Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Will it be here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

It will be right here.

We will suspend.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We are back. We stayed in the House a little longer to hear the two questions of privilege, because as you know, they could affect us. The first one was ruled as not a prima facie case. That was related to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. The second one was ruled as a prima facie case. They're bringing back the one relating to the buses, and they're debating that right now.

The House will still need to vote, so I guess there'll be a vote on it when they finish that debate.

The next person on the list is Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I can probably take as long as some of my opposition colleagues have been taking.

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

You should. Keep it going.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I think there are some points to be made. As a new member, I've noticed things. I'm sure that over time it becomes normal the way the House functions, the rules we abide by. It's almost becoming normal to me too, only having been here 18 months. At times I think that this is politics, that this is government, that things work slowly here, and this is the way it's meant to be. It's remarkable to me how quickly my mindset has turned over these last 18 months.

Little things occur every now and then that remind me that this place is not very functional and that we could achieve a lot more together. I know that the issue here is consensus—

[An hon. member]

Versus unanimity.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

—versus unanimity. How I would love for all parliamentarians in this House to be able to agree on all things by consensus—I know you're not suggesting all things—but in particular, the rules.

Recently we had representatives from two different parliaments before us. We had Austrian officials here today. We had the chairperson from this committee in Austria before us. We had the presiding officer from Scotland, which is the speaker of their house, before us as well in the last couple of weeks. It enlightened me again.

Through my time on the electoral reform committee, and on this one as well, since the very beginning of this term, I've been learning quite a lot about parliamentary procedure, stuff I thought was quite boring when I was in law school. I thought, procedure, I have to take it to pass, so I will, but it's not the most exciting of topics. When I was presented with the opportunity to sit on this committee, I wondered if it would be like watching paint dry.

My experience has been quite different. I've loved the opportunity to be a permanent member of this committee. I've learned so much from all of my colleagues on this committee, especially the ones from the opposition side. I've learned a lot of good skills, some tactics, some manoeuvres, and what you need to be doing. I have also heard genuine input and information that I sometimes agree with. I've learned a lot from my colleagues, as well. What I mean to say is that my time here on the Hill has been very fruitful.

However, it's those times I'm speaking about, and one was yesterday. I had my family up here on the Hill. To have these tactical procedural votes held with no notice at all I'm sure works fine. It works fine for me most of the time, because most of the time, I'm glued to my seat here in PROC, especially in the last three weeks. Having a vote called unexpectedly is not a problem for me.

I've also made the choice to not bring my family up to Ottawa, because they have lives, and I don't want to disrupt them. I have a young son who has a lot of family members to love and care for him there. I don't want to see him spending his days alone here on the Hill, maybe with a nanny service, when we get out at midnight from PROC. That was definitely the right choice, and I've accepted it.

Mr. Doherty mentioned, the last time he was here, that this is the life we've chosen. We knew what we were getting into as parliamentarians. I understand that point, and I do for the most part appreciate that we have taken on a difficult role and that with that will come some trade-offs. I'm ready to make those trade-offs, and I already have. I think each one of us has sacrificed a lot to be here, and we do so on a daily basis. However, I do not think there is anything wrong with our trying to improve ourselves and better ourselves and with encouraging those who don't want this type of lifestyle for themselves to also become parliamentarians, or to at least consider it for a day. Most people come up here and think it's a lot of talk and not a lot of action and that nothing gets done, or it takes years to get things done. I'd love to hear what the walls in this place are thinking, because I think they've heard this conversation happen many times since the Parliament Buildings were built.

I've heard and read that this debate has happened many times over the years, and we're still where we are.

Some great things came out of the McGrath report. We talk about that report a lot at this committee. We talk about the work we did at the beginning of this term on modernizing Parliament. There was an interim report, and through the process of that report, I learned a lot about where everyone's priorities lie and whether they're necessarily in a place at which they want to see this place improve. I don't know whether that's everyone's motive. If it were, I think we could come to some agreement, but I don't think such is the case.

I think everyone is more caught up in winning and losing and considering how this is going to look in QP, rather than in doing the right thing. It's really important for not just this government but this Parliament to take some bold initiative and make some changes, so that we aren't talking about these things for the next hundred years and so that we don't need this Parliament to burn down.

Some colleagues have told me that they have worked on making changes to parliaments around the world and that it was much more contentious than this. I asked if they were in the middle of a war. Yes, actually, they were. It's a lot easier to rebuild after a war when things are torn down and governments are brought to their knees and they're in complete disarray and dysfunction. I asked whether that's what we need to do here, whether we need to get to the point that we are having to build the country up from scratch, to improve our rules. I really feel that this is where we're headed.

