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.
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Conservative
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Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
So would they.
The next item in here is that a 30-minute Q and A be added to the time allocation process in order for the minister invoking time allocation or closure to explain themselves. The report recommends that a Standing Order 57 debate, and I'm not entirely familiar with what it actually is, ends at 8 p.m. instead of the previous practice of 11 p.m., and that after-hours take-note debates be created. This is something that we're all familiar with. We had one last sitting week.
The report also recommends that emergency debates be moved into committee of the whole instead of a full sitting of the House, that committee travel cannot be blocked by a single “no” in a unanimous consent motion in the House, and that at least 10 people must rise to prevent a committee from travelling. In practice, I still see this generally done by UC, but the rule is indeed there.
Another recommendation you may particularly appreciate is that the estimates process be adjusted to give the May 1 deadline for a committee of the whole debate and that opposition day motions be put on notice by the start—other than by the end, as has been the practice—of the previous sitting day. The report also recommends that opposition day motions only be amended by the agreement of the mover of the opposition day motion, that the practice of calling officers of Parliament before the relevant committee upon their appointment be formalized, and that reports from selected officers of Parliament be automatically referred to committee.
Then there are a handful of non-Standing Order recommendations, such as the creation of a schedule for committee meetings. Apparently committee schedules were a little less predictable prior to this 2002 report. It is also recommended that a second room be available to televise committee meetings. In my favourite, paragraph 54, the committee recommends that the administration of the House of Commons proceed with plans for enhanced use of technology for the House, its committees, and its members. This was the second time this committee had recommended that, and I think we're up to the third time now.
In the 2nd session of the 37th Parliament, they produced another five reports. Mercifully for my purposes, they were all a little shorter. The first report recommended the creation of a private members' business lottery and made almost all items votable in the private members' business process. This is a recommendation report, rather than an actual Standing Order draft. I don't know to this day what the mechanics were of turning those recommendations into a Standing Order study.
Personally, and I said this in my speech on Standing Order 51 last fall, I want to modify the process a little bit for Standing Orders so that at the start of the Parliament all returning MPs retain their place in the order of precedence, followed by exiting cabinet ministers or other previously ineligible members, followed by new members, followed up at the end of the list by returning members of Parliament who had an opportunity to present a PMB in the previous Parliament. I think this would greatly improve the fairness of the process.
The second report was simply the special committee giving itself a sunset date of June 13, 2003. The third report revisited the first report on private members' business, with a few more details. The fourth report rehashed all the previous reports and discussed things like technological upgrades and the need to replace the cameras in the chamber as part of the long-term renovation program, which, as you know, will be shutting this building down one year from now to punt us into West Block, where we'll be under a roof full of glass made at Fenêtres MQ in my hometown of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts in my riding. Also discussed were things like adding plugs and network jacks to our desks, which we definitely enjoy today.
All of this came from the chamber technology improvement project, not from the committee itself. The committee only referred to the progress of this external study. The report also expressed its approval of the creation of ParlVu, on which I believe many people are watching this very discussion. The fourth report also recommended that portable lecterns be made available in the House, which gives me hope for fixing pocket-tearing chairs, and making sure the clocks in the chamber show the time we are pretending it is.
Some of my other non-Standing Order pet projects, by way of our discussion, are permitting House leadership team members from each party—that is, the whip, House leader, deputy whip, deputy House leader, and Kevin—to be exempt from Standing Order 17, which requires you to speak only from your own seat.
I digress on this, but the fourth report also made a handful of specific recommendations to change the Standing Orders themselves. The first is to reduce the first round of speeches at second and third reading on government bills from—get this—40 minutes to 20 minutes. That sounds merciful, to me.
Following a lengthy discussion of the need to simplify the petitions process, it was recommended that we make minor consequential amendments to the Standing Orders—namely, expanding to whom a petition can be addressed. It also added a rule of a one-year trial period to refer petitions unanswered within 45 days to a committee. It further modified the estimates process from its earlier changes to give 15-minute speaking blocks, or Q and A blocks, during the estimates and in the committee of the whole. Moreover, it made another cleanup of the earlier recommendation in opposition day notice period to permit opposition day motions to be added to the initial notice paper following recess, should the first day back be an opposition day.
