate under certain labour laws and would like to see our staff respect those as much as possible. I don't want to burn out my staff. It is an issue when we sit late, when we attend committees. I am lucky—and I think he's still there—to have my staff sitting behind me. They serve us in our duties as parliamentarians.

I think it is a discussion that must be had, because it isn't just the 338 MPs. It's our staff. It's the administration that serves this place. I think that's a discussion.

I hope that when we get to the heart of the Standing Orders and the discussion about where we go forward that we're able to hear from some of the people who—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you for showing audiovisual aids.

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

Thank you, Ms. May.

Ms. May was showing us a picture of my two kids reading O'Brien and Bosc.

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

Why am I not surprised your two kids were reading O'Brien and Bosc?

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

It's some good bedtime reading. We read some Nancy Tillman books, we read some Dr. Seuss, and we read some O'Brien and Bosc. It's all part of the bedtime routine. They're always wanting one more story. If they convince me to read O'Brien and Bosc, it really stretches out bedtime that much further.

I just make these comments off the beaten path of where I was actually going, but I do think the discussion of Standing Orders is fundamental. The diversity of views we hear around this table really ought to be reflected and understood.

I'd started on Professor Franks' comments on the four functions of Parliament. Going back to the last two, the first is to hold government to account. Looking at it from a standing order perspective, we have to look at what tools are available to individual MPs. From that perspective, we have to remember that the government is only the cabinet. The government itself, from an executive perspective, is the cabinet, and arguably the parliamentary secretaries, but formally it is the cabinet. The ability to hold government to account also rests with individual MPs of the government caucus as well. When we change the Standing Orders and change the way we operate, the impact it has on government MPs as well as opposition MPs has to be considered as well. We look at the tools and the avenues that are available to hold the government to account. We have to be cognizant that we don't step on them.

I don't want to get into a discussion of question period. I think that could be its own month of discussion, if you will, but I would point out that question period is traditionally acknowledged as one of the key accountability features. There's no formal mechanism attached to it. You can't compel any government to answer, or compel the quality of the answer, but it is a clear accountability mechanism in terms of court of public opinion and in the media. When we make changes to how that operates, it certainly changes the way in which government functions.

I want to very briefly compare it to the example in the United Kingdom. This is something that's often talked about, Prime Minister's questions. It happens on Wednesdays. It's like our question period, the focal point of the calendar, to see Theresa May being questioned by MPs. One thing I would point out is that in the U.K. Parliament many of the questions come from individual MPs who happen to catch the eye of the Speaker. There is a slight roster system, but there are also MPs who seek to catch the eye, so it's not as regimented as what we have in Canada, where our party whips typically distribute the rosters beforehand and do it that way.

Solely focusing on the Prime Minister's questions fails to look at the broader context of the United Kingdom, because that's not the only accountability mechanism that's available for the Prime Minister. There are multiple opportunities. I want to focus on another example, statements by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is subject to PMQs on Wednesdays, but when Prime Minister May makes a major policy decision, she is required by protocol and by precedent to speak in the House and to submit herself to questions from the House. When she returns from a major international conference, a summit, she's required to return to the House and brief the House on that matter. On a regular basis, she's required to appear before the Liaison Committee, which is similar to our Liaison Committee in terms of its makeup. It's made up of select standing committee chairs, like ours.

She's also required to appear on an emergency question basis. Through the Speaker, the Prime Minister can be caused to appear before the House to answer questions.

One example was very recently. It was March 29, 2017, and this is from the debates of that date from Hansard, United Kingdom. Prime Minister May enacted Article 50, as a result of the referendum on leaving the European Union. That was the official triggering of that negotiation.

I always feel I'm talking about Ms. May down the way, but—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I just have to say for the record that, as far as I know, we're not related, and I bitterly resent that even I now find the sound of “Prime Minister May” to be distressing, although in the Canadian context I think it would be quite encouraging. Theresa May is wrecking it for me. I just want to say that—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

—and I'll pass it back over to you, John.

Oh, there's one other thing, though. The prime minister of the U.K. is inherently more held to account than the prime minister of Canada, and this goes to the efforts that Michael Chong tried to make through his reform bills in the 41st Parliament. We have, without even examining the process, made ourselves unique within the Commonwealth in that we do not have a parliamentary caucus with the ability to oust a prime minister by replacing that person as the leader of our parliamentary caucus. We have presidentialized by custom and tradition without ever examining the fact that this has created for Canada a presidential-style prime ministerial role with far more power in the executive in Canada than in the executive in the U.K. or the U.S.

