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.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I'm enjoying this thoroughly, so don't get me wrong. There is one precedent when the motion to set up the McGrath report did not require unanimous consent. That was from the Journals of December 5, 1984. It did achieve consent. It achieved the unanimity that was sought after, so I applaud them for that. That's just a point of interest.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
Thank you, Scott, for saying that. I mean that. Perhaps a better way to state that was that there's never been an occasion, that I'm aware of, when a committee has not achieved unanimous recommendations to changing the Standing Orders. It may not have been in the directive, but it achieved itself in the final results. That's my point.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
Now let's talk about the Standing Orders themselves, why they are so important, and why they have to be treated with such a great deal of respect. There can be abuses. I've given a couple of examples already, and there are many more where a government in a majority situation could use the Standing Orders to benefit themselves politically. That is simply not the purpose or the intent or the objective of Standing Orders. Our legitimate fear is that with the proposed changes you are bringing forward, you—meaning the government—would have the right to abuse the ability and the rights of opposition members to do their job. That's simply not in the cards.
I'll give you two examples. You are suggesting, for example, that answers to questions on the Order Paper be extended from 45 days to 65 days. Why? I've never heard a good answer as to why. It's been 45 days for as long as I can remember. I gave examples of how, when the Liberals were in opposition, they tried to kneecap the government by asking questions that were so detailed and so lengthy that it took almost a full staff of people within individual departments to do nothing but answer questions on the Order Paper. It was a tactic used by the opposition, but we didn't say, “Okay, let's change the timing from 45 days to 65 days to give us more time.”
We left it the way it was, and had we wanted to change it from 45 days to 65 days, we would have gone to an all-party committee and asked for unanimous consent. You guys haven't done that. You want to make those changes unilaterally, and to whose benefit? It's to your benefit, to the government's benefit, to the Liberals' benefit. It's not to the benefit of parliamentarians. It's to the benefit of one party and one party only. That's simply not the way we should be approaching this very serious issue.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate the fact that I've been given an opportunity to speak, and I've talked briefly on some of my experiences and why I feel this to be important, but I'm going to wrap up now and cede my time, or at least give the time back, to my colleague, Mr. Nater, because I have an appointment at eight o'clock.
I just want to leave the government with this. Even though it may be repetitive, it's certainly relevant, and the two Rs are what we're looking for when we have a filibuster going like this: relevance and repetition. The relevancy of this is not lost on anyone. I know that. This is a serious subject, which should be dealt with in a like manner.
I can only stress that—if government members were on this side of the table and we were on that side of the table, and we were attempting to do what you are attempting to do—there would be holy hell to pay, without question, and you know that as well as I do.
We're not going to back off from this fight, nor should we, and I'm not asking you to put up a white flag of surrender. I'm merely suggesting that the government come to its senses and try to work meaningfully with members of the opposition. If it truly believes the changes it is recommending to the Standing Orders are in the best interests of all parliamentarians, it shouldn't be a difficult argument to convince members of the opposition. That is all I'm asking the government to consider and to consider seriously.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to continuing this discussion next week.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski, for bringing your history to us. I know you were nine years on the committee, so it's very helpful to hear what happened in those nine years.
We'll return to Mr. Nater.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's great to have the floor back.
I, too, thank Mr. Lukiwski for his comments and his learned experience from many years as parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
I know members of this committee were waiting with bated breath to see what next would come in the report of Walter Baker, and I won't keep anyone in suspense much longer.
Where I left off, we were talking a bit about committees, and there have been suggestions in the past about the actual shape and structure of the House of Commons itself. Ours is set up in the traditional Westminster system with the opposition and government on either side facing each other. There are other methods of doing that as well. Often the structure of a building, the structure of an institution does play a role in how that institution functions. Sitting here at this committee table today, for as long as I've been following politics, this has been the structure of a committee room. We have the government, the opposition. We have the chair, analyst, clerks, and we have a location for witnesses; and that frankly makes sense from an intuitive standpoint. However, that's not actually the traditional structure of the committee room.
Prior to this report the committee table was in a U-shape. There was no table at the far end for witnesses. In fact, the witnesses at a committee would sit beside the chair, so certainly that would change the committee structure of how that business interacts. The questions that would be put, how they're put, and how the discussion unwinds are certainly going to be different when you're speaking towards the chair, rather than when you're speaking to witnesses themselves.
