Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You can go back to the beginning.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I am tempted to just take it from the beginning at this point, but I think I've made my point by 10:10 p.m. I think I have exhausted every single subject matter I could have covered at this time. In the fullness of time, I may return to make a couple more points and then continue with point number two, the second bullet with the three dozen subpoints I would like to make.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I will point out that he said he had a couple of points to make this time around, too. A couple of points can take a while, apparently. The other thing I would like to know is whether anyone has kept track. There were some very worthwhile presentations, but they were obviously quite lengthy. I'm wondering if anyone could tell us whose time was longer, between Mr. Kmiec and Mr. Genuis. Does anyone know?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll get the clerk to report back on that.

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

Thank you. Maybe Tom knows. Tom might be aware.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Kmiec, was that your closing comment?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I have just one more. Please don't give me a participation medal for the length of this.

Truly, I am done for now. I'm going to cede the floor—yield, so to speak—and then return at a future time, if necessary, to make another point on this debate.

Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to make the points I had and to present the documentation and the different review documents I had collected, including past speeches.

I'll end with the only speaking crutch that applies. Just remember John Diefenbaker when he said, “I love this Parliament.” Thank you.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kmiec.

You researched a lot of very interesting material for us. I'm sure everyone here learned something from those historical debates and those articles and those magazines. I'm sure people watching on TV also learned a lot about some history, so thank you very much for doing all that research and bearing through with few health breaks.

Mr. Deltell, we're getting closer to you. There are only five people ahead of you.

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

In fact, Mr. Chair, maybe that was the reason that, after six attempts, the Liberal members finally decided to allow it to be televised. I had thought they maybe suddenly decided to not have such an aversion to accountability, or maybe the PMO had finally told them it was okay, or whatever, but maybe it was because they knew that people would want to tune in to watch Mr. Kmiec.

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

I'd like to mention to my colleague that I have a fax machine if he needs to borrow one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's good to know.

We're going to Mr. Scott Simms, whose motion is being amended in this debate.

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

It's ironic that I'm in the middle of a filibuster and I'm taking part in a filibuster of my own motion. I've done the whole loop, I think, in my 13 years here in Parliament. My colleague David Graham, when I told him I was getting on the speakers list and said I was speaking on the filibuster, called it a “counter-buster” or something of that nature. I'm not really sure, but I've been here way too long.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

A “filabond”.

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

All right.

I've been here for the whole debate and even though 99% of the comments have been counter to what I'm hoping to do, I rather enjoyed a lot of this debate.

I want to start with Tom, who I thought brought a lot of perspective to this. He just started, so there's a lot to come. I know that if there was a government formed by the other side, the leader of the party, whoever he or she were, would have a hard time choosing a government House leader, given what we've seen from Scott Reid and Tom and Garnett. There's been a lot of history invoked and a lot of perspective. I point out that Tom used not just Conservative comments from days gone by that he felt were pertinent and intelligent, but also comments from every other party, from the Blaikie's and the Milliken's and all of them. I congratulate him for that.

This is the part where I have to say that I will rebut Tom in many cases, but I don't know where to start, as we'd be here all weekend. It's not a question of looking at him and saying he's wrong most of the time, but just with the sheer volume of what was said, it would take quite a bit of time to dismantle. Nevertheless, I do want to touch on some points.

A lot of the points that he brought up were, I think, pertinent to this debate, even though they may not be directly related to the amendment, but certainly to the discussion paper that the government House leader published recently. In many cases some of the proposals are based on campaign commitments, and some are not, but in mentioning them, he highlighted many of the discussions I highlighted in my motion, as well as those highlighted in the discussion paper. He outlined the three themes in the paper, the changes that I think can modernize the House of Commons.

There are many myths that I could dispel, which I've done already and may do again in the next little while. There's one I would like to dispel off the top. I mentioned to Mr. Kmiec earlier the question of unanimous consent in regard to the McGrath report.

