Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

It's noon.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's noon, and at noon, what will happen is—this will be sure to push the audiences away—I get the floor again, and that's the one I've really been working toward. I've been waiting for a chance to really settle in. I got to do a couple of two or three-hour speeches, but that was just to warm up my throat. I'm really looking forward to that one because on that one I can settle in, and I'll have had all week to get ready. I'm looking forward to that, and I hope we're going 24-7 then because then we could do the marathon thing. It would be great. I'm so looking forward to it, but I have a funny feeling something will happen between now and then because if they don't want that to happen today, why would they want it to happen a week from now?

What a shemozzle. You guys have just played this so poorly, so badly, and you have done so much damage to your brand, and all you have done so far is to confirm all of that.

I started to say this earlier, Chair, and because my time is starting to expire I do want to make sure that I get it on the record. We're all students of interpreting words and language but also body language, and it's been pretty clear from the outset, with maybe one exception along the way—and this is my personal opinion, if government members want a point of personal privilege, feel free—that there is not a whole lot of pride of ownership for what's going on here over on the government benches. I don't see anybody jumping in front of the cameras saying, I'm the one who thought of that strategy to ambush Reid. That was me. I did that, and my buddies here are going to support me while we crush that opposition.

No, they're pretty sheepish, and for the most part they're been doing what they're doing now. And I would do the same thing. I used to be in government and I did do the same thing, and that was I kept my head down and I read things, and if I had to look around I did it very carefully, and if I had to move, I made sure the focus was somewhere else. I just really didn't want to be there. I get the impression there are some government members who feel that way. I won't say any names. I won't go any further.

That was another thing. A lot of people who are on this committee we have worked with in camera and publicly, and we've had some fights, but we've done a lot of good work together and there is a camaraderie here and a lot of respect here and I know the kind of people who are on the opposition benches. One of them is a fellow Hamiltonian. I know the kind of campaign he ran on. I know what the message was, and I know for certain, at least for the Liberals in Hamilton, there wasn't one of them who was running on a platform of, elect us and we'll ambush the opposition better than Stephen Harper. That was not the approach.

So while the geniuses were dictating the strategy from up on high, members here on the ground knew that this was not going to fly because they knew if they were on the opposition benches they would be going out of their minds too. What do you do when something like that is going down? You just keep your head down. Anybody who is in this room can take a look at the government members and that's pretty much what they're doing right now.

Everything is more important than whatever is going on, and they're just thrilled that we're not meeting next week. I can tell you there is no happier bunch in all of Canada land than government members who are on PROC who realize they don't have to sit there and take this well-justified abuse for another seven days straight.

Again, sometimes the rules work in our favour. As much as they're thrilled to see the end of a loudmouth like me and see my time finally come to a conclusion, all I have to do is put my hand back up and get back on the list and we still can't have that vote until I'm finished for the second or twenty-second time, and the same for Mr. Reid, and Mr. Richards and Mr. Albrecht, if he wants to join in too.

The government have no one to blame but themselves. What a mess. Now somehow, and what they've done....

Chair, I think I have maybe five minutes left because you wanted a couple of minutes to make some concluding remarks. Very good, Chair, give me a nod when you're looking to me.

We know that the government does not want to be sitting here day after day after day, and what the government has done now is blinked. They have realized that their declaration of war didn't work because the opposition members are not the ones who blinked, it's the government. They knew we were getting stronger and now the budget is over more and more pundits, analysts, and people are starting to turn their minds to what is going on, and I haven't seen a positive write-up on the government's actions yet.

I'm sure there are some out there, and some may start doing that now that I've said it, but I haven't seen a whole lot of articles saying that we are being obstructionist here and that we in the opposition are the problem. The ones who are starting to turn their mind to this and look at it and understand in a serious way what's going on understand that this is a fight that the government set up, that the government picked. It was hoping to trample the rights and ride roughshod over the opposition benches, and all it did was unify the opposition against such unfair, undemocratic actions. We are getting stronger by the day and will get stronger still. The government knows it has to fold. The blink next week was the first indication, and now it has seven days to figure out how the hell to get out of this mess. Then it still has the problem it started with, which is that it would like to make some changes to the House. I'm sure it would like to get a few advantages. Some of it may actually be goodwill, but now the thing is such a mess. Look where it is. This is what happens when you say you're going to be one way and you act another.

How many times have we said to the Liberals, “you're so good at running on the left and governing on the right”? Democratic reform is the poster child for that scenario. This government talked up a democratic reform argument that was as good as anything the NDP or the Greens could come up with, and the proof of that is the number of seats that it got in the election.

But actions like this on how we pass laws are so opposite to what every member of the Liberal caucus said during the campaign and what their Prime Minister has said. I don't know where the government goes now, but it needs a stand-down.

Mr. Simms, Mr. Richards, and I have tried night and day, literally in the middle of the night, having side meetings with you. We've been the ones giving suggestions to you to give to the government about how we can get out of this. We've done everything we can to be reasonable to get out of this quagmire, because there is some good work we'd like to get to. It just got a whole lot tougher for the government to get out of this.

