Mr. Speaker, the member for Elk Island has done an excellent job of articulating the frustration that is felt by many and perhaps the majority of the members in this place with respect to the handling of private members' business.
I know that is not unique just to this Parliament. It affects parliaments throughout the world. That frustration is fully justified. It is fully justified not just from the perspective of fairness within our own Canadian system, but also by comparison with the rules of those other parliaments. Many of them have made changes which do improve the private members' business function and the power of private members.
I read recently an article from the Political Science Department at Queen's University which was in the November 1997 edition of the publication “Policy Options”. That article was written by Professor C.E.S. Franks. He wrote that private members are weaker in Canada than in most other parliamentary systems, that private members are not normally influential in Parliament, but that their position can be and should be strengthened.
One way to strengthen that position and the influence of individual members would be to genuinely overhaul the way that private members' business is dealt with in this place.
In that regard, as the member for Elk Island has explained, the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs contains little more than a few crumbs of hope for meaningful change.
A brief scan of all the private members' bills and motions presently before the House seems to support the position that at least half of all the bills and motions have been drafted by individual members in what appears to be a way of recognizing lobbying or efforts put in by their constituents to have something done about a particular law or situation. They appear to address issues which generally the government refuses to acknowledge as a problem or else just simply does not want to put on its agenda but which the average Canadian views as quite important.
Bills and motions introduced to this place in both the previous and this Parliament on consecutive sentencing, elimination of section 745 of the Criminal Code, grandparent access to children of broken marriages, accountability of organizations which receive taxpayer funding such as charities, victims rights, are all issues and initiatives capable of attracting wide support of members and they certainly have the support of the general public, the voters and the taxpayers who pay the bill for what we do here.
Unfortunately, as the member for Elk Island has already mentioned, as we all know as private members here, even if an individual member is lucky enough to have his or her bill or motion drawn in the lottery we still have to overcome tremendous hurdles along the way to finally getting royal assent. It is virtually impossible.
After the lottery occurs and we make a selection among the available bills or motions, there is no guarantee that bill or motion will even be made votable.
Many members are suspicious that the government imposes its agenda through the workings of that committee. One of the government's own members during the last Parliament called the committee a cockroach committee because she said it meets behind closed doors and then it runs away from its decisions.
It is certainly true that the committee keeps no minutes and gives no reasons for its decisions. This fact alone is enough to encourage suspicion and an atmosphere of discontent and irritation among individual members.
However, it need not be so. Other jurisdictions have either made a much greater percentage of private members' bills votable or, as in the case of New Zealand, made all private members' bills votable.
The undeniable fact is that having a votable bill or motion dramatically increases the satisfaction level for individual members even if that vote is subsequently lost. Almost anyone can accept the democratic outcome of a meaningful debate followed by a vote. If the vote goes against the bill, the member can accept it, but to have never had the opportunity to have the vote in the first place is a devastating situation to occur.
There are many different ways in which the present unfairness could be addressed, for example making all private members' bills and motions fully votable. Admittedly, this would result in less private members' business getting to the floor of the House, but most members, perhaps the majority or perhaps all members, would be willing to take this trade-off in return for at least having the chance to have a votable bill if they do get to the floor of the House.
Another way of increasing member satisfaction with respect to votability might be to have more than one level of votability. For example, simple one line motions could perhaps be allocated one full hour of debate followed by a vote and referral to some sort of committee if the House so wished. That is one way of dealing with simple motions, or perhaps deferring the vote to another day when the government has votes planned any way, or if the hours of the House could be rearranged so that Private Members' Business took place, for example, all day Friday. Perhaps more business could be handled that way with most or all of the bills made votable.
A further suggestion would be to implement a system which puts responsibility on individual members to go out there and get a minimum number of signatures in order to be eligible for votability. At least then the competence of the bill or motion would be put at question and there would be a chance of getting really good quality material to the floor of the House.
Any combination of these suggestions or even some others would probably work out very well. In other words, it would only take a very little amount of creativity to find a much better way to accommodate private members' business within the system. In the end, the government can still prevent a bill or motion from receiving royal assent. So giving us a little satisfaction at the time of debate and vote certainly is not losing control as far as the government is concerned.
With all this in mind, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the thirteenth report be not now concurred in but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with instruction that they amend the same so as to recommend that all Private Members' Business be votable and appropriate measures be taken to ensure an increased amount of time is available in the House for such business”.