Evidence of meeting #55 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was opposition.
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Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Even the mud has certain advantages to it, so if they choose to continue, well....
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It's on division? Okay.
Even if we must continue, we can still learn things along the way, if nothing else.
I'll just add that this issue of preserving our institutions, of passing this amendment, is not only miring us down here in committee. It's also an issue in the chamber and in other committees. It's an issue that impacts a range of other policy questions.
This committee, I understand—I'm not a regular member of this committee—should be proceeding as soon as possible, I think, to a study of the Elections Act. I understand that there are some important issues with respect to the Elections Act. The Minister of Democratic Institutions has proposed a study that I think the committee is interested in taking up, and has asked for the completion of that within a certain timeline. Discussions about procedure are important, but they're not the kinds of things that are as time-sensitive, at least given the timeline that the Minister of Democratic Institutions has introduced.
We have all the things that are going on within the chamber as well. Co-operation between different parties is very important for moving forward in a constructive way. With all due respect, I'll say that the government House leader won't be getting my vote for Maclean's most collegial parliamentarian award this year. In the midst of trying to come to a resolution on this, she went on television and said that they were not going to let the Conservatives have a veto over standing order changes.
Mr. MacGregor is many great things, but he is unfortunately not a Conservative. Maybe he will be one day, but for now, he is here representing the NDP caucus. Mr. Christopherson was also here earlier, and they are fully behind this. They have, of course, a much longer history in opposition than we do. After the next election, we'll welcome them back to the official opposition when we retake the government. It will be good for both of us.
They understand the importance of this as well. I think Ms. May, who is someone who agrees with the government more often than we do—more often than the NDP does in fact, it seems, just based on the way votes have unfolded—is also standing with us. When I talk about the Green Party discussion paper, she's taking the position that's furthest from the government in terms of the kinds of changes in direction that we actually need to see.
This is a discussion that's playing out in the chamber as well, but when you have the government House leader making comments like that, basically drawing a line in the sand and saying we will not.... Effectively, what she's saying is that we will not do this by consensus; we will do it in a way that is unilateral. Now, she didn't say that directly, but that is the implied direction of the comments that she's making.
I don't think any party should be able to make changes unilaterally. I think they should be done on the basis of consensus. Doing it on the basis of consensus means that you have to listen to the opposition as well, which is something that the government House leader thus far has not been prepared to do. However, if she agreed with us, she might have a chance of getting that Maclean's award again. I might reconsider my vote on it.
There was an interesting point made by my colleague here about this issue of equality of strength between the opposition and the government. I don't know if I agree or disagree with that, but I want to just maybe flesh out what is meant by equality of strength.
Let's be very clear that when a party is in government, it means that they got the most seats. It means that they got—not necessarily, in first past the post, but almost certainly—the most votes in the election. They have a legitimate democratic right to propose legislation, to bring it to a vote, and in all likelihood, if they have the votes, to pass that legislation, to implement the program that they have. That is legitimate. No one here is suggesting otherwise. No one here is suggesting that on questions of policy....
Of course the opposition will oppose. We will debate it. We will fight back on the basis of public interest. We will try to get the government to change their mind, to see sense. We will mobilize public support against it. We will encourage stakeholders to contact the government. We will challenge the government to reconsider aspects of their program. But ultimately, especially in a majority Parliament, assuming that they maintain the confidence of that Parliament and the support of their caucus, a government can pass legislation.
Yet there are some things that a government cannot do. They cannot justly, on their own, or they ought not, change things that are dealing with that underlying substructure of democracy. One might say that policy decisions are, to some extent, actually more important than that substructure in terms of the practical impact they have on people's lives. But that substructure is actually what guarantees the integrity of our deliberation about those policy questions into the future. So yes, in this Parliament the government can put forward legislation. It can be debated. It will likely be passed if it's government legislation over the objections of the opposition. But as long as they preserve the existing institutions that allow us to present our objections, that allow us to participate in the debates, and that allow us, then, on a fair footing, to fight the next election....
