Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2024

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

The decision that was made in June, yes.

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

I don't quite understand.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's okay, Mr. Reid. I'll ask the question again during my next turn.

It's for the past and also the future. Can we go backwards to make changes, or do we start on day 1?

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

All right, I understand better. It's going to start to apply in the future.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau. I'm glad you mentioned that there are indeed times when we work together. In fact, I hope we'll continue to do so.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It is the dream, Mr. Chair.

I, too, am in favour of this. It's very nice to have this kind of conversation. I think it brings out the policy wonk in all of us and our deep-rooted geekiness and love for this stuff. I know it does for Sherry anyway.

I can't help but think of where we are now. On the changes that you're talking about making to those Standing Orders, I do agree. They are the rules that govern us all, so we need to be a part of the decision on how they're made.

Again, within the context of what's happening now and the standstill we find ourselves at, this would add an additional tool for that gamesmanship, for that seizing of Parliament or for the filibusters that occur. Have you thought about that in any way in terms of the potential negative use of, ideally, a really positive idea?

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

I've tried to constrain it as narrowly as possible, so it really only deals with changes to the Standing Orders themselves.

I think there is a valid parallel with the protracted debate that's been going on now in a very narrow sense, a very narrow but important sense, which is this: If you want to see what in the future a debate would look like in an attempt to amend the Standing Orders that did not have all-party support, then what's going on in the House of Commons is a pretty good example of what it will look like. There would be some kind of deadlock.

The point is to not cause that deadlock to occur. Rather, since it's obvious that it would happen, it's to make the government more.... Since one assumes it would normally be the government that's proposing changes to the Standing Orders, and most often a majority government, it would make it necessary for them to make compromises. They might not get all they would want.

No change would occur because of this with regard to any debate on any subject other than the Standing Orders. Of course, what's happening in the House right now is not a debate on the Standing Orders. It's a debate on an order the Speaker made.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

This is based, though, on the idea that there are majority governments most of the time. I've been here as an elected official for only five years, but I've worked on the Hill for over 18 years now. In most of that time, there have been minority governments. Did you consider that in the draft? Did you have any considerations of where it might go because of that seeming change in how governments are being elected?

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

It's an interesting question. Canada has veered back and forth between minority and majority governments. I was mostly thinking about the need to protect ourselves in the event of a majority government. It seems to me that the greatest procedural concerns are in existence when there's a majority government.

I also tried in this to make it possible to amend the Standing Orders via a private member's motion, which of course is what we're talking about doing today, only if the same rules are respected. You can't do an end run and produce a private member's motion on changing the Standing Orders, have it adopted after two hours, vote and have it go into effect. That could be done. That could be an end run. In theory, it could be done by anybody, but I suspect it could be done most effectively by having a government backbencher move a private member's motion to completely change the Standing Orders in whatever way the government wants. You have two hours of debate and it's through. That was a hole I was very anxious to plug, actually.

Lindsay, here I'm kind of cheating and using your question to answer a question that you didn't ask. I do think that the proper way, when a private member's motion contemplates changing the Standing Orders, is to have that motion, if adopted, automatically directed to this committee for whatever hearings seem appropriate and then referred back to the House after a set period of time. The motion suggests 75 days.

At that point, it would still be possible, if there was not consensus, for that concurrence debate to be dragged out. Alternatively, if at the committee a consensus has been achieved—there's no better place to achieve consensus than here, and we'd all get input from our House leaders—it seems to me that this is a good way of ensuring that ideas can bubble up through the private members' system.

If they have flaws, those flaws can be.... Sometimes they're not attempts at force majeure. They're attempts at doing something with good faith, but something's been missed in the details. It's a good chance to catch it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'll cede my time. That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay. I'll roll it over.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To pick up on part of the line of questioning put by Ms. Mathyssen, I'm wondering if you could clarify, Mr. Reid, that if this motion were adopted and the Standing Orders were changed accordingly, and there was an attempt to change the Standing Orders when there wasn't consensus, pursuant to convention, it theoretically could result in protracted debate in the House.

In terms of how that would impact other business of the House, could you clarify that the debate would take precedence in the time of concurrence, but thereafter it would not take precedence? It would only be debated at the adjournment of government business and, therefore, would not impede the government from moving forward other pieces of legislation.

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

The answer to your question is that you've summarized it exactly right. It would not wind up gumming up the business of the House.

Also, if the government insisted on trying to push through a set of standing order changes that were opposed by the opposition parties, what would happen? It would be this endless debate, but of course the government wouldn't try this. Since it's obviously pushing against an immovable object, it would recognize that it's necessary instead to go back and compromise on the substance of the standing order changes. That's in fact what would happen.

That is exactly what happened in the example I gave from March 2020. Realizing that their initial proposal to change the Standing Orders would not be met with success, the government House leader at the time, Pablo Rodriguez, stood up and simply asked the Speaker if they could suspend proceedings while the House leaders met to work out changes.

That's what happened. It took all day, but it wasn't endless. It took a day to sort out a very complicated series of changes. They included not just standing order issues but also passing the CERB legislation.

That's what would actually happen. There would be negotiations, I think mostly behind closed doors, with the House leaders, which of course is already part of our routine. Every Tuesday the House leaders meet, or should meet, to discuss all kinds of business that, if conducted in a more formal venue, would otherwise be very time-consuming.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you for that.

You cited the rare instances where governments have moved ahead, absent a consensus, to essentially put more power in the hands of the government to control the business of the House. That being said, in recent years there have been attempts—and successful attempts—to change the Standing Orders in fairly significant ways. I think of the McGrath commission of 1985, which was the special committee set up by the Chrétien government.