In the case of Scotland, I thought we learned some great things that their Parliament has implemented in order to be more efficient. One is electronic voting. They thought it was quite humorous that we couldn't get past that debate in our Parliament. Oftentimes, people think those are the simple things on which we would be able to agree.

I definitely have no hope that we'll be able to agree on this one, and this issue is even simple. Having had conversations, I know that people in this committee feel strongly that spending the extra time standing up is more important than being efficient in getting through more votes and more legislation and getting through the changes that people want to see happen. People want to see governments move, and in this place government does not move. All that happens is endless debate.

I am one who likes debate. I was on the debate team when I was in university and high school. I love a good debate. I love listening to a good debate, but what I realize is happening in the House is definitely not productive debate. At times we are just speaking in silos, not speaking to each other, and not engaging in conversation back and forth; it's just to fill a time slot. Someone has agreed that we're going to spend a certain number of days talking about an issue, and the passion is lost. People are not necessarily passionate; they're just talking their talking points, and I know it happens on all sides.

We need to improve this situation. We need to have Parliament be a place in which we are engaging our citizens. People look to us for fresh ideas and ways in which our government and citizens can move forward in our country.

People all around the world look to Canada as a progressive place. I definitely have felt a little embarrassed. When we had the Austrian officials here today, and when we had the Scottish officials here, I think that they chuckled a bit, thinking that we're still stuck in these old times and just can't get out of them. We can't seem to come into the 20th century, as my colleague David Graham put it.

That was quite funny, David, when you said that.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'd really like to see us get to the 20th century. We're still around the 17th century with some of these rules. It's time to move forward.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes, it is time to move forward.

I know that there was an issue of trust brought up previously, and I did mention at that time, too, that trust goes both ways. If everyone was coming to this issue from a genuine spot and every member of Parliament was perhaps able to submit their idea, such as the debate we did on the Standing Orders previously, we can learn from that debate. That is what this committee was tasked to do. We have a study on the Standing Orders that this committee is engaged in.

This would be the perfect place for us to come up with other solutions to the Standing Orders, those proposed by our colleagues and others that we come up with here at this committee, and even those suggested by the government. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as they're good ideas. If they're bad ideas, we can talk about that too, but there's nothing wrong with the ideas being put out there for us to talk about, because they're ideas that the government is interested in implementing. That's putting yourself out there.

It could have been approached in a different way. Let's say that the government or the House leader had never mentioned some ideas in a discussion paper for you to talk about. We could have just gone on our way. We had made that start, but what's wrong with having inside knowledge or a bit of an idea of what things interest them? They might not be things that we agree on at this committee. It happens all the time in other committees as well. Legislation is sent to committees. There are amendments made at committees. That's the work that committees do. In legislation, you know what the intent is, what the government wants to do.

Similarly, this isn't even legislation. It's just a discussion paper for us to get things started. I think it's a good discussion to have. I really feel that yesterday I had another wake-up call. Had I chosen to bring my family up here, that would have been the wrong choice for me, at least. What would be the point? Even if you have them up here for a day for an event, things can get crazy and it's hard. How do you find child care with five minutes' notice? If you're doing something and you think, it's six o'clock or seven o'clock, and you have something planned, how do you do that? That's not easy for people to do who don't have the supports that parliamentarians may have traditionally had. That's not to say I don't have a lot of support. I wouldn't be here without it, but I just had the realization yesterday again that it's very difficult when you find yourself in that position.

I want to serve. I want to do a good job. I've been sent here to vote, so I understand that we need to be in the House for votes and we need to be performing our roles on committees. Do we need to be doing that 24 hours a day on committee if we're just spinning our wheels and we're not getting to anything productive? I don't know if Canadians necessarily see that as a good use of their taxpayer dollars. What they want to see us do is progress. Whether it's the rules of procedure, whether it's legislation that they voted for, or whether it's the brilliant studies that committees do, they want to see us put those studies out and put those recommendations to the government to see if they'll act on those recommendations or not. That is our job as parliamentarians here, and I'd really like to get back to work and do our job.

There's no guarantee that any of these things will happen. I know there's some fear that these things will be implemented. They could be implemented anyway. What's the harm in discussing those ideas here in committees that have been created for that very purpose, to discuss ideas and to make recommendations? The fact that we have some direction, some ideas about what things the House leader might be thinking about, is a good thing. It gives us some focus, but there's nothing stopping us from including a slew of other things that the opposition thinks need to be done.

I know that the opposition benches and everyone wants to recruit new young Canadians to run for their parties and to be parliamentarians, as do we.