But this government, it's clear, isn't actually content with just proposing legislation and policy. We see on a number of different fronts that they actually want to dramatically alter our institutions, to do so to their own strategic advantage, and to do so without the consent of the opposition. Now, that's not what the government is elected to do. Of course, this is a government that received, I think, about 39% of the popular vote in the last election. That is enough to form a majority government and to introduce policy and to pass legislation. But it is not enough to change the underlying substructure of democracy. This is well established in our traditions and our conventions. There are certain things that one could change about that substructure with a majority support through a referendum. This is what we said during the electoral reform debate. Without having been clear up front about what new electoral system was desired, 39% was not enough to make that change unilaterally, but a referendum, with 50% of the vote, would have been enough to make a change to that underlying substructure of democracy.
With respect to our rules here in Parliament, if there is a consensus among parties—that has been the tradition, that's what has been done in the past and has worked well—if we change the rules of engagement in a way that has consensus of members of Parliament, then yes, we can change that underlying substructure.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Genuis.
There are some new members here. I want to refer everyone to the fact that tonight we've had a number of discussions on how the rules have been changed in the past. Our researcher did a paper outlining almost all the major changes that have been made to the Standing Orders over the last 50 years or so. The paper looks at which times were by consensus, which were unanimous, and which weren't. The Standing Orders were changed in all different types of ways. If you need to know the history, just refer to that paper.
Mr. Genuis.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Excellent.
There is a tradition that for substantial major changes, obviously, of the Standing Orders, those happen on the basis of consent. I think there was one issue raised in the House in the context of....
I think it was Ms. Sahota who asked me the question, when I was giving a speech on this with respect to a concurrence report, about a change that Mr. Reid had proposed with respect to the process by which we elect the Speaker. Now, the context of that change was....
I don't think it was quite before I was born, but I was still in elementary school. I don't remember it too well. I was following, but—
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
No, no.
The way in which the change happened was this. This was a change to the way in which a Speaker was elected. At one time, if I remember right—someone may correct me—the process was originally that you have runoff ballots. You have a series of ballots similar to the old leadership convention style, where people would vote, someone would be eliminated from the ballot, and then there would be further rounds of balloting. Then the movement was to a system of instant runoff voting for electing the Speaker. There were different opinions on that across different parties. It wasn't unanimous in terms of every single member of Parliament agreeing with that change, but as I recall, there was support from every party for that change as well.
We can look at the history and recognize that there is a difference in terms of a fundamental degree of change as well. When you're talking about successive ballots versus instant runoff being a change, there are some issues in the Standing Orders that deal with something so minor, but the changes proposed in this discussion paper are very dramatic in terms of the relationship between government and opposition and in terms of the roles of members of Parliament.
We would agree that the government has a right to move forward legislation, but not to change the underlying rules. I don't want to diminish this with a sports analogy, but I think a sports analogy is a reasonable way of understanding the idea of fairness in competition.
We're watching the hockey playoffs—which of course the Edmonton Oilers will be delivering a Stanley Cup in. My colleague from southern Alberta and I are looking forward to that matchup coming up. More to the point, in a hockey game people play hard. They aren't, in any way, what you might call “gentlemanly” towards their opponents in terms of giving them a wide berth when they have the puck and so forth. In a hockey game absolutely you play to win. On the other hand, there are certain things that are just beyond the rules. Giving a hard check is maybe within the rules, but doing certain kinds of checks would not be within the rules. Obviously there are boundaries prescribed by rules, but within those rules you do everything possible to succeed.
It wouldn't be right if one team could just change the rules. One team might try to implement a different strategy within the rules, they might do something that's allowed, and the other team might say, whoa, that's a novel use of the rules, how come they're doing that? But if you're within the rules, then that's fair ball, right?
I think in the last Parliament there were people who objected to the way in which Stephen Harper used the rules. Some of those people might be here in this room. You can debate the use of those rules. Some people argue that those rules—the use of time allocation, the use of prorogation—were not used in a constructive way, and some of those points have been made by my colleagues opposite. But there is a fundamental difference between playing hard within the rules and going outside the rules. The reason we have rules is to prescribe where that line is, in the midst of sometimes a very tense and a very competitive environment. When we're talking about policy and government legislation, these are things that matter deeply to our constituents. They're things that we believe in. We fight hard on those issues. We do so, however, within the rules, in a way that respects the fact that the rules exist and that it's not fair for one side to change the rules, because that would undermine the basic way in which that system is supposed to work, based on rules, based on the back and forth that occurs.
