Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

[The Clerk]

Hello, Mr. Tochor.

One of the issues that we would have for me as the clerk to distribute it is, of course, that one of our routine motions for the committee requires that I can only distribute material to the committee if it is in both official languages. It creates an impediment for me to be able to distribute it in an official capacity.

I imagine that the wording of the recommendation that Mr. Turnbull has is not in French, so that would obviously have to be translated for that purpose.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We could have it read in again. From what I'm gathering from everybody, I think that nobody wants to hold this committee up anymore or hold this report up, and I think we're now back to the original, without the major—

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm not certain that's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I thought that's what I had gathered from you.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I still have the floor, and I'm not yet clear—and obviously Mr. Tochor is unclear, because he's not able to hear things and it can't be sent to him. This is a real problem.

First of all, before we get to that part of it, I'm still not clear on what we're talking about returning to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We'll have it read out several times. I think that's the best we can do, since we do have the simultaneous interpretation. We can have it read very slowly. We can have it read a few times, until everyone has heard the recommendation. I would suggest that we try to write it down as much as possible.

A lot of the wording is on page 26, from the three different recommendations. It really is, from listening to it, kind of a cut-and-paste of a whole bunch of the parts of the three recommendations, but if you could follow along and write them down, that will maybe help us through that issue.

I appreciate everyone wanting to move this forward.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'll read it very slowly: “That the House establish an alternative set of Standing Orders, which enables....”

Do you want me to start again, Mr. Brassard?

Okay, I'll go back: “That the House establish an alternative set of Standing Orders, which enables the implementation of a virtual Parliament, so that the House can continue with its business in the event of a crisis or exceptional circumstance”—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Could you go back to right after “continue”?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Yes, it says, “continue with its business in the event of a crisis or exceptional circumstance, such as those arising from the current pandemic.” The second sentence is “The committee further recommends these modified Standing Orders only come into force and be rescinded at the agreement of all recognized parties.”

I hope everyone got that. If I need to read it again, I'm happy to do that.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

In the second part of that, “The committee further recommends” is the only part I got, Ryan.

Could you start after “recommends”?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Can you read the last sentence?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Sure. It says, “The committee further recommends these modified Standing Orders only come into force and be rescinded at the agreement of all recognized parties.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

As I think we've debated this recommendation for two and half hours now, I'd like to see if we can call a vote on this recommendation.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Chair, I have the floor, and I don't agree to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I thought you said you would agree to move things forward.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I still have a problem, and I'll explain why.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

But you could vote against it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

No, that's not good enough, Madam Chair. The reason it's not good enough, and I'll explain it if you allow me, is that we're still in a situation where, although it solves the problem of putting in place these emergency standing orders where all parties must agree, it doesn't solve the problem that Mr. Brassard raised, where one party can continue to hold those powers because they refuse to agree.

The problem we have there is that we basically come around to a situation where the very thing we're trying to prevent is done another way through a back door. In other words, if we have a legitimate crisis and all parties agree, then we'll put in place these emergency standing orders. But then, when the crisis is averted, or most people believe it's averted, the one party—that would likely happen to be the governing party, obviously, one would assume—chooses not to allow it to be rescinded.

That's what this allows. One party could prevent it from being rescinded. It essentially allows the government to do by the back door what we're trying to prevent them from doing by the front door.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Could I propose something? Perhaps we leave—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

That's why I'm suggesting we allow that amendment to the way it could be rescinded, so that a party can't do by the back door what we don't want it to do by the front door. If we can come up with an amendment there, then I'd be comfortable. Until then, I think our democracy is still at risk here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Could the language of how it's rescinded be completely taken out?

At this point, the parties have come to an agreement on how to move in this type of situation already. Perhaps they themselves can decide at that point as well how to do so. We would leave it at how to enter into the agreement: “The committee further recommends these modified Standing Orders only come into force at the agreement of all recognized parties.”

We're not prescribing anything; we're making no recommendations here on that. The parties could be left with that.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

The problem is that by not prescribing anything, since we're going down the road of prescribing this.... Again, I really believe we're making a big mistake by trying to figure out how to deal with future situations while we're in the middle of a crisis. That's where the whole problem with this starts.

Having said that, I recognize where we're at. I recognize that other parties, I think very ill-advisedly, are choosing to go down that path. I get that your suggestion is well-meaning, Madam Chair. The problem is that when you start to prescribe this and you prescribe the way you go into it, if you don't prescribe the way you come out, what you're essentially doing is exactly what we're trying to avoid. We're making it so that if the government doesn't want to come out of it, it can remain in those emergency powers indefinitely. That is the problem here.

We still have a problem. Unless I hear some indication that we can amend it so we don't have that problem, where the back door is going to be the way this is done rather than the front door, we're going nowhere. Not seeing any movement or effort on anyone's part to alleviate my concerns, or obviously the concerns that were originally raised by Mr. Brassard, I guess we're back to where we were.

Here we go. I'll go back to where I was prior to all of this.

Again, I want to make it really clear: I didn't come here today hoping that this would be the outcome. I came here today believing we could do a report. I felt, in looking at some of the recommendations, that there were probably going to be some things in the report that I wouldn't agree with. I mean, I'm in opposition. I've been in opposition for the last almost five years now, so I recognize how these things work, and I'm okay with that. It's obviously not my preference, but it is what it is.

I came here thinking it's a really nice day where I am. I thought maybe we would be done even a little early and I would enjoy a bit of the sunshine. I want to make it really clear that this is not an attempt to try to prevent a report—

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Again, for the sake of being constructive—because we genuinely want to come up with a report we can recommend to the House of Commons on what to do—can I make a suggestion? It would be that the House adopt these measures with a sunset time and that the measures will expire based on an agreed-upon date, and that only if all parties agree to extend them will they be extended; otherwise, they will just sunset on their own.