This report, in point number 24 of the report, suggests that “Witnesses called by a committee should sit at a different table, facing the committee, rather than beside the Chairman. The present “U” set-up could be utilized with the table for witnesses at the top of the “U”.” Then it goes on to say, “Departmental officials should, as required by the Minister, sit at that table with the Minister.” So when a minister would attend a committee they would sit there as well.
Again, it's not clear in this report what the motivation for this recommendation would be, but I suspect that it would deal a bit with decorum. When you're facing the chair and addressing your questions to the witnesses you're more inclined, I would say, to address them directly to the witnesses because you're facing the same direction. As is custom we address questions through the chair. Having the chair and the witnesses at different ends provides a bit of a distance to ideally address the questions through the chair. In practice that hasn't been the case, at least not in all cases, and more often than not questions are posed directly to witnesses.
In the great scheme of things, I don't think it's a major catastrophe for a committee, but it is an interesting dilemma in which the way the committee is structured, the way the actual tables themselves are put together, changes the dynamic of a committee and how it's structured.
Another proposal is actually the membership size of committees. Their recommendation is that membership should be reduced to a maximum of 11 to make it a more manageable size of committee. Ours is currently 10. Arguments can always be made for different sizes of committee. I think it lends itself to some discretion depending on the issue, depending on the debate, depending on the types of issues being discussed, how large or how small a committee ought to be. That's recognized, I think, by this discussion paper.
Another important topic when it comes to committees is how they interact with their client departments, how they interact with the information that comes to them from a department, whether it's an annual report, as they were called.... Now, in current Parliaments, it would be a departmental performance report, reports on plans and priorities, any other number of reports that come from the respective departments.
A recommendation made by Walter Baker in 1979 was that the annual reports of all departments, agencies, and crown corporations should be referred permanently and automatically to the relevant standing committee. Again, it's a common sense approach. If you know these committees are responsible for a specific issue of a department, they shouldn't necessarily be referred to that committee. By structuring it and by including it in the Standing Orders, that allows this to happen automatically when it happens.
Again, it's an idea that isn't groundbreaking, but it makes good common sense. As I've mentioned before, there are a number of ideas represented here that were adopted. Certainly this is one that has been adopted.
There are others that haven't been adopted for any number of reasons. This next one I find interesting because I can see some common sense in it, but at the same time I can also see how it could be abused. It's recommendation 28 from the Walter Baker report. The recommendation is that “No more than five such committee studies may be underway at any time”, referring to a previous comment. I find that interesting. From an efficiency standpoint, we can probably think of examples in past Parliaments, or even from the current Parliament—I'm not aware of any currently—of committees getting bogged down with multiple studies, jumping from one study to another, and trying to schedule an hour of discussion on one study, another hour on another, to the point that a committee can't really function in any meaningful way. I'm not aware of any currently, but you can see where that could potentially come into play.
Having an upper limit on the number of studies that can take place at any one time would make sense from an efficiency standpoint. I can buy that argument, and I think it can be sold from that perspective. At the same time, when you're putting a limit on the number of studies that a committee can undertake, it is potentially unduly interfering with those committees. If a committee decides to undertake six studies or seven studies at any one time, I suspect they should be provided with that flexibility and opportunity to do so. Sometimes, as witnesses go, it's not possible to have a particular witness available at any given time, so you may let a committee study sit and slide for a number of weeks, potentially even months, until a specific witness or information is available.
There's an argument to be made on either side. In this case, it wasn't a suggestion that was adopted, for whatever reason. I was not privy to that specific issue, but it provides that point of debate. Going back to the motion and the amendment at hand, it goes back to that concept of agreement from multiple parties, agreement from those who are sitting around the table. Obviously, for whatever reason, this one did not have that agreement.
Another issue is government bills and the priority in which they come to committee. Again this is one that would be more beneficial to a government, and again it has to do with give and take. When you have a discussion paper, when you have a discussion being put forward by a government, immediately, if it's all one-sided, if it's all a heavy-handed approach by the government, it's going to be seen that way. If there are proposals on the alternatives in allowing members, private members, backbench members.... I don't like the term “backbenchers”. I think it's somewhat derogatory, somewhat negative, but we use it because it's common parlance. I know I use it frequently when I write documents. I don't like it, but I don't think there's a better alternative. Anyway, that would provide all those with the opportunities.