It's interesting that the government's response to this is not to really dig into the meat of our argument in response at all. It's to say, okay, we want to have a discussion...and by the way, we want to have a discussion...and let's have a discussion.
Well, let's go through what happened, how we got to this point, and why we are concerned about what the government's intending to do. We had a discussion. We had a debate in the House on possible standing order changes and we had different proposals come from different members of Parliament. We had a wide variation within individual political parties. We had different members of the Liberal caucus propose changes that are different from those the House leader is proposing. Within our Conservative caucus we had common opinions on certain questions and we had different opinions on certain questions. I have proposed some changes to the Standing Orders that are fairly novel, concerning switching the time when late shows and members' statements occur and having ministers be required to respond to late shows.
These were part of a big soup of ideas put out there on whatever day it was that we had this debate on the Standing Orders. There was interest in proceeding with these and considering changes that could get consensus. Then all of a sudden we had the government bring in this discussion paper and right away ask this committee to study them, with an immediate timeline for reporting them back.
We put forward an amendment that said, okay, fair enough: you have these ideas, but we want to make sure that there's unanimity, that's there's agreement, that there's a respect for that “rule of process” aspect that we have talked about.
What's striking about the government's response is that...but actually, it goes prior to the House leader's comments. There's a bit of a dissonance between what Mr. Simms has said and what the government House leader has said. Mr. Simms has said that of course we want to get to unanimity, that of course that is where we would like to go as a committee. Then you have the government House leader saying that they will not let the Conservatives have a veto.
Perhaps we should have Mr. Simms in the position of House leader. I would support him in that, if that were his ambition. We might see a different approach on this issue.
Conservative
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
The problem is that if you are supportive of the idea of unanimity, then why not just pass the amendment? It's like spending a long time having a discussion with someone, and then at the end you suddenly realize you've agreed from the beginning. If the government actually thinks that we shouldn't have unanimity, thinks that these decisions should be made on consensus, well, we've been talking for over 500 hours and agreeing. But we just want to pass the amendment so that we know.
Now, that seems to be where Mr. Simms is in terms of aspiring to unanimity, and let's just confirm that, but obviously we can't trust the government, or at least the government House leader, when the government House leader has said on television that we're not going to let the Conservatives.... Effectively the implication is that we don't want the Conservatives involved in this discussion. I think a really partisan way of putting it is....
Obviously we know the strategy—to say, okay, let's shove the Conservatives off in the corner and pretend that it's only the Conservatives who are opposed to it. But it isn't just Conservatives. It's Conservatives, Greens, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois MPs, probably some Liberals, and certainly many ordinary Canadians who don't have any partisan affiliation who are raising concerns about this.
This is the process that got us to this point, when you have the government House leader saying these kinds of things and pushing back. On the one hand, they're saying that they'd love to have unanimity—at least some members are saying that—but on the other hand, they're saying they're not going to pass an amendment that would protect consensus. This is why this amendment is so important, because it guarantees that there's going to be consensus. We keep seeing efforts of the government to undermine our parliamentary traditions and undermine respect for our democracy, or at least our responsible government system that we fundamentally associate with democracy.
I could go through many issues. The most recent is the fact that the government tried to adjourn a debate on a matter of privilege without having a vote on it. This is so important because it's relevant to all members of Parliament. The issue in this particular case was that members of the Conservative caucus were prevented from voting because of something that happened with security. That's, of course, very important. However, you could imagine a whole host of other cases in which members of Parliament would have their privilege denied, the Speaker would rule a prima facie case of privilege, but then the government would, without a vote on that question of privilege, adjourn the debate. You could imagine all kinds of cases that would negatively affect all members of Parliament.
I ask members of government to think about this. What if it were you who was prevented from voting, or there was some other way in which your privilege was threatened? Perhaps another member had been threatening towards you or any number of cases from which issues of privilege arise. You've been denied the right to do something that you should be able to do as members of Parliament.
