National Defence Committee on June 21st, 2011

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Jean-François Lafleur]

Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum.

Before we begin, I must inform members that the clerk of the committee can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motion, cannot entertain points of order, nor participate in the debate, of course.

We can now proceed to the election of the chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party. So I'm now ready to receive motions for the chair.

Mr. Chisu.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Clerk, I propose a motion to elect Mr. James Bezan of Selkirk—Interlake as chair.

[The Clerk]

Thank you.

It has been moved by Mr. Chisu that Mr. Bezan be elected as chair of the committee. Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Bezan duly elected as chair of the committee.

Congratulations.

Before I invite Mr. Bezan to take the chair, if the committee wishes, we can now proceed to the election of the vice-chairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the official opposition.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the first vice-chair.

Mr. Brahmi, the floor is yours.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

I move that Mr. Jack Harris be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

[The Clerk]

Moved by Mr. Brahmi that Mr. Harris be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion that Mr. Harris be elected first vice-chair of the committee?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Harris duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.

I am now prepared to receive a motion for the second vice-chair.

Mr. Bezan, the floor is yours.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

I propose Mr. John McKay.

[The Clerk]

Thank you.

It has been moved by Mr. Bezan that Mr. McKay be elected second vice-chair of the committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. McKay duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

I will now invite Mr. Bezan to take the chair, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thanks a lot for the nomination and the election as your chair. I'm looking forward to working on the national defence committee. It's one I have a strong interest in.

Jean-François Lafleur and I worked together previously when I was chair of the agriculture committee in the 39th Parliament, and Guyanne Desforges and I worked together when I was chair of the environment committee in the last Parliament.

It's exciting to be on the national defence committee. I know that there are only a couple of returnees from the last committee, so we'll be leaning heavily on Cheryl and Jack for some of that corporate knowledge that you bring to the table.

Usually we like to go right into adopting the routine motions for this committee. Is there concurrence to proceed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

In the binders that were circulated to everybody, there was the list of the routine motions that were adopted at the 40th Parliament. We'll go through motion by motion and see what we need to amend or leave as is.

The first one was the services of analysts from the Library of Parliament. That routine motion was that the committee retain, as needed and at the discretion of the chair, the services of one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament to assist in its work.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I move we adopt it.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I will introduce our analysts, Wolfgang Koerner and Melissa Radford, who will be working with us through this session.

The second motion in front of us is on the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

Mr. Alexander.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I would move that the existing routine motion be replaced with the following:

That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be composed of five members, including the chair, the two vice-chairs, the parliamentary secretary, and a member of the Conservative Party. Quorum of the subcommittee should consist of at least three members. Each member of the subcommittee shall be permitted to have one assistant attend any meetings of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure. In addition, each party should be permitted to have one staff member from a House officer attend any meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We have a new motion on the floor.

Mr. Harris, we're debating the motion that Mr. Alexander put on the floor.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I think anyone reading the existing motion would note the significant difference, in that the previous committee specifically provided that the parliamentary secretary not be a member of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

Mr. Alexander of course would appreciate that this is nothing personal to him, but has to do with the fact of the longstanding effort by the parliamentary committees in this House, who are going back probably 15 or 20 years, to have an independent role. In fact, there was a committee of the House of Commons known as the McGrath committee, and there were various other committees for the reform of the House of Commons. The purpose of reform, as noted by the third report of this committee back in 1985, was “to restore to private members an effective legislative function, to give them a meaningful role in the formation of public policy and, in so doing, to restore the House of Commons to its rightful place in the Canadian political process.” That's a quotation from the Special Committee on the Reform of House of Commons, June 1985, page 1.

This has been followed, of course, by a lot of reforms in the House, including private members' business. But I will remind members opposite that it was their party in opposition that strongly opposed even the presence of parliamentary secretaries on parliamentary committees. That was their position in opposition. It was not their position in the last government, but of course parliamentary secretaries, as you see here, were excluded from the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

The independent role of parliamentary committees is probably even more important in a majority House, the independence of members and the independence of committees to provide that the committees themselves decide what their agenda will be. The committees are masters of their own rules, as we're doing right now, and their own destiny. And we know that the parliamentary secretaries, although they work for the minister, in fact are appointed by the Prime Minister. So it effectively involves an insertion of the PMO into the work of the committee and into the agenda of the committee, and we're opposed to that. I want that on the record.