This is one such proposal that is actually to the benefit of the government. That's providing the priority that, when a government bill comes to a committee, it takes priority over all other business of that committee. It's something that certainly benefits a government, from an efficient, progression-of-business standpoint, allowing them the opportunity to make sure that you don't get bogged down by another study or another issue that's before a committee that would very likely prevent a bill from coming forward for any length of time, especially when we all sit on parliamentary committees.
This isn't my own committee—I sit on the official languages committee—but we undertake a number of studies, and sometimes they, too, take several months to undertake. If that delay happens with a government bill, we can certainly see the concern, from a government standpoint, that their legislation could unduly be hampered by committee business of other studies. Having that mechanism in place would certainly benefit a government, potentially at the expense of a committee. That's one of the trade-offs, certainly, that would have been debated, would have been discussed, and would have come to some form of resolution at the time.
There's another thing that we currently take for granted. I mentioned at the outset of my comments my thanks to our committee staff, the researchers and the clerks, and we somewhat take for granted that they're there. They provide guidance, they provide expertise, they provide advice, and we assume that they will always be there. That hasn't always been the case. That research ability, that research function, hasn't always been there, certainly not to the degree currently provided by House of Commons staff and the Library of Parliament.
The recommendation Walter Baker put forward was that research staff should be provided to the committees in addition to the staff from the parliamentary library and through special research budgets for individual investigations, as considered appropriate by the commissioners of internal economy, which is, again, the Board of Internal Economy as we know it today. Further, the research staff should be administered by the committee clerk on behalf of the House.
Again, it's something we take for granted today, the expert opinions and advice we are provided, but that hasn't always been the case. Certainly, I'm fairly confident this is something that would have received wide approval from all parliamentarians at the time, and would have certainly been approved at that point. Again, something that makes sense hasn't always been the case, and sometimes it does take time.
There are arguments, even in the current day, that we should see an even greater extension of research abilities given to parliamentary committees. That's a worthwhile discussion. The structure of committees has changed over the years, and perhaps it is an opportunity to have a discussion on whether more independent research guidance is to be there.
I did make mention a couple of minutes ago of the point about the government proposing to have all government bills take priority at committee. That's certainly to the benefit of the government. Again, you can't have a discussion paper if you don't go the opposite direction as well.
Another proposal by Walter Baker was number 33, which was that the government should be required to table a response to all committee reports within 21 sitting days. Now, 21 sitting days is no longer the case. I'm trying to think of the number off the top of my head, but it's sufficiently more than 21 sitting days. Again, this is a proposal that the government House leader makes that would bind his cabinet colleagues to respond to committee reports within slightly more than four calendar weeks, 21 sitting days. This is not a short process, and not an easy opportunity to respond to comprehensive committee reports, but nonetheless, an opportunity for committees to not only submit a meaningful contribution to a discussion, to a debate, but also a requirement that the government respond, and take action in response to those committees.
This is a very significant process, and a very important discussion, where we have this back and forth in an actual discussion paper that presents options on both sides that would benefit more than just the government, in the same way that you wouldn't want an opposition discussion paper only benefiting the opposition.
We often think that we'll be in office forever, I'm sure. I've never served on the government side, and have only been here a year and a half. I would hope that at some point, and we'll see what the next election brings, we would someday sit on the government side. The government members, I'm sure, would prefer to stay on their side of the House as long as they can, but as is the joy of democracy, we do lose elections from time to time, and we do take our opposite sides. We need to be sure that we have the opportunity to see ourselves in a position on both sides of the House.
It makes me think of some of my university days sitting through some of the lectures, which I'm sure were far more exciting than my current lecture I'm giving right now. I remember political philosophy classes, and there was a scholar by the name of Rawls who had the concept of the veil of ignorance. If you were going to be born into a society with a veil of ignorance, not knowing into what situation in life you'd be born into, what type of world would you like to see?
I think of that in relation to this. In any given election, you cannot be sure in what position in the House you will be sitting. You can't be sure you'll be a government minister, government backbencher, opposition frontbencher, critic, opposition backbencher, potentially a third party, or an independent. You don't have that knowledge.