I want to read for the record the motion that started the McGrath report:

The House resumed debate on the motion of Mr. Hnatyshyn, seconded by Miss MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands),—That a Special Committee of the House of Commons to be composed of Mrs. Bourgault and Messrs. Blaikie, Cooper, Ellis, Friesen, McGrath and Ouellet, be appointed to act as a Parliamentary Task Force on the Reform of the House of Commons to examine the powers, procedures, practices, organization and facilities of the House of Commons, bearing in mind balance between the respective constitutional responsibilities and roles of the House of Commons and the Government, such an examination to include, but not be limited to, the following matters:

(a) the Permanent and Provisional Standing Orders;

(b) the role of the private Member in the House of Commons;

(c) the accountability of Ministers to the House of Commons;

(d) the legislative process;

(e) the funding, facilities and staff support services made available to Members of the House of Commons;

(f) the administration and management of the House of Commons;

(g) the procedure and powers of Committees of the House of Commons and the role and the use of parliamentary task forces;

That the Committee have all the powers provided to standing Committees pursuant to Standing Order 69(8);

That the Committee have the power to retain expert, professional, technical and clerical staff;

...That all the evidence adduced by the special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure and the reports of that Committee as tabled in the House of Commons during the 32nd Parliament be referred to the Committee;

That notwithstanding the usual practices of this House, if the House is not sitting when an interim or final report of the Committee is completed, that the Committee shall report its findings by depositing its report with the Clerk of the House and that it shall thereupon be deemed to have been laid upon the Table—

Apologies for the length. This is from the Journals of the House of Commons from December 5, 1984, by the way. Let me conclude. It says:

That the Committee be authorized to include in its interim and/or final reports recommendations as to the implementation of any reforms proposed in the reports of the Committee;

That Messrs. Penner, Binns, Comeau, Duguay, Jardine, Ravis and Young be appointed as alternate members of the Committee;

That changes in the membership of the Committee be made only pursuant to Standing Order 69(4)(b); and

That the Committee shall report to the House finally no later than June 28, 1985.

That's how it concludes. It does not require unanimous consent.

That, folks, is why we did not include it in this particular motion. It is an aspirational goal. I've told this committee time and time again that I want unanimous consent. We all want that, but it's an aspirational goal I think we can work towards, based on what is in this.

There are other particular myths that I'd like to dispel, as we've said time and time again.

Let's take, for instance, the Prime Minister's question period. What the Prime Minister said was that he wanted to be accountable for 45 minutes, because he liked the idea of his being on the stand, as it were, to be questioned, but he did not suggest it was once a week. If the committee doesn't want to have it once a week, then that's what the report is all about. It can be reflected in the report to say that most members do not want the Prime Minister to be accountable only once a week. It's what we want to do to make sure that everybody has their say.

I want to get into some of the other stuff within the discussion paper. There is one thing in particular that Mr. Kmiec talked about and that is the debate itself, of course, when it comes to what effectively is closure. You're allotting time to end off the debate.

I will tell you about a personal experience of mine. Just last week we went to Great Britain and I spoke to Margaret Beckett. She was the government House Leader for Tony Blair in 1997. She was the one who convinced me that you should have a look at what's called “programming”—not to do it outright. That's not what I'm suggesting, but I think it's something we can look at. I will admit to everybody on this committee that it was not a part of the campaign, but it could be a part of this debate and it could be a part of this report that we look at seriously.

This is one of the reasons that what I wanted to begin with was to have a study done by this committee, because we can have these witnesses by video conference from Westminster to tell us their experiences. I'm not saying we should cookie-cutter something from Westminster, to apply it here, as is the case with many things. You could have what's called—if I could steal from the former government—a made-in-Canada solution. I'm not trying to be facetious. It's just that, a made-in-Canada solution.

When you look at the evolution of programming, which is to say that they are going to look at a certain debate and plan it over a period of time following second reading, then they can better plan what it is they want to do to represent their constituents and do what is best for the country. Let me explain.

This is what she told me. She didn't stumble upon this government programming when she became government House leader. She decided that this was worth doing when she was in opposition, and here is why. At the time, Margaret Thatcher had, quite frankly, a love and hate relationship among all the British. I do have a great respect for her, but there were certain measures that she had to take for fiscal reasons, which unfortunately meant cutting off a layer of people who were on social assistance.

I'm not going to get into the weeds of that. We all know about fiscal responsibilities and the realities so I—

Do you want unanimous consent to speak, or...?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Sorry. I was just saying that we had time. I spoke out of turn and I apologize, Mr. Chair.

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

I do recall her telling me that she had debate planned out, that they were going to argue this bill, and the way she was going to do it was by being steaming mad as a Labour Party member. Her constituents, a lot of people, were destitute and in poverty, and she wanted to stand up for them. God love her for doing it. She had a plan and was going to start with this particular subject, that particular subject, and then on to this one over a period of about three weeks. She got to the second week and said, “This is the time now when I get to debate this. This is the very moment when I get to stand up and say, 'Hey, this is the time'”, yet all of a sudden, down came the guillotine. I say “guillotine” for how they cut debate over there like that, but obviously, we call it something different. Scott Reid gave an excellent explanation and long historical context for the term “guillotine”. I say that with great affection because he actually did a good job.