I understand that a lot of times people have said, “Let's not talk about Fridays. What's the big deal? You can trade them off. You can do this or you can do that.” It's true. As one of my colleagues said before as well, I do that often. I trade them off so I can be in my constituency office on Fridays. That last Friday when we were up here, I had to cancel about 20 appointments, and boy were people angry, because they think that you're not working when you're not able to meet with them, whether it's an immigration matter, a CRA concern, or whatever it is that they need their services for.

They want to be able to meet face to face with their MP. Sure, I can try doing it, and I do—I moved all those meetings to Saturday, and then I had my events and other commitments Saturday and Sunday. We all do that, and we are willing to do that, but should we have to always carry on that way? Should we not be able to meet with our constituents once a week? Should they have to wait two or three weeks before they can get a hold of us?

I think that's important work, and I think the work that we do here is important as well. We should continue to do it, and I don't think we should sacrifice any of the hours. There are a lot of things that can be done to move the hours around, and there are a lot of ideas. Even if those aren't the best ideas, and even if we feel, at the end of the day, that we must have those four hours that we spend on Friday and there is no other way for this Parliament to move forward on that recommendation or that idea, that's fine as well. Let's have that honest conversation.

I know that this is probably not going to convince anyone on the opposition benches, to have that conversation at this time, because everyone is so wrapped up in winning and losing in this Parliament, not what's right or what's wrong. I've noticed that sometimes parliamentarians are also scared to do what's right, because they learn after a while that it may not be in their best interest, necessarily. Sometimes you try to do something good for people and it might come back to bite you. You never know. After a while, you start getting standoffish. You don't want your name on this, that, or the other thing because you may be called out for having stood up to somebody and said, “No, I think this is a good idea, even though it came from another party” or “I think this is a good idea, even though it came from a group that may not be commonly recognized. I'm going to be their voice, and I will take a stance and talk about these issues, whether it's in this committee or another.” For the most part I think we do a really good job working together. I'd like to see that continue, and I'd like us to put aside the partisan issues.

I don't think this is a Liberal issue or a partisan issue. It's an issue of how we make this House work better for all of us, and as a result of that, how we work better for Canadians. Those changes can allow us to do so much more. Many countries have been able to do it. It shouldn't be politicized, and I don't think it is. I don't think it would fundamentally change everything about how we function in this House. I think we can do good work and still have some tweaks here and there when it comes to our Standing Orders, have some changes made—a bit more than what we were able to agree on last time. Last time in our interim report we were able to come out with only four recommendations. It was a little disheartening to know that we had had so many great witnesses and so many interesting ideas that came before us—such as the idea of a parallel chamber, which was a really new idea that a lot of us did not have much knowledge about—but at the end of the day, we spent most of our time talking about buses and things that were already being done and implemented.

The House of Commons has already taken the initiative to provide members with a nanny service that they can call up and pay for on an hourly basis. I think that was a great initiative. I haven't been able to make use of it yet, but we were told by officials that it was already under way. Lo and behold, that was one of the recommendations. It's a great job that the administration is taking action on that. We approve as a committee. I just wonder whether, if they hadn't taken that initiative and started that program, this committee itself would have ever been able to come up with such a recommendation.

I'm very skeptical. I don't think we would have been able to. We would have politicized it. We would have said, “Wow, what does that sound like to the Canadian people?” We wouldn't have talked about the issue as it needs to be. I think sometimes people are playing to their base, or constituents, or to how they feel, rather than just being true to themselves about what we're really discussing and laying the facts out on both sides.

There's a lot of talk about everyone wanting a free day. No one wants a free day. People want to work for the people in their community. Nobody is looking for a day off. No one here has a day off. Very rarely does anyone take a vacation. If anything, I work a lot less here than I do in my riding. Here, I'm able to get away with sitting in a room day in and day out. Today is our anniversary. For three weeks, we've done almost nothing. Would I get away with that in my riding? There's not a chance.

In a way, it's sometimes a break to come to Parliament. Because things move so slowly, we get the opportunity to have some time to think about issues while we're sitting in the House. Maybe we're not as engaged in debate as we all should be if the debate were formulated in such a way that we would have that back and forth discussion, but that's not what this House has become.

As a child growing up, I watched question period, and it was riveting. It's very interesting when you're watching it on TV. Then when you get in there and you see what's happening day in and day out—you can't even hear each other, and the yelling and the screaming—it's not so riveting anymore. When people come to see it live, they're probably not too impressed either. But I was always impressed with it on TV. I think that was something a little different about me. I enjoyed that back and forth fighting to some degree.

Coming from a background as a lawyer, I definitely thought debate was one thing.... You have to make arguments based on facts. You have to make arguments based on proof and evidence; otherwise, the judge will call you on it. You can't just go into a courtroom and make emotional arguments.