As Rawls would write, being born with a veil of ignorance is like being elected with a veil of ignorance as well. What type of House? What type of Parliament do you want to enter into when you're not sure what side of the House you will be sitting on? As I've gone through this report, I think we've illustrated that. Let's have a discussion where we can see either side from either perspective, not one that's going to be unilaterally to the benefit of the opposition or the government.
My colleague Mr. Lukiwski, who has now been replaced by Mr. Waugh and Mr. Richards as well, did talk a little bit about the estimates process.
The estimates process is a fascinating beast. It truly is. Members may recall that, during the last supply bill, I raised a point of order. I had some significant concerns with the way in which that supply bill was being used to legislate by means of the estimates. The Speaker ruled against it, with some precedent, as is his duty, but it was nonetheless an important discussion on the important usage and in some cases potentially misuse of the estimates process.
The estimates are a long-time challenge for a government and for an opposition. Some colleagues will know a gentleman by the name of Hugh Segal. He served in the Senate, the other place, for a little over 10 years I believe. He is now the master of Massey College in Toronto.
I knew Senator Segal as a professor at Queen's University. I had the privilege of taking a course with him when I was doing graduate studies there. He had a distinct interest in the estimates process, especially what's called the deemed rule, which says estimates are deemed to have been reported back to the House by a certain date if the committee hasn't done so.
His concern with that rule is that it goes against the principle of parliamentary supremacy over the purse, the principle that all government spending must have parliamentary approval. Of course, being far more knowledgeable than I am, he would go back to the Magna Carta, which I think Mr. Genuis has discussed in past meetings. I'm not nearly as familiar with the Magna Carta as my colleague Garnett would be, so I won't go into that, but Senator Segal would highlight the fact that the deemed rule, the deemed principle, goes against some of that primacy of Parliament having that authority over the purse.
Certainly, it was under a Liberal government that the change was made, and I would point out that it was with opposition agreement. It was the opposition Conservatives at the time under the Right Honourable Bob Stanfield, as he was named after leaving politics. That's an example of a situation directly related to the estimates where a significant change was made, one that by some arguments could offend the principles of parliamentary supremacy of the Magna Carta even. It was, nonetheless, made with the consent of opposition parties, with some discussion, with some give and take.
That change was made in the early seventies. I believe it was 1972. I believe it was actually a minority Parliament at that time post-1972, a time in which the then prime minister Trudeau's minority had about two seats more than Stanfield's Conservatives at the time, but nonetheless that was in the early seventies. This paper we're discussing right now is in the late seventies, 1979.
The proposals that are made in this paper in relation to the estimates are interesting because we will recognize some of these changes from our current operation.
The first proposal under the subject of supply—“supply” being another word for the estimates concept—is at point 37. “At the nomination of the Leader of the Opposition, two departments should be exempted from the end of June deadline, subject only to the Government's right to move closure”. That provides an opportunity to have a little more discussion, a little more debate that can occur on those issues.
Another point is that the departmental estimates should be debatable on allotted days with questions put 15 minutes before adjournment hour.
Allotted days, in current form referred to as opposition days, are very much a function of the supply process though, of the estimates process. In traditional debate, it would be focused on the estimates and the processes within them. Now we see that process moved to a far more policy or political standpoint rather than one based on supply. That certainly has changed the functioning of those days and certainly hasn't seen a rule change associated with our Standing Orders change but has nonetheless changed how those operate.
Another point, the third recommendation on the subject of supply—and again it's one that we're aware of and we've seen not in the most recent supply period but in the previous one—is that notices of opposition or committee reports eliminating part of an item or vote should be procedurally acceptable and put to a vote in the House. These are opposed items that we see from time to time in the House of Commons in the supply process when that happens.
It's basically making a disagreement with an element of supply, and incidentally as well, one cannot increase the supply to a department, one can only decrease it. There have been situations in the past where symbolically a department's estimates have been decreased by $1. That certainly has no meaningful impact but it's an argument made that there's a disagreement by the committee, a disagreement by the House, with that particular department for one reason or another.
It could be that the funding is actually too low in that department. That has happened in the past where committees have actually decreased a department's estimates by $1 but with the argument that it's a symbolic gesture.
I know in the past, two former Governor Generals ago, I believe it was under Governor General Clarkson, the committee decreased the Governor General's budget by I believe around 10% as an argument against spending that was undertaken at Rideau Hall at that time. It received great coverage in the media at the time but it was significantly more of a symbolic gesture, although that decrease would have affected the operation of Rideau Hall at the time.