The U.K. system is different, and I did find it unusual that the proposal for changing our Standing Orders from the government House leader picked on this one thing of prime minister's questions on Wednesdays without looking, as you are, at the whole gamut of differences between a Westminster Parliament and the Canadian Parliament as we've evolved.

I'll raise one other thing with you. As I mentioned earlier, I was just in Westminster Parliament during our break week for other business. It was very useful to attend both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, study their rule books, and buy different books while I was there. The questions that are asked are submitted in advance as well. Even a question that's called an urgent question is submitted to the Speaker of the House the day of, so the Speaker vets the questions even though the Speaker has some flexibility, as you said, about who gets recognized. There's no such thing as a party whip handing a list of names to the Speaker, which, by the way, isn't in our Standing Orders either, but happens by custom.

Just to trespass on your time a little bit more, John, when the Speaker of the House was Jeanne Sauvé, she claimed—and it may be my faulty memory, I don't want to disparage her memory—that she had trouble seeing members all the way down the rows, and in order to aid her eyesight, she asked whips to submit to her the list of MPs who would be standing and the order in which they would be standing, so that created yet again more control from political party apparatus over our process in Parliament than would otherwise occur, and certainly more than currently occurs in what we know as our Mother of Parliaments in Westminster.

Thanks again for letting me break in on that point as you discussed Prime Minister May.

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

Thank you, Ms. May.

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. May is quite accurate in terms of some of the other mechanisms of the U.K. Parliament and how it works. We do have to look at it from a holistic approach. Often we hear proposals come forward from whatever side of the House that may sound good in isolation, but when you look at it in the great scheme of things, it's not always exactly the right way of doing things.

On March 29, 2017, Prime Minister May stood in the House, and I'm just going to read a very brief introduction:

Today the government acts on the democratic will of the British people. And it acts, too, on the clear and convincing position of this House.

A few minutes ago in Brussels, the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the EU handed a letter to the President of the European Council on my behalf, confirming the government’s decision to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.

The Article 50 process is now underway. And in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.

That was a very significant statement by the prime minister. She speaks at a relatively brief length on the matter, from 12:35 to 12:50 p.m., but provides a fundamental statement.

What's interesting, then, I think, is that she then submitted herself to questioning by the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

For how long?

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

That's where I'm getting to, Mr. Chair.

At the end the Speaker, Mr. John Bercow, said this:

May I thank all 113 Back-Bench Members who questioned the Prime Minister? May I also thank the Prime Minister, who has been with us for the past three hours and 21 minutes...

A significant—

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

Justin Trudeau wants to do that. That's in only one week he wants to do that amount.

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

That's one sitting in the House. It's a significant devotion, if you will, to—

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

You guys suggest that Trudeau does 45 minutes a week. That will be six weeks' worth.

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

Exactly.

This is several pages long, so I'm not going to read it into the record because I have other things I want to get to.

When you're debating an issue such as this or discussing an issue such as this, we can think it analogous to the NAFTA negotiation. It's a complicated subject. Anyone speaking on it ought to know their files. If you look at this example, we talk about question period being question period, not answer period. This is an example of a legitimate answer period. If you look at some of the questions that are asked to the Prime Minister, she actually responds to the questions. There's a legitimate effort made to respond meaningfully to what is asked. This is not something that you can enforce in a standing order. It's not something you can enforce through a Speaker, at least not currently. It's a fascinating discussion, an ability to read a question, and sometimes a very specific question, and the answer that comes back, whether it's something as simple as how negotiations will be undertaken or what trade deals might come into play afterwards. There are meaningful responses.

Here's one example. I won't go into too much depth. One MP, Hilary Benn, from Leeds Central asks the big question about whether in the event of Brexit we would be able to negotiate a new free trade agreement with the EU and on what terms.

The Prime Minister responds, “As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, we do not yet know how the European Council will choose to frame the negotiations”.

She acknowledges that there's a lot of uncertainty. She mentions:

...it will meet on 29 April to determine that. There will be two parts, if you like, to the work going forward: one is the process of withdrawal and the terms of withdrawal; and the other is what the future relationship will be. It is clear in article 50 that the former should be done in the context of the latter, so it is not just reasonable but entirely right and proper that we look at those two issues alongside each other.