Finally, it also added a rule withdrawing a notice for a late show if the member requesting it didn't show up. This passed as a penalty for missing it within the report.
The final report talked about electronic voting. I think perhaps an extract from this particular report will be very relevant to our conversation.
It states:
4. Members of the Committee have visited various legislative assemblies around the world where electronic voting is used. Most recently, we saw its operation in the Scottish Parliament. The general consensus of all of the legislators we have spoken to regarding electronic voting is positive. The technology exists and is reliable, and the results are accurate and readily available.
5. At the same time, we emphasize that technology exists to serve the needs of the House, and should not become the determining factor in making procedural decisions. We have rules in our Standing Orders regarding the taking of recorded divisions, the deferral of divisions, and determination of which matters are voted upon by the House. These matters will continue to be decided by the House and its Members.
6. The Committee believes, however, that the time has come to examine seriously the introduction of electronic voting in the Canadian House of Commons.
7. We note that the Chamber Technology Infrastructure Project, which will be implemented this summer and next, will ensure that the Chamber has the necessary infrastructure in place to permit some system of electronic voting, if and when it is approved. We believe that the House should take advantage of this window of opportunity to determine the details of any electronic voting system.
We recommend the approval, in principle, of electronic voting in the House of Commons Chamber.
We further recommend that the Clerk of the House develop, in conjunction with the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs a detailed proposal for an electronic voting system, to be submitted to the House for approval early in 2004, and that such a system, if approved, be implemented as part of the renovations to the chamber in the summer of 2004.
This all sounds very familiar. We are, of course, still waiting for all of this.
I think it is worth doing this particular exercise of reading all of these reports from the so-called Chrétien method. It made a significant number of small changes that apply to this day, and it did so by consensus. These changes were indeed significant, but were transactional rather than transformative changes.
Tougher issues like sitting days weren't touched. PMQ was not broached. On the process of debate, this report simply reduced the first round of speaking time by 20 minutes per speaker. Time allocation, to which this set of reports simply added a 30-minute question and answer period, did not seriously get addressed or reviewed. Committee structure and management was not really explored. Electronic voting was recommended, but not pursued. Not even the House calendar was addressed by any recommendation for change. Concurrence in instruction motions that can blow up short days were not discussed. Prorogation wasn't explored. Omnibus rules were not a subject to this process either. At some point, we have to ask tougher questions, have tougher discussions, and then figure out what to do with those discussions.
Just before we rose for the winter recess, we went over the 100-odd ideas that came out of the October Standing Order 51 debate on the rules. We didn't go through that on a consensus model. We went through each idea on the list on the record, and we each claimed items that we wanted to defend and bring forward to debate further.
We set up a discussion, without immediately killing off things that anyone was uncomfortable with—quite the opposite. We, as a committee, let each person defend their ideas, and had a real debate and discussion on each one. Perhaps we could actually convince each other that an idea is or is not good, and then figure it out from there.
We committed to modernizing Parliament, as you know. It is not my position to give anyone a veto on our platform commitments. Real change isn't easy, and I'm not interested only in making minor changes around the edge of this place, though those are important too. Keep in mind that people like myself and Minister Chagger—happy birthday, Minister—have been around a while in the shadows. We were in the staff seating around Arnold and Scott in the 41st Parliament. We know what it is like to be a third party, and we are equally aware that it could happen again. Indeed, I distinctly remember David Christopherson as a member of the official opposition defending the right of a third party to have a second round of questions in the question rounds, saying he had appreciated it when he had it. That is the perspective we come to this from.
I am really tired of hearing that we are trying to kill the filibuster, for example. Not at all. The way I see it, the wording could be something like this in the context of committee: When a member is speaking on a motion, or at any other time not otherwise provided for, that member may speak for as long as desired, provided no other member present has expressed a desire to speak. Should another member express their desire to speak—in other words, get on the speakers list, which itself is a practice and not a rule—the member speaking may speak for not more than 10 further minutes, but may express their own desire to speak again in order to resume at any time.