Another issue is that whenever you have a long report you always need a miscellaneous category at the end, and this report is no different. You can't always have everything neatly in one or two categories, so having a miscellaneous category is always a good option. He makes the observation in his introduction, “Many observers have concluded that speeches in the House of Commons are too long, and frequently too repetitive and without a strict regard for relevancy.” I'm sure some people are thinking that may apply to me at this very point.
The recommendation was made by Walter Baker at the time to limit the length of speeches in the House to 20 minutes from the present 40. Of course, we know that was eventually adopted.
What I think is perhaps missing from the discussion is the additional time that's included in those debates as well with questions and answers. A 20-minute speech does provide an additional 10 minutes, a 30-minute contribution to the House. I know there are some who would appreciate the opportunity to speak significantly longer than 20 minutes in the House. I know one colleague from my side, and I can think of a certain colleague from the Liberal side, who have meaningful contributions that could significantly take up longer than 20 minutes, and if given the opportunity, I think they would enjoy that.
We do have some mechanisms in the House that allow for unlimited speeches in the House and I think that is an important note we need to make. For example, the Leader of the Opposition or the Prime Minister on a matter can speak for an unlimited period of time. There are situations where the first speaker to a bill or a motion does have the opportunity to speak to an unlimited time.
I think those things are important to have, and again, it represents a bit of a back and forth, a bit of a discussion, in which both the government and the opposition have the opportunity to have their say.
The second point that's made within this miscellaneous category is that.... It's point number 42. I think this is interesting because it makes a recommendation but then it doesn't provide a lot of further information to go with it.
It's on the rules of relevancy and repetition. The recommendation is simply, “The rules of relevancy and non-repetition in debate should be enforced.” It doesn't spell out how and under what circumstances something is repetitive. Is it repetition within a single speech? Is it repetition by one's self from a former speech in a current speech? Is it repetition within the House as a whole? Is someone putting forward new points or not?
It doesn't clarify that, and I think, in the current day, we could still have that debate. If I want to give a bit of a spoiler alert going forward, one of the next things I want to talk about is Standing Order 11. Standing Order 11 includes the component of relevancy and non-repetition. I'm going to be talking about that a little bit more, not specifically on that side of things, but on the other half of Standing Order 11. It's one of those issues that we should have a debate on and we should have a discussion on. What does constitute this?
I think we've probably all sat in the House on some matters that may be seen as routine, may be seen as a little bit mundane and a little bit grey. Why are we debating this time and time again? We may see some elements of repetition, some relevancy, called into order there. Perhaps it is worth a discussion on how we can change Standing Order 11, how we can change the interpretation and the application of it.
As it stands today, the Speaker and former Speakers for many years have ruled with great latitude, both in repetition and relevancy, to the point that in almost every situation it's simply a nudge or a stern warning to return to relevancy and to the question at hand, rather than a meaningful impact. There's a discussion that could be had there. Again, this was 1979. We're here nearly 38 years later, and we're still having that. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have the debate. It just means that it has been a repetitive debate for a period of time.
Before I move on from the position paper, I do think it's worthwhile to talk about the conclusion and the final comments that Walter Baker shared in this position paper:
Most of the procedures represent added opportunities for the House in general and the Opposition in particular. The time available for government business would, in compensation, expand slightly with the shortening of speech timing and a reduction in the number of Opposition Days. In general, it is hoped the changes will make the House of Commons more searching in its enquiries, and more focused in its debates.
There we have it as a real summation of the purpose of a meaningful discussion paper. Yes, the government is seeking something. The government in 1979, under the Honourable Walter Baker and Prime Minister Joe Clark, is seeking something. They're seeking a little bit more efficiency with debates, a little bit more time that they can have government orders in the House, whether it be government bills, whether it be government procedures. In the alternative, they're opening up the process, whether it be for private members' business or whether it be for committee work. They're making it harder on themselves, in a way, but they're also getting something in return. That's the point, I think, of an effective discussion paper; it's an effective opportunity to really have a meaningful contribution. That's where I hope we can go with this committee. That's really where I hope we can go with this study.
I'm not going to repeat what Mr. Christopherson said yesterday, but I would note that even the delivery of the discussion paper makes it challenging to go forward in a meaningful way. If we can at least come to an agreement to moving forward and have a discussion without the threat of a guillotine cutting off debate on this matter in favour of an individual proposal that would benefit only one party....