As I have said in answer to other questions, the point about a comprehensive free trade agreement is that we will not be operating as a third party, such as Canada, for example, when it started its negotiations with the European Union. We are already operating on the same basis—we already have free trade between the European Union and the United Kingdom—and I believe that sets us on a better basis on which to start the negotiations...

She acknowledges that she may not be able to fully answer the question to satisfaction, but nonetheless provides clear details, clear strategies that the government could follow going forward in its negotiations with the European Union.

I cite this just because there is a lot of discussion that we have on question period, on how it operates. I don't think we can simply say we'll have a Prime Minister's question period on Wednesday, wipe our hands, and say, good job, let's carry on. It has to be looked at in context. What other mechanisms are we going to change or are meant to go with it? The U.K. Parliament is a good basis because we do share that history, but it's not the only Westminster system in the world, it's not the only Commonwealth country in the world. Having the opportunity to look at some of these different parliaments is where we need to go on issues such as this.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Can I just interject?

There's no question in my mind that one thing degrades the value of our question period. It wasn't the case when I first came here and worked as a member of the minister's staff for the minister of the environment in the 1980s, and I've mentioned this earlier. In that era of 1986 to 1988, when I worked here, questions were not read and answers were not scripted. You had the sense that people had certain points they wanted to put across. In the U.K. Parliament, they absolutely do not read questions, and they absolutely do not read answers. Part of the problem that I think has infected this place is the mania for what is called “QP prep”. I mentioned this in my Standing Orders proposal. I was horrified the first time I heard about it in the 41st Parliament.

We prepared the minister. I was senior policy adviser to the federal minister of the environment. We prepared him for question period. He had a big, fat binder full of things we thought might get asked, but he knew his brief and he could stand up on his own two feet and come up with a really good answer, actually germane to the point, and generally try to answer the question. If he had had to go through a preparatory practice, like a kid practising for a school play, and read out an answer, and do it within.... And I think the time limit of 30 seconds also isn't used in the U.K. question period. It's a more open process and nothing is scripted. It is actually still against the rules of our Parliament to read a question or read a speech or read an answer, but we've fallen into this trap, again, because of the political spin doctors, of pre-prepared questions. That also means that individual MPs don't have the latitude, because their party masters wouldn't like it if they did, to switch up a question because the question they just asked was asked 10 minutes before by a different member of Parliament and a different party. They slavishly read the identical question that the minister has already answered.

Then we have the worst. Another mania—forgive me for venting—is to ask a question in English, and then have a francophone member ask the same question in French to get the minister to answer it in English and in French. This is imbecilic behaviour that is imposed on bright, capable members of Parliament by their political party backrooms. If we could get to that in reforming.... We don't have to change the Standing Orders because there are no orders that require that kind of scripted, pre-planned, rehearsed behaviour.

You don't see that in the U.K. Parliament and that's one of the things that makes their exchanges more useful. They aren't striving for a “gotcha” moment for the evening news, and they're not striving for a political response to just bat the question away.

If you have any thoughts on how we can get rid of QP prep.... I don't want to take you off what you planned to say here, but I think QP prep is an abomination.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, again, to the member for yielding the floor to me.

I just want to interject here for a minute because I think this is an interesting debate around QP. I am quite astounded about QP, because what you have is this. You ask a question and you have an answer. Now, I come from the provincial parliament in my previous days and often we joke about this, that question period is not really a place where you get answers. It's a place to just ask questions. And you see it play out, for the most part, here in the House of Commons as well.

What astounds me is this. You actually have government members who get up to ask “lob” questions, softball questions, and then the cabinet ministers inevitably always thank the members profusely for how hard they work and for the question that they've asked, and then proceed to read out the answer to the exact question they knew would be asked.

I always sit there, and I think, really? Is this a best use of our time in terms of accountability? Surely the government backbench MPs can walk up to a cabinet minister and say, “Hey, on this issue, I have some thoughts and my constituents have these views,” and share those thoughts with each other. Often the answer is just the message box. I'm sure that they all got it, and I'm sure that they don't need to just read it in the House again for everybody to enjoy, and then to compliment each other about what a great job they're doing. That to me is quite something, and I'm quite taken aback by that.

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

It's similar to when the NDP member asked the NDP chair when they could have just walked over, but I digress.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Can I add to Jenny's point?

You don't want to yield to me. It's all right; I'll wait.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, order here.

Go ahead, Ms. May.