He knew that since we had a majority, if we wished, we could change the Standing Orders in a number of different areas that would have benefited us greatly, that completely—completely—would have removed the ability of opposition members to hold us to account. He would have no part of it.
Therefore, when at the procedure and House affairs committee I raised the fact that we were legislatively obligated to study the Standing Orders between the sixtieth and ninetieth day of the new Parliament, as all Parliaments are, I suggested we go a step further; rather than have a day of debate in the House, we do something about it and see if we can agree upon changes that would make the Standing Orders better, clean up some of the more arcane items contained in the Standing Orders at that time, and hopefully make the House of Commons a better place in which to work and to act.
The opposition members agreed, and at our first meeting I brought forward a proposal. This was not something that came from the PMO. This was something that I felt would be appropriate based on my conversations with the Prime Minister. I was the one who suggested that we consider changes to the Standing Orders, but to do so in a manner that, if any proposed change were objected to for any reason by any member of the committee, that proposal was off the table for discussion. We didn't even debate it. We didn't try to convince other members of the worthiness of the proposed change. We just took it off. You know something? That was probably one of the best-functioning committees I've been on. It was actually a subcommittee.
All of the members of the committee went to back to their caucuses. They consulted with them extensively as to some of the proposed changes that our caucus members would like to see. Then we came back to the table, put our respective proposed changes on the table, and went from there. I can tell you, quite honestly, that in our caucus of the previous Parliament, some of the changes you have on your discussion paper were suggested. There weren't many, but there were a couple of people who recommended we go to a four-day week. You have that in yours. There were some who talked about electronic voting. There was a lot of other discussion about areas that would hamstring the opposition, and, as I said, I didn't entertain those.
I mentioned this in the last intervention, Mr. Chair, but I'll say it again because we have some new members at the table. I want to give a couple of examples of what I speak of. In the last Parliament there were only seven or eight members who were not part of recognized parties. By that I mean they didn't have 12 members of a caucus, so they weren't recognized. Ms. May was there representing the Green Party. I think there were two or three members of the Bloc Québécois, a couple of members of some other Quebec sovereigntist associations and political parties. However, in total, there were only, I believe, eight of them.
On two or three occasions during the last Parliament, the three major parties came to an agreement on some motions. Normally it would be something like the time we rise, or we ask for UC on, something that the Conservatives, the Liberals, and the NDP could agree upon. On two or three occasions, though, when we introduced the motion asking for unanimous consent, one or more of the seven or eight of what we should call independent members said “no”.
What happens? Well, you have to “stand five”, which they did. That forced a vote. We ultimately got approval of the motion we had introduced, but it took an hour out of our time. There were 30-minute bells, and you have to go through a vote. It delayed the government's own legislative agenda for an hour. Some may say it's not a big deal, but it is a big deal if it happens frequently.
This government is seeing what happens if you have unwanted or unnecessary votes. Your legislative agenda is getting thrown off the tracks. We're doing that by design.
But I digress. Going back to the issue of the day, as some have suggested, the stand five provision was put into place several decades ago, when there were far fewer members of Parliament than there are at this time. From an inflationary viewpoint, one could make the argument that if the stand five provision was in place when there were only 180 members, and now there are more than 300 members, wouldn't it make sense to change the Standing Orders to say that you have to “stand 10” to force a vote? What would stand 10 do? In that political environment, stand 10 would have prevented Ms. May, the Bloc members, and the other independent members from ever being able to force a vote.
We didn't introduce it. I would not allow it to be even discussed at the all-party committee, because based on my conversations with the prime minister, I knew what he would say: “no.” Quite frankly, I was a little fearful that if I allowed it to be discussed at the committee, I'd be hauled on the carpet. But I didn't do it because I knew that's what he didn't want to do. I also knew that it was not the right thing to do. How could we, the tyranny of the majority, be obstructing the ability of individual and independent members of Parliament from doing their jobs, doing what they felt was necessary to represent their constituents? It simply wasn't right. We thus didn't go beyond that point.
I also made mention in my last intervention of another scenario, if you want to talk about numbers. It was on Standing Order 56.1, which we used successfully on a number of occasions, both when the Liberals were the official opposition and when the NDP were the official opposition.
For the benefit of those of you at this table who are new and may not know what S.O. 56.1 is, it basically means that if a government introduces a motion asking for unanimous consent and the consent is denied, they can then reintroduce the same motion under the rubric of S.O. 56.1, and if 25 members do not stand, the motion is deemed approved.
What we would do on occasion is wait until a Friday morning, when attendance is traditionally lower than it is normally. We would even put some advance scouts into the opposition lounges to see how many members were sitting, and perhaps not in Parliament sitting in their seats. A lot of times on Friday mornings, as we all know, unless your whip has pretty good discipline, members don't tend to show up. So we'd wait until we thought we could win because there weren't 25 members to oppose. We'd bring in S.O. 56.1 on a motion, and what do you know? We'd get it passed, when we otherwise wouldn't have gotten it passed.
Some of our caucus suggested that the opposition was on to us now, and that their whips were never going to let fewer than 25 people be in attendance at any time; that we'd never get this done again. A member who shall remain nameless, who was actually defeated in the last election—perhaps it was a good thing—thus suggested, why not change the provision from 25 to 35 or 40? Then we'd probably get an S.O. 56.1 passed every time. If nothing else, it would inflame the opposition members, because they would have to have more of their people staying in Ottawa on a Friday.
I didn't let it happen. I simply would not entertain it, and it never came up for discussion in our all-party committee, because it wasn't right and because I knew the prime minister wouldn't accept it.
Those are just two examples of what one party could do with a majority to change Standing Orders to the absolute, absolute destruction of democracy. I choose my words very carefully here. I don't want to engage in hyperbole, but what members of the government are attempting to do is exactly that. The Westminster form of government was established by very learned individuals, and for a reason. They recognized the usefulness of Parliament as a decision-making body, but also they recognized the ability of opposition members to contribute to that process. Negating the ability of opposition members to hold the government to account is a very, very dangerous thing to do.