In other words, it is simply to ensure that not only can filibusters happen, but they're actually easier to conduct and are more inclusive of other members of the committee. The 10 minutes is totally arbitrary, based on the length of most speeches in the House. What the appropriate time is should be something that we—repeat after me—“discuss”, as part of our discussion, that we want to have.
Here at PROC, we are able to participate by unanimous consent, as our colleagues occasionally cede the floor as long as they can have it back, as Mr. Schmale alluded to just a couple of minutes ago.
I don't think anyone here would argue with the statement that PROC members have very good chemistry. We get along, quite frankly, and I believe we genuinely like each other as people.
We may be political adversaries, but we have tremendous respect for each other in every direction around this floor. That is not always the case at committees, and often—and we have seen it here—the only way to interrupt a filibuster without jeopardizing the meeting itself is to ring the division bells. Thus, the use of motions in the House with the support of colleagues—for example, “that a member be now heard”—and the 30-minute bells, and committees all across the Hill get blown up, witnesses get sent home at great expense and with little accomplished, and for what? So that a filibustering member be allowed to pee without endangering the filibuster.
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Voices
Oh, oh!
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Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
We are not going after the right to filibuster, not in any way, shape, or form, but I would like to have a conversation about how to make filibusters “rest-of-Parliament-friendly”. Why should the whole House blow up because PROC, or maybe BILI or the scrutiny of regs committee, is having a family dispute?
The point of all this is that what I want—what we want—is simply a discussion. I want to call on witnesses. It was fortuitous that we had the Scottish here today, just before question period, and we learned that in that country filibusters do not and cannot happen. That's an interesting fact that we learned today. I want to see what the best practices are from around the world, have more discussion, and then see if we can formulate meaningful reform proposals around that discussion.
If we end up in a situation where we are going down the road to a report that you, my dear friends, consider to be unacceptable, your opportunity to object is not limited to minority reports, but then, there, that is the time that a filibuster might actually make sense. A report cannot, after all, go back to the House if we cannot get it to a vote.
That, friends, is all I have for the moment, but I would appreciate returning to the speakers list, Chair. I may want to respond again eventually.
Thank you.
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Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
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Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
Let's call that the “Simms protocol”. It sounds a lot better.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Based on the Simms protocol, we'll have a short intervention by Jamie Schmale.
Mr. Graham, you can respond if you like—or anyone else can—as part of the Simms protocol.
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I should point out that I appreciate those words, David, and you're right: I think we all have pretty good chemistry and we all do genuinely like each other on this committee.
I'd like to point out a couple of things. First, I can't speak for the NDP—maybe a nod?—but I know that all of us want to have this conversation too. Does the NDP agree?
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Gord Johns
Yes.
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Yes, he does too.
The opposition does want to have this conversation. The one part we're missing here is that the government does not get a veto over this. This is what we're fighting over.
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
We all need to agree on the changes to the Standing Orders, based on the Chrétien model. Until that gets changed, you can talk about all these ideas, which we want to have a conversation on...and we do want to have a conversation. I'm just making sure everyone hears that, because you keep saying that you want to have the conversation, and we keep saying, yes, we do want to have the conversation, but we're missing that little teeny piece: that the government doesn't get a veto.
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Voices
Hear, hear!
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Continue on with the Chrétien model, which gives all parties an opportunity to talk about it and vote on the issue, but the government will not use their majority to ram through something on the way that Parliament operates, the way we all operate. We will not allow that to happen.
I want this to be clear. We do want to have the conversation, and we did, during the family-friendly report. We passed a unanimous document—
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
It got into the weeds. We could do more in depth, absolutely we could do more, but let's talk about them. We have not said that we don't want to talk about anything that you put on. We do. You do not get a veto on changing the way this place works.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Mr. Graham, do you have anything further to say before we go to the next speaker on the list?
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Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Well, I think my speech was fairly clear on how I think there's a conflict in how we see the process. We have the study, and then we get to the report. If we don't like where the report is going, you have every ability to stop it—
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Conservative
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Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
—but let's have the conversation. We have no power if we can't get—
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Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Take that away, and we'll have all the conversations all day long.
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Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Jamie, if we can't get the report back to the House, there's no power there. You still have the power to obstruct.