That's been definitely a big change. People ask how a life in law prepares you for life as a parliamentarian. While there are a lot of good skills you bring from a life in practising law—not that I spent a very long time practising law, but I hope to continue that one day—it's extremely different. You get a lot of good skills from it, but it's very different.

You're not focused on a point and refuting that point. Maybe every now and then a good parliamentarian does that. I think most people think it doesn't matter what the issue is, they just want to talk about it in a way that pulls at someone's heartstrings, or they can make some kind of emotional appeal out of it, rather than an argument based on numbers, facts, and some research, which is what a judge would hold them to. It's a good standard, I believe. I don't think it's necessarily a high standard. When you're debating, you should be talking about issues you can prove to be true, on both sides. Usually you can find that in any debate. You can find valid arguments on any side.

I definitely find that here in the House we occupy a lot of airtime not necessarily talking about facts, figures, and valid arguments, but sometimes working on people's emotions. I think we can do better, and the Standing Orders are a start.

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

It's always possible. Better is always possible.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

It's always possible. Better is always possible. I know you've heard that so many times that it's been ingrained in your mind. lt's been ingrained into my mind and my heart, as well.

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

Not in a good way, Ruby....

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I think that better is possible, but in order to get better we need to give it a chance, and we're not going to get.... I feel it's going to take another 100 years, or it's going to take us.... I wouldn't want to say anything negative about this Parliament, but hopefully we don't have to begin from scratch when we do make a change; hopefully, we can all come to our senses, if I may use that word, or hopefully we can all come to an agreement whereby we can start talking about these things.

I know we're not going to agree on the actual substance of things—that's fine; I understand—but let's approach them from a genuine spot whereby we're going to talk about them not according to our party lines or what the perception may be but according to the facts and what Fridays mean. My colleagues have brought up often that we can tell Canadians that parliamentarians don't want to work on Fridays. Well, that's a great way to phrase it, because it can enrage many people and make them think, “We're working really hard, so why don't parliamentarians want to work on Fridays?”

Well, it's not true. We have to get into the debate, of course. We have to get into the discussion in order to figure out what we can do about Fridays, how we can make a Friday a valuable Friday, how we can accomplish a lot more for Canadians on Fridays. What is happening right now is, I believe, much more about saving face: we keep the Fridays going. This discussion has been happening for a long time; let's keep that half day in there.

The Friday sitting starts at 10:00. Canadians don't go to work at 10:00. They go to work a lot earlier, but we don't. We have many reasons for doing things differently here. There are good reasons for some of it, isn't that right? The opposition has reasons for some of it. People have to prepare for question period. There are many tactical things that have to be worked on by House leaders. I understand.

We don't talk about it in that way. We talk about it according to the work we have to perform as parliamentarians and how we can better perform that service that we have to do here and in our ridings.

Many of our colleagues have ridings very far from Ottawa. I know that the argument has been made that some people may prefer to stay throughout the weekends or have two weeks compiled together. That's a discussion that can be had as well. There's no harm in talking about that too. We can figure those things out.

If things don't change, you may have members of Parliament such as me and some others, who enjoy this type of life to some degree and so will become involved, but you're never going to break the glass ceiling. You're never going to get to the gender balance we want to see. You're never going to get to having a lot more reasonable people entering these doors, if I may call them that.

I don't think you're going to get to that point because they don't see our job as being reasonable. There's no rhyme nor reason for some of the things we do. There really isn't. I know that for some things there is, but for some things there isn't.

Tell me the rhyme or reason in calling a vote on a motion to have the day's sitting adjourned and then voting against that motion, the very motion that you just called. Tell me the rhyme and reason in that.

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

The Simms model?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Pardon me?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The Simms model. He just wants to intervene.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Sure.

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

You asked a question. I'd love to answer.

I say to my parents' second-favourite MP, I would love to answer that question.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

What? They're my constituents, by the way.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'm the first.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

I don't even think I make the top 10, but here's hoping that—

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

—maybe some day—

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

—yes, some day.

In fairness, Ms. Sahota, the votes that came at random, which you were asking about, only started after this whole debate started, so it's in retaliation for the actions of the government.

If, as we have said many times, you withdraw what you're doing, we'll withdraw these motions, but they are the tool the opposition has, and it's not the job of the opposition to make life for the government easy. Democracy isn't always clean; it is messy sometimes, and these are the tools we have to let Canadians and people in general know that we are not happy with what you are doing. You have successfully united the free market Conservatives with the socialists. You have done something pretty remarkable, so you know you've crossed the line somewhere.