If you think you can do this to us and then just say, “Oh sorry, we didn't mean to upset you. We got a little crazy there. Sorry, we'll go back to our sunny ways.” No, this does damage. It does damage to your brand. It does damage to this relationship. The one chance you have to salvage this will be the way you decide to create your exit ramp and your exit strategy out of this boondoggle.

Mr. Simms, there's probably a little bit of goodwill left, but I have to tell you, the string's running out fast. We're running out of runway here, to mix my metaphors. Your government has been so vicious in this process that it's getting harder and harder to find an amicable way down. I can only urge the government to reconsider how it's approaching this, because if the government thinks that it's going to double down when we come back and that somehow we're going to get weaker in our opposition, then it has once again misread this situation. We get stronger by the day. Mr. Richards has read out the kind of support that's starting to come in across the country as people realize what this government is trying to do to unilaterally, through a power grab, change the way laws are made in our Parliament. That's what's at stake. That's what's going on, and the rights of the minority and all of these things are at stake.

Mr. Chair, I will conclude by saying I hope the government, when it creates its exit strategy....

I can't believe you're going to double down on this. You can't be that politically tone-deaf as to say, “okay, the reason that didn't work was that we weren't tough enough. We weren't nasty enough. We weren't vicious enough. We weren't tricky enough.” Hopefully that's not the attitude. What we need is a whole different attitude and an approach that takes us back to where we were as quickly as possible from this viciousness and back to working together as we were and we were going to on Tuesday. Again I end by saying the government started this fight, but let me tell you, the opposition united will end it.

The only question is when, and how much more damage to the government brand there will be in the process.

Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I look forward to being back here again a week from Monday at noon to continue our review of the government's current ways.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

I will take a couple of minutes. It's been a long week, and I just want to thank the people who have helped us out this week and everyone who has worked long hours, the interpreters, the technical staff, the Library of Parliament researcher, our clerk, who has done such a great job, his assistants, and of course, all the members and their many substitutes, who have worked long hours to stand up for their beliefs on the best way to operate Parliament for the benefit of Canadians.

Yesterday, I asked members to approach me about when they wanted to suspend last night and what they wanted to do next week, and everyone who approached me said they would prefer to have next week off.

I hope you have a busy constituency week, and you'll be itching to get back here with this more relaxed schedule.

We will suspend until high noon on Monday, April 3.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We're back to the 55th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This meeting is being televised.

Colleagues, I've been informed that the House leaders are in discussion, which a lot of the committee members asked for. To give them time to try to work something out, I'm going to suspend until four o'clock on Wednesday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good afternoon. Welcome back to the 55th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The meeting is being televised. The meeting was last suspended on April 3. Mr. Christopherson was the last member to have the floor when the meeting was suspended.

There are a couple of points. I'm planning on going on a regular schedule today, like we were before, roughly until midnight. It depends on what you do. If you come to some agreement, or if the House leaders do, that would be great, but if not, roughly it will be midnight tonight.

There will be same type of schedule tomorrow, from nine to midnight, but I had forgotten one thing about tomorrow. I have talked to all the parties about it. We had arranged that we would suspend for question period, but that we also would meet the chair of the Scottish Parliament at one o'clock tomorrow. I propose that instead of suspending for just one hour for question period, we suspend for two hours, so that those who want to—it's an informal meeting—can meet the speaker of the Scottish Parliament.

It will be held in this room. It will be totally informal. There will be no recording, or minutes, or anything for that particular hour.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Well, I was thinking of seeing if we make some progress today or tomorrow and then deciding, but....

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I understand now that it will be until midnight tonight, and you said tomorrow from 9 a.m. until—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Midnight.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

To midnight with the break from...? I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The break is from one to three o'clock.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

It will be from one to three, more or less. Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's subject to votes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Then, as far as Friday goes, you'd like to wait to see whether or not it's necessary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes. We'll see how things are going during the day on Thursday.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

That's very helpful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay?

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Just to confirm, it was my understanding that the second hour was so that we could receive the Scottish speaker. Correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's in the first hour from one to two o'clock.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes. I think all of us are in agreement that we don't want to let our domestic differences get in the way of our international obligations, so I'm pleased to see we are all in agreement to do that while we still have this domestic battle.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay. That's good.

The clerk has reserved this room all week so we shouldn't have a problem procedure-wise. There will be food for dinner this evening after the votes, if you can last that long.

Okay. We have Mr. Christopherson, and we have distributed a paper by Ms. May.

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

May I...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay. Go ahead.

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

I appreciate Mr. Christopherson giving way, as they say in the British Parliament.

I was visiting the British Parliament, and it inspired some of what I've given us here. I'm grateful for a chance to distribute the paper. I hope it's helpful. It is a response to the government paper, with ideas that I think would make Parliament work better, and also, of course, it's a plea that we find a way forward in this committee so that we have a shared approach to how we reach decisions.

I don't want to trespass on any more of your time, Mr. Chair. I'm very grateful for the official tabling of the standing order proposals that I've made in both official languages.

Thank you very much for allowing me the privilege of participating in this committee meeting.

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

If Mr. Christopherson would allow me two seconds to respond, I want to thank the leader of the Green Party for taking the time to draft a response to the government House leader's paper. We look forward to reviewing it and commenting.

I will pass on your paper, and I look forward to having an opportunity to table a response.