She never got to the most important part of her fight. When she got into government, she thought to herself, “We want to enact this piece of legislation.”

Here, let's face it. I look across the way and recall Tom mentioning earlier the use of this type of measure in government. On the flip side, people will say it lessens debate, but yes, government has to put its legislation through. In this regard, there was a Huffington Post headline that “Trudeau Government's First Months Were Least Productive In Decades.” The article states:

Parliament passed 10 bills during Trudeau's first nine months, the public database reveals. In their first nine months after winning a majority mandate in 2011, the Conservatives enacted 18 pieces of legislation—including nine bills moved in their first 23 days.

However, that came with many measures that guillotined a lot of debate, so now we find ourselves in a balance. You have a government that's been elected and has to get through its mandate, but it needs to provide a substantial debate for us, and for our constituents, to hear.

That is why she decided, as she phased it, that this was “organizing debate for adults”. That was her terminology. They enacted it in 1997, but here's the thing, though. Tom is not a big fan of this, if I recall correctly. He said that all of it would be done this way. However, I would not advocate for that whatsoever. I do believe that government House leaders get together beforehand, as Mr. Christopherson pointed out. In a mature manner they can decide how this goes out, because many people have said that if the House leaders get together and plan the debate, there's no problem. If we have a certain time and a certain expiry date to it, as long you're responsible and respect that people who want to talk about it do get to talk about it, there's no problem. But some of us don't always have the best intentions, right? It's called political strategy. Let's face it folks, we're not all innocent of it. We all use political strategy to a certain extent. It could be you personally in your riding. It could be right here nationally. This is an adversarial system, folks, and we have to accept that and we have to be honest with ourselves.

She wanted to do this in a very responsible way, and I give her all the credit in the world because, remember, she didn't come up with this in government. She came up with it in opposition. I spoke to her and asked her if she would like to be a witness for us, and she said, yes, she would do it. Now you may not agree with her, but I tell you she has some good history behind her. She has a lot of parliamentary history. She's very smart and she could make it. She's been in politics for many years, and then people like Tom and Garnett come by and show that kind of flash in the same way.

To tell you the truth, I'd like them to hear it as much as anybody else, because people like Tom and Garnett and others are so interested in parliamentary procedure—and David is, of course, too.

I'm not ruling you out because you're older than they are. Trust me, sir.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm older than everybody.

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

That's all right. I bring it up because I think that when you talk about the programming of legislation, that's.... I have a paper here. I won't read the whole thing, because I know David would like to say his piece as well. It states:

Programming was introduced on an experimental basis in 1997-98. Since the beginning of the 2004-05 Session, permanent Standing Orders relating to programming have operated.

They review it every so many years to see that it's running well, in the same vein, I guess, that we do our Standing Orders. It continues:

Following a review of these arrangements in 2000, the Modernisation Committee

—I think this is our equivalent—

proposed new Sessional Orders, which were agreed on 7 November 2000 and then subsequently revised on 28 June 2001. The Sessional Orders agreed on 28 June applied to Session 2001-02.

Let me explain it this way. It's something they did, and guess what? You'll never guess what happened. A consensus came around the fact that this wasn't really a bad thing. It was a pretty good thing. I spoke to the former whip of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition they had. He was part of the junior coalition—one of the surviving nine from the last election—and he agreed. Here's someone who has never been in government—well, at a junior level. Here's someone who never had outright power, but he said the same thing that she did, which was, look, it's just a mature way of doing things.

I don't even know if we can come up with a made-in-Canada version. I don't know, but that's what I wanted to do here in this motion so we can explore that.

Angela Eagle, a sitting Labour MP, said:

I was a minister pre-programming and post-programming [of debates]. ...the then Labour government introduced programming [in order to] make more efficient use of Parliamentary time. Filibustering of legislation was something that confused many of our constituents [and] it was not something that enhanced our democracy.

I don't know if I entirely agree. I think filibustering can be a healthy thing, present time included.

She continued—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What about the future?

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

Yes, absolutely.

She continued:

On the whole we are satisfied with how programming is working. We note that one consequence of programme motions is that Third Reading debates are often truncated—time is taken out voting on amendments on report stage.

But it's done so that the people know what's coming, and they get to say their piece. We don't speak on every piece of legislation here, but I can certainly request that I get involved, like anybody else can, and I think it allows the balance that anybody who is about to get into government will do the same. We're not planning for just our own government. We're planning as well for others that come along. That's an acknowledgement that I truly don't feel we'll rule forever; I've been here too long to think that.