I'm going through my notes here, and I notice that I included another quote.
My riding is Perth—Wellington. Beautiful Perth—Wellington is home to the Stratford Festival, which I would encourage all members to come and visit. The Stratford Festival is kind enough to provide two complimentary tickets to parliamentarians. I would encourage members to take advantage of that.
I'm reminded—I think my staff threw this in here—of a quote from the Bard:
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
Perhaps.
I did give a bit of a spoiler alert. We all have our favourite standing orders. We all have a standing order that, from time to time, we like to read, do research on, and look at when we can't fall asleep at night.
I'm sure that goes for everyone and not just me, right?
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
My favourite standing order is Standing Order 11, so much so that when I was a young graduate student at Western University, the first academic conference I attended was actually here on Parliament Hill. It was in 2011. It was hosted by the Bell Chair at Carleton University, named after Dick and Ruth Bell, two prominent Ottawans. Dick Bell was a government minister under John Diefenbaker and he passed away several years ago, in the 1980s. Ruth Bell was a prominent women's rights advocate. Her memoir was Be a “Nice” Girl! in reference to a situation where she was asked to sign over her voting rights to a bank chair at an annual meeting. So she made a significant contribution.
The Bell family endowed a chair at Carleton University on the study of parliamentary democracy in Canada. In 2011 they hosted a conference entitled “Democracy at a Crossroads?” It was hosted both here at Parliament Hill, next door in the Commonwealth Room where I delivered a paper, and at Carleton University.
At the time, I had this interest in Standing Order 11, and I decided to put pen to paper. It wasn't actually pen to paper, it was fingers to a keyboard, and I typed away on Standing Order 11.
I'm going to read Standing Order 11 into the record. Paragraph 11(1)(a) states:
The Speaker shall be vested with the authority to maintain order by naming individual Members for disregarding the authority of the Chair and, without resort to motion, ordering their withdrawal for the remainder of that sitting, notwithstanding Standing Order 15.
It goes on to say this in paragraph 11(1)(b):
In the event of a Member disregarding an order of the Chair made pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section, the Speaker shall order the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove the Member.
The second part of Standing Order 11, paragraph 11(2), is the order against irrelevance or repetition:
The Speaker or the Chair of Committees of the Whole, after having called the attention to the House, or of the Committee, to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance, or repetition, may direct the Member to discontinue his or her speech, and if then the Member still continues to speak, the Speaker shall name the Member or, if in Committee of the Whole, the Chair shall report the Member to the House.
Irrelevance or repetition is a side issue. My interest is in the naming side of things. Those who follow the Ontario legislature from time to time will know that naming is a fairly common occurrence in that legislature. Just last week, a member from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Bill Walker, a fairly mild-mannered member, was removed from the Ontario legislature for disregarding the authority of the chair for not withdrawing comments he made in relation to school closures directed at the Minister of Education. The Speaker saw the wisdom, as is his right, to remove the member for the remainder of the sitting day.
Members may recall that a few years ago two members of the Ontario legislature were asked to be removed but did not willingly leave the legislature. That was Bill Murdoch, a fairly unique character who was certainly well known in Ontario; and Randy Hillier, another MP. They refused to leave the legislature. It was almost a filibuster but without spoken words; they simply sat there. For as long as they sat there, they remained in the legislature—
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, listening to Mr. Nater talk about the issue in the Ontario legislature and how that was dealt with, I thought it would be interesting for committee members to hear about when I had the chance to visit the Knesset in Israel while a session was going on there. A couple of members of one of the smaller parties were causing a lot of disturbance, heckling some other members and things such as that. It eventually got to the point where I guess it was security who came right in and escorted the two members out. They didn't have to end up grabbing them and escorting them, but they were obviously coming to do so. As they approached, the two men decided maybe it would be a good time to get up and leave. It was an interesting thing in that it was a different way of approaching and handling the situation.
I thought maybe members of the committee, and Mr. Nater in particular, since it was something that he obviously was displaying an interest in, might be interested in hearing about that. It's an interesting comparison.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Absolutely.