When these questions happen, there's an opportunity to raise questions of privilege in the House. The Speaker then asks if there is some legitimacy to the case. We go forward with the prima facie case of privilege. The government has options for ending that debate. They can move closure on questions of privilege. That forces then a vote on the closure and then a vote on the question of privilege. Therefore, the government can force a vote on these matters. However, what the government tried to do was get rid of the question of privilege without voting on it. Fortunately, the Speaker ruled that this was an issue of privilege, that it was an issue of privilege when an issue of privilege can't be brought forward in the proper way. Even the fact that the government tried to do it was something that the Speaker acknowledged in his ruling had no precedent. This is presumably because no government in the entire history of our tradition has ever tried to get out of a discussion of a question of privilege without a vote.
In the very fraught history of Westminster parliamentary democracy, this government found an abuse of the House that had not even been attempted before. Now they want us to trust the goodwill they have in the context of this process.
Well, it would have been nice to see some goodwill in the context of the privilege question that came before the House. Fortunately, we had a very wise ruling from the Speaker on this, but the government attempted this, which should legitimately colour how we approach the discussion of this amendment and this motion.
This amendment provides us.... If as Mr. Simms suggests—different from the government House leader—there is a desire for consensus, then give us the insurance, because a lot of things that have happened have made us question whether we can actually rely on the goodwill and good intentions of the government.
This is not to single out any particular member here. Mr. Simms might try to work constructively throughout this whole discussion and then all of a sudden be pulled off this committee and put on the library committee, to be replaced by someone who is going to sign off on the government House leader's—
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Is it okay if I interject? Is that all right?
I'm already on the library committee.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm already on the library committee.
I have nothing else to add.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Genuis, I would like to respond to what you just said about the precedent the government tried to set in order to put an end to this question of privilege.
It reminded me of something. When I was doing research on procedure and changes, I was struck by something I read about the tyranny of the majority. I would like to remind those around the table here that the tyranny of the majority is an undesirable aspect of democracy, which allows a majority to suppress a minority if the democracy does not provide certain rights to protect minorities.
This is very relevant to the attempt we have witnessed and to what is happening here before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
If I may, Mr. Chair, I would like to quote Alexis de Tocqueville, with whom you are no doubt familiar. You have surely read some of his works. In On Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville was quite eloquent about the tyranny of the majority. He talked about the risk of despotism of the majority.
I would like to quote one or two short passages from de Tocqueville, which are as follows, roughly translated:
Democracies tend naturally to concentrate all the power of society in the hands of the legislative body, it being the authority that derives most directly from the people and also the one that exercises its supremacy the most. It therefore has a natural tendency to bring together all forms of authority within it.
This is similar to what we are witnessing, this desire to change the rules of the House of Commons. Essentially, the majority is trying to use all its powers in order to control all the procedures that are currently available to each member of Parliament.
Returning to de Tocqueville, he said, loosely translated, that:
Just as this concentration of powers greatly undermines the orderly conduct of affairs, it is also the basis for the tyranny of the majority.
Before Mr. Genuis continues, I would point out finally that de Tocqueville added the following, roughly translated:
The power of the majority is not unlimited. Overriding it, in the moral world, are humanity, justice and reason, while in the political world are vested rights.
The opposition, both the NDP and the Conservatives, are trying to preserve these vested rights, which are the last bulwark against the tyranny of the majority, Mr. Chair.
I thought this was relevant, in view of the example that Mr. Genuis had just given us. This attempt to put an end to a question of privilege without even allowing members to vote is a first. This is the first time we have witnessed this in the Parliament of Canada.
I just wanted to make this aside and remind you that well-intentioned people have examined this matter and have described this kind of attempt, that is, the desire of the majority to suppress the minority, especially when the majority has the power and every opportunity to do so.
I wanted to give a nod to de Tocqueville, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Did de Tocqueville also write about the tyranny of the minority and explain how it operates?
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Oh, oh! That is not the full extent of my knowledge of de Tocqueville's work, Mr. Chair. We could certainly sit down and write a book about the tyranny of the minority. However, when the minority uses its tyranny to try to protect the rights and interests of the majority, I think that is a noble tyranny.