Perhaps you could elaborate on those processes and how the Mulroney government, the Chrétien government and perhaps even the Harper government.... You spoke a little bit about the changes to the Standing Orders with respect to the election of the Speaker. It would be helpful if you could elaborate on how that worked itself out, for a better understanding of the convention and historical context.

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

The first two examples you cited—the McGrath commission and the one under the Chrétien government—involved having a report done up on the assumption that some detailed research was required. It's a subject that requires detailed work.

With regard to the motion to change how the Speaker is elected, what happened on that occasion.... This, I think, is the model that could work in this situation. It was a private member's motion. It was moved by me and sent to this committee. The committee reviewed the proposed standing order changes and then it wrote back. I just happen to have its report right here, as a matter of fact. The 21st report of the procedure and House affairs committee stated:

The Election of the Speaker is a matter for all Members to decide. The Committee does not oppose nor endorse motion M-489 brought forward by Mr. Scott Reid and feels that the entire membership of the House of Commons should have the opportunity to vote on whether or not to change the Standing Orders in the manner suggested by M-489.

In order to accomplish this purpose of having a vote in the House, the Committee recommends that Standing Order 4 be amended as follows:

What followed was the suggested motion to change the House standing order.

The point about all this was that it allowed the members to make the decision. What actually happened in the House was that it was a completely free vote and every single party in the House divided—even the Green Party. At least one member of the Greens, the Bloc, the NDP and also the Liberals and the Conservatives went on either side. The result was that it passed by some number, obviously. I can't remember the exact number. I think that's a good model here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Reid, for being here.

I note that we had some good, nerdy PROC-related discussions in the past on the code of conduct for members of Parliament when we did some work on that, which was overdue. I appreciate your being here. I appreciate your putting forward M-109 and the chance to engage with you on this.

I note that Mrs. Romanado brought up your work in 2019 with Frank Baylis and, I think, another group of MPs at the time that put forward some pretty sweeping changes to the Standing Orders. That's kind of the end run, almost, that you described, which is kind of interesting. You kind of took that path in trying to change the Standing Orders through a private member's motion that was pretty sweeping, some of which I agreed with, like the parallel debating chamber. I'm not saying I wouldn't have necessarily supported those changes, but you did so in a way that you're now trying to prevent with this motion.

Are you kind of having a moment of conscience here, where you're trying to prevent your former self from what it was maybe inclined to do back then?

I mean that in jest a little bit.

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

Of course.

In all fairness, that was not my motion. That was Frank's motion, which I supported. I think what Frank was up against, if memory serves correctly, was that we were right at the end of a Parliament and it was going to be hard for him to get it through. I think that was what was driving him. Anybody who's ever had a private member's motion or bill that comes up toward the end of a Parliament knows that feeling. I have sympathy for what he was trying to do.

I think that in practice, he was biting off a very large chunk and it would have been difficult to deal with it all. To give the proper.... With something like setting up a parallel chamber, you really have to sit down and look at the other places that have done it—the Australians and British—and see how well what they proposed works. That was not the only subject matter. There were a number of other things he had in there.

The motion that I proposed that dealt with the election of the Speaker was a narrower topic. It was using the preferential ballot for electing the Speaker. Initially, I had this idea that we would put this forward, it would be debated and then the House would adopt it. It was in the process that wiser heads than my own directed and said that this really ought to go to the procedure and House affairs committee. In retrospect, they were 100% right. It was helpful to see what other jurisdictions had done. We were not the first ones to try this. The British do it in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords as well. That was very informative and useful.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It sounds like you've been learning along the way, which I think we all do.

One of the questions I have is that this motion would, assuming it goes through and everyone supports it, which I think is likely.... PROC would have to study any substantive changes to the Standing Orders in the future. One of the challenges I find is that we get members on PROC who are a bit nerdy about procedure—even Ms. Mathyssen said she was happy to nerd out on this topic—and I put myself in that category. However, many other members of Parliament are not on PROC.

How do we ensure they have a fulsome understanding of what the proposed changes to the Standing Orders would imply for the practices of Parliament, such that they can make an informed decision when they're voting? That is my question for you. I have another one to follow up on that.

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

I think it's a problem that you have with any piece of legislation or any change to the Standing Orders. We all have an obligation to either inform ourselves or, as I often do, to find somebody whose knowledge and insight you trust deeply and consult with them. I know that I regularly rely on Michael Chong, for example, and Tom Kmiec, as two people who have insights that I wouldn't have on my own. I think that's the best way of doing it.

Maybe I'll stop there.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Your motion allows essentially that every member of Parliament would have an opportunity to speak in the House on any proposed changes to the Standing Orders and that there could be no limit to that debate. It could be as protracted as it needs to be, potentially.

How do you ensure that a majority government couldn't whip a vote? Essentially, I think you're ensuring that the vote might be procedurally free, but it wouldn't necessarily be politically free. In the case of a majority government, at any point in the future they could propose changes to the Standing Orders. If it comes to a vote, obviously they could whip that vote.

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

The answer is that nothing I'm proposing would preclude whipped votes. In fact, I think they likely would be whipped votes in many cases. You know, what I've suggested here is a method that would, if the parties agree, lead to a free vote, but it could be a whipped vote. Nothing that happened in the motion I read, or the report from the committee 10 years ago, precluded parties from holding whipped votes if they wanted to. That's an internal matter.

Obviously, when you get all-party consensus, by definition you're saying that the party leadership and the party caucus, through whatever internal mechanism they have, decided as a whole to say either “we'll have a free vote on this” or “we'll have a whipped vote”.

Presumably, the key point is that the whipped vote, if there is one, is in favour. If one party says they're having a whipped vote against it, then you'll get all those speakers. If we're voting in favour, then many people will choose not to participate in the debate. There'll be no need for them to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

We're a minute over. Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.