That leads into a point that I think this committee would be interested in, which is that we are not the only parliament in the world. We are not the only legislature. We don't have a monopoly on good ideas. We're not the best legislature in the world, and we're not the worst either. I don't think we could ever find one perfect, shining example of the perfect way of doing things, but that doesn't mean we can't look to our colleagues internationally for best practices. We can look for opportunities to improve this place, and I think we can do that meaningfully.
The committee's report on a family-friendly House was an exceptionally good first step, and I think there's a lot more this committee can do. Where the challenge for the opposition rests is in doing so within the time period set forth by the motion, without the subsequent amendment that we're speaking of.
I was speaking a little on Standing Order 11, removal from the House. In a situation in the Ontario legislature, if a member doesn't leave willingly—if they are required to be escorted out by the Sergeant-at-Arms because they refuse to do so—they are not only suspended for that day. They are suspended for the entire session and cannot re-enter the legislative chamber until a new election or a prorogation of the legislature. It's a significant issue for a legislator to be banned from exercising their duties in the legislature for a significant period of time—potentially months, potentially years, depending on when a legislature may prorogue—so it's a significant concept.
In the case of Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Hillier, they refused to leave, so the Speaker ordered them suspended for the remainder of the session. They simply stayed there for several days, sleeping there overnight. The Speaker made special exceptions for certain issues that needed to be dealt with that wouldn't have been appropriate within a chamber, but nonetheless they were required to stay there for a period of time. When they finally lost interest, they eventually left.
Incidentally, now that I think about it, as luck would have it and as I mentioned at the beginning, today is Tartan Day, and I believe it was actually Tartan Day when this happened. One of the members was wearing a kilt that time, so he was wearing the same kilt and the same outfit for several days after living and sleeping in the legislature.
I say that as an example of a provincial legislature that more forcefully and more frequently uses this concept of naming. I'm a new member in the House of Commons. I have served here for a year and a half, and I know there are more experienced members. I think Mr. Richards has been here since 2008.
Mr. Chair, I know you were here in previous Parliaments, and Mr. Simms as well.
When I started researching this project, I was struck by the use of this Standing Order in Parliament. At the time, I titled my paper “What's in a Naming: The Speaker's Use and Disuse of Standing Order 11”. I didn't say “misuse”, because it's not being misused, it's just not being used. It piqued my interest and my curiosity to really see what was going on with this standing order. It's an example of parliamentary procedure and standing orders evolving, changing, and being applied differently based on, first, the context of Parliament—who's there and what's happening; second, the individual Speaker—some Speakers have different styles; and third, just a general public awareness of these types of things.
Certainly, if a Speaker is calling a member to order and then having them removed, it creates a bit of a buzz. It creates a bit of excitement for the media, seeing the Sergeant-at-Arms escort someone out of the chamber.
There are a few different concepts there that, I think, have influenced the change—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
I think there were two members named today in question period, but they weren't escorted out.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
That's an interesting approach that the current Speaker is using, calling members to order, sometimes by their given names and sometimes by their riding names. It's a fascinating discussion, and perhaps I may have a future writing an academic study on that, if I find a little time. My wife would actually encourage me to finish the Ph.D. that I started seven or eight years ago. This political career kind of got in the way of it. I do intend to finish that at some point, but for now it's sitting on a shelf. I do intend to come back to that at some point.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Exactly. I could go home right now and finish the last chapter or so of my dissertation. It's a good thought.
This brings me back to the concept of the Standing Orders and how they're seen, how they're developed, and how they were used over time. I always like to use examples. Standing Order 11, the concept of naming, is a good example of how we as parliamentarians can look at this practice and how it has changed over time.
First and foremost, we need to recognize what the purpose of naming is. It is to provide the Speaker with the power to bring decorum and order to the House of Commons. It would be, or should be seen as, a deterrent, ideally. The threat of being named, the threat of being called out in front of your colleagues ought to be seen as a deterrent, but at the same time, naming and being escorted out of the chamber could also be a punishment as well, so there are two sides to that.
The practice of actually escorting members out of the chamber was extremely common for a period of time, particularly in the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s, but the last time a member was actually escorted out of the chamber was in 2002. Again, we've gone 15 years without a member actually being escorted out of the chamber. It's still nonetheless in our Standing Orders. It's still part of it, but it has really fallen into a practice of disuse, of non-use, by the Speaker. In a little bit I'll talk about why I think some of that might be.