I would urge us to stick to the procedures in the last Parliament and urge that we exclude the parliamentary secretary from the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I would endorse Jack's reasoning.

The core reason the parliamentary secretary is excluded from the subcommittee on agenda on some committees has to do with the independence of the committee. The committee is independent from the government. It is independent from PMO and PCO, that whole government apparatus. In a majority situation, if you want a committee to have credibility, if you want a committee actually to investigate concerns in the Department of National Defence that are independent of what the government might like to see investigated, you will keep the committee as independent as possible.

Having the parliamentary secretary, with the greatest respect to Chris, on a subcommittee, particularly where we are setting agendas, deciding where and what we will investigate and who we will invite to committee, flies in the face of the independence of Parliament and the independence of its committees.

In some respects, the arguments in a minority government for not having a parliamentary secretary on a subcommittee are even stronger in a majority government. I would urge colleagues who like to recite this mandate business that if they wish to have credibility, if they want this committee to have credibility, it will be as independent as possible, and it starts with the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay, are there other comments?

Mrs. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Parliament has changed and we are no longer in a minority position. I think that the steering committee should be reflective of the numbers and the dynamics of a majority government.

The parliamentary secretary is brand-new. He may be helpful in our discussions in deciding what it is we are going to work on. I'm looking forward to having him as part of that steering committee and providing the insight that he has.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Brahmi.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

I would like to add something. If we want to establish the credibility of this committee, there are two issues to consider.

As my colleague Mr. McKay was saying, independence is one issue and credibility is another. We shouldn't give the impression that the rules that have been in place for a number of years were changed just to allow one particular individual to be on the steering committee.

I think we have to look at independence and also not give the impression that the rules have been amended to make one particular individual happy.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Chair, while I'm new to the committee, I'm not necessarily new to the committee format, and different committees have different formulations when it comes to subcommittees. Generally speaking, I don't think anyone in this room would argue with the fact that committees reflect the percentages of different parties in Parliament. That is the way this committee is set up. That's the way most--not all, but most--of the committees are set up. That's why the chair comes from the governing party.

If you want to run a parallel government on a different dimension, that's when you can change the democratic will of the people. Quite frankly, when I hear people say that the committee for legitimacy or otherwise and to be taken seriously can't have too much government influence, that seems to be counter to the democratic will of the people. That's the basis upon which this whole institution is built. Therefore, it seems to me rather strange that you wouldn't have a person like the parliamentary secretary on the subcommittee. It makes a lot of sense. To the average person it would be somewhat humourous if you had committees arguing with the government of the day on a totally different wavelength.

However, there is an independence of committees; that's why we have them. They're supposed to take part of the load off. If you look at municipal and provincial governments, committees take the load off and study in-depth issues that come before the general assembly, which in this case is the House of Commons. We take the load off. We go into the minutiae, into the in-depth study not only of current government legislation or proposed government legislation, but we can as a committee take on different studies. That is well within the mandate, well within the history of this place. To preclude the parliamentary secretary or anyone else from being on the subcommittee would seem to me to be rather strange.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. McKay, then Mr. Harris.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I hate to say that I've been here a long time, but I've been here a long time, and I've gone from that position, to that position, to that position, to the position I find myself in right now. I've completed an entire circuit of the House of Commons.

When we were in that position, the equality of parties was the principle on which this committee operated. Each party was treated with equality, and that equality in and of itself created an independence.

When the current coalition was fractured between Reform and Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, etc., each of their incarnations was treated with equality. Now we find the situation reversed. I would think it's only reasonable to expect equality before this committee.

It is not simply a rubber stamp of government, regardless of the fact that you have the majority. All things in politics are temporary, both victory and defeat. That's why this institution exists, because it is the talking shop for the people. And the talking shop for the people expects some respect for minority parties. The last time we had a majority government, the last time this committee met when there was a majority government, the parties were treated with equality, and everyone got an equal amount of speaking time, regardless of the percentage.

Round one, with respect to the subcommittee.... When the Liberals were the majority, they treated all parties with equality, including the previous reincarnation of this particular party. Now the situation is reversed, interestingly, with not such great enthusiasm for treating parties with equality.