I think that sort of summarizes things.
Like Finnegans Wake, this brings us back by circumlocution to Minister Chagger's comments. Minister Chagger's comments, I think, while not unreasonable, are incorrect, and for the following reason.
She says the Liberals made a number of campaign commitments with regard to the Standing Orders and no one else should be able to have a veto over them. I have to admit, I think agree. I think she has a point. But I went to the Liberal election platform, “Real Change: A New Plan for a Strong Middle Class”. This was the platform the Liberal Party put out during the last election. Like all platforms, it deals with everything from soup to nuts. The things at the front end that are emphasized are economic security for the middle class, the middle-class tax cut, ending unfair tax breaks, opportunities for young Canadians, and retirement issues.
It then moves on to other issues of a similar top-of-mind nature: housing—you'll see where I'm going with this in a second—post-secondary education, a health accord with the provinces, and fighting poverty. That's obviously an area in which the federal government is to some degree constrained by the federal nature of our system. There is more middle-class stuff: jobs and skills training, stronger and greener communities, public transit, agriculture, unions, labour-sponsored funds, supporting caregivers, employment insurance, child care and healthier kids, Canada's north, and helping educators.
Now we're getting closer to what's being discussed. “Open and Transparent Government” is the name of a chapter. This deals with, among other things, access to information, personal information, open data, and open Parliament, which is the first thing we hit that might potentially, at first glance, relate to standing order changes.
This is on page 25: “The Liberal Party was the first to require its members to proactively disclose travel and hospitality expenses.” I actually didn't know that, but apparently that's true.
This does give me a chance to point out that for several years over the past years I've had the lowest travel expenses of any member of Parliament. I'm very proud of that fact, although, thanks to the electoral reform committee, that won't be true for 2016.
The chapter continues:
It is time for all Parliamentarians to do the same. We will make government more accountable by requiring all Parliamentarians to disclose their expenses in a common and detailed manner, each quarter.
We will end the secrecy surrounding the Board of Internal Economy–the group responsible for regulating spending by Members of Parliament. Except in rare cases requiring confidentiality, meetings of this group will be open to the public.
That's not a standing order change—that's not how it's done—but I guess you could in theory try to link the Standing Orders to this. That's a possibility. I'm not sure if Minister Chagger had this in mind when she made her comment, but I feel confident in saying that if there were standing order changes contemplated that dealt with the disclosure of parliamentary expenses, I don't think we'd have trouble getting consensus on that.
Regarding the entirety of “the secrecy surrounding the Board of Internal Economy”, my guess is that, in practice, we would want.... I think everybody agrees that maybe it's more secret than it needs to be, but I think there are some things that have to be discussed confidentially, such as accusations that are not yet grounded against individuals. For example, I think the Board of Internal Economy dealt with the accusations of sexual impropriety, at least in the initial stages, that arose in the last Parliament. Obviously, you want that kind of thing to be confidential. I believe it also deals with issues related to litigation that involve members of Parliament. That stuff, I think everybody agrees, has to stay secret.
I can see a situation in which you might consider using the Standing Orders as one way of moving it towards something that more closely approximates the in camera proceedings of our committees, that is to say, where there is still some form of reporting back from the board on those items that need not be kept secret. In a general sense, letting in greater sunlight in its proceedings might be reasonable.
They then deal extensively with matters that relate to our mandate as a committee. Open and fair elections are part of the platform, starting on page 26. This includes government advertising, banning partisan government ads, a number of ways of increasing political fairness in elections, and political financing, including the closing of political financing loopholes.
Mr. Stewart asked earlier about what might be found in the legislation Minister Gould is preparing for us. I suspect that we will find some of the answers here, or at least a hint as to an answer here. On page 27, it says:
When fixed election date legislation was introduced, it left a loophole that allows unlimited spending in the period before an election is called. That creates an uneven playing field.
We will review the limits on how much political parties can spend during elections, and ensure that spending between elections is subject to limits as well.
It seems reasonable to guess that the legislation Minister Gould proposes might well contain provisions enacting that promise.
They're proposing an independent commission to organize leaders' debates.
On electoral reform, it says:
We will make every vote count.
We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.
We will convene an all-party...committee to review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting. This committee will deliver its recommendations to Parliament. Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform.
It would more or less be almost exactly right now that legislation would have been introduced. We know the whole history here. Everybody on this committee knows what happened. That committee was struck. It reported back and made a recommendation, which the government decided not to take.