Philip Cowley thinks it's a great thing, as does Michael Zander, and as does David Kidney, who is a former Labour MP. Philip Cowley is currently a professor at Queen Mary University of London. They all state that it has provided a good sense of balance.

Quite frankly, I'll leave it at that, because there were some things said about it and I wanted to go more in depth about it. I think that on several levels it allows us to talk about how we can come into a debate and use it through the House of Commons such that people get their say, but at the same time respect the fact that government gets to do its legislation that it campaigned on. That's why I brought up this article from The Huffington Post.

On the modernization of this particular hallowed institution, I want to go back to earlier thoughts about the discussion paper itself and one of the things that was said about committees, which is that the discussion paper talks about reducing the amount of time at committee to 10 minutes and that's it, as some form of closure, but here's the thinking. I looked into this. There are 10-minute blocks to speak, much like you have in the House of Commons, but that's not your last one. You get to go again.

Tom, how long do you figure you spent speaking today?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I lost track of time after the first hour.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Fair leave. I did too. I apologize.

You can have that 10-minute block for as long you can. You just have the ability, at 10 minutes, to let someone else have their say. Now, does that work in practice? I think it does. But I'm not the smartest person in the room, and I don't pretend to be. I certainly would love to hear from the smartest person in the room as to how they feel about that.

That's why, when the discussion paper came out, I believe there were three groupings I spoke about with the minister: the management of the House and its sittings, the management of debate, and the management of committees. I think that pretty much entails everything, unless there's something else I'm missing, and there very well could be.

As I pointed out in my last intervention and want to point out again, Scott Reid was talking about the omnibus bills, and brought up the point that the problem with omnibus bills is that maybe we need to cut down on omnibus bill legislation. I remember when Peter Stoffer had a private member's bill about that. I really liked it. I thought it was good. I still do. I think they can be not entirely necessary. It's damaging for us, because all of sudden you find yourselves with something like the Charlottetown accord. Do you remember when we had a referendum on it? I think everything was in there. Did I want an elected Senate, or representation from certain groups of people in the country? It was all in there. There were two things at play. I was just a young child then. I remember thinking that there were two things that most people who voted “no”...or a lot of people who voted no. I couldn't say it was most people. They just didn't like the government of the day. Mr. Mulroney was not very popular. By the same token, when they looked at it they saw just so much in there. All it took was one thing for them to say, “That's it. It's a deal breaker.” It was an omnibus referendum, really.

That's why I've never been particularly excited about having that type of legislation, even when it first came in. Scott Reid brought up a good point—namely, how do you break it up when it comes in? Can the Speaker do it? Does the Speaker have the jurisdiction to do that? I'm saying this rhetorically, because I think I have an idea, but I don't know for certain. I think he brings up a good point, to the point where we can have a witness in here to say, no, here's the deal on why you can't, and the next academic can come in and say, yes, here's why you can.

Quite frankly, I think we can write a report on what I've heard so far. We could. There's nothing wrong with it. The only problem is that I still would like us to hear from such witnesses as our friends and colleagues in Westminster, or from other Canadians who have been through this. Unfortunately, we can't bring in Mr. McGrath. He passed away two weeks ago, God love his soul. He was a revered public servant from my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. He certainly was a very intelligent man. As a matter of fact, it was yesterday that Nick Whalen, his successor, paid tribute to him. I found it really quite fitting that the week of his funeral his name came up in Parliament, or certainly in this committee, probably more so since the time he left. Coincidence? I don't know. Nevertheless, it was a good report, unanimous as it was, and I agree.

I would say to this committee that this has been a tough road for all of us. There's no doubt about it. I've been here for the entire debate. I think it's incumbent upon me, as the mover of the motion, to be here for this entire debate and to accept all the criticisms I've received. Whether it's you or Facebook, it doesn't matter. It has to come. That's just the world we live in right now.

What I have taken with me from this debate, whether this happens or not, is that I can honestly say that this discussion won't end. It's just not possible anymore. I think we've opened up something here.

If we've not showcased young talent, we've certainly showcased their ideas, and we've definitely showcased our passion about how we want to modernize this House.

Colleagues, as we travel down this road that's obviously adversarial...more adversarial than I had hoped, but as adversarial as I would want, because that's how this place works.

With respect, I will turn it over to my colleague Mr. Christopherson, and I look forward to it.

Thank you, committee, for hearing me out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.