When I was struck with this idea, I thought, you know, let's look at why, let's look at where this standing order developed and how it changed. In written form it was amended from time to time through the Standing Orders. It's important to note how that was amended in the Standing Orders. Then after those changes, post the official amendments, it changed from a practical standpoint again, going back to the usual practices of the House.
There are notes from O'Brien and Bosc on pages 642 to 643. They note that during the first period of Confederation, and they use the first 64 years of Confederation until the first change happened, it was a very rare occurrence. It was very rare for a member to be named and then escorted out, so much so that in that period of 64 years it only happened once. In that case, the member wasn't even escorted out of the chamber; they were simply named. He obviously came to order, and there was no longer an issue.
Even going further, when it was enshrined in the Standing Orders in 1927, it was still not a common occurrence. We can speculate on why that was. There could be a lot of reasons. Decorum may have been different. It may have been seen as an old boys' club, which it certainly was at the time. It very much was a male-dominated chamber, with some of the negative things that come with that. So it was very rare in the period from 1927 to 1964. There was only a practice of this happening in eight recorded instances in a significant period of time, so again, it was relatively rare but there was an added issue that went with it. That is, when a member was named, he or she—again, it was always male MPs at this time—wouldn't be immediately escorted out of the House of Commons. A minister of the crown—it had to be a minister of the crown—would move a motion that the member be suspended for the remainder of the sitting day. That would then be put to a vote, and the members would be called in to vote.
Again, there wasn't a great deal written on this at the time and it wasn't seen as a major issue. One speculation we can take from this period time is that from the hassle and the challenge of going through this process it was really curtailed. It put the Speaker in a tough position as well. We like to see the Speaker as a neutral officiant, as a neutral observer, as not being engaged directly in partisan politics on either side. In this set-up, in the way the standing order was designed at the time, it forced the Speaker to rely on a government minister to help in decorum. It meant that once the Speaker brought to order a member, named the member—a very serious offence—he then had to rely on the government to help further that decorum.
It makes the...prevents the challenge of a member from an opposition party or a government party being brought to order, whether a minister of the crown would be willing or unwilling to do that. It's a challenge, and it could point to one of the reasons we saw such a disuse.
Nonetheless, during this period, there were some significant instances of how this standing order was used by the Speaker to bring order, but also, at the same time, by the opposition as a tool to express their dissatisfaction with the government.
One particular instance was during the famous pipeline debate of 1956. For those who have read some of the history from that time period, it is sometimes cited that this pipeline debate may have been part of the reason for the St-Laurent government's eventual downfall the following year to the Diefenbaker government, that whole debate at the time.
In 1956 there was a member of Parliament, a Conservative MP by the name of Donald Fleming. At the time, he tried to raise a question of privilege related to the pipeline debate. He kept doing so, despite being told by the Speaker that he was out of order. He made numerous and multiple attempts to do so. The chairman—it was a committee of the whole at the time—ordered the MP to return to his seat. The MP simply would not return to his seat, refusing a direct order to do so.
What happened then is that, because it was a committee of the whole—a process that we, as parliamentarians, are aware of, though it doesn't happen as often as it did in the past—the chairman left the chair and related the incident to the Speaker. The Speaker retook the chair. The Speaker then cited historical precedent and ruled that, because he wasn't there, he had no choice but to accept what the chairman of the committee of the whole had done. He found that the member had directly disobeyed the chair. He named the member, and he sought to have a government minister withheld.
The challenge, though, is that when you are relying, as in this case, on a minister of the crown to move a motion, you may be a long time waiting for that motion. That's what happened in this case, because once the Speaker had made the ruling, the opposition leader—then a gentleman by the name of George Drew, who would've been very close to his final days as leader—appealed the Speaker's ruling and then forced a vote on the appeal of the Speaker's ruling. In a situation in which the Speaker—and in this case the chairman, as well—is trying to use naming to bring order and decorum to the House, the opposition is actually able to use this to cause additional disorder and force a vote, as well.
So it's a procedural tool for the benefit of the opposition, but also potentially an opportunity for the government and the Speaker to do that. As a follow-up to the outcome of that specific issue, once the Speaker's ruling was upheld by a motion from the House, the vote was held and the member was ordered removed. He willingly removed himself. The theatrics involved in it were certainly a fascinating opportunity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
This is very interesting. Just for curiosity's sake, are you reading us your thesis?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Mr. Chair, could he read us his thesis? I'd appreciate it.
