moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the practice of vote pairing should be abandoned and the standing orders be amended to establish an absentee proxy voting system which would permit a party cast properly authorized proxy votes for no more than 25% of its members.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for explaining to those watching either from the gallery or on television why we have advanced the clock. It is always a great source of amusement to people these strange and antiquated rules we have here.
This motion I am putting forward today deals also with another one of these strange and antiquated rules that have come to be part of the procedures in this place.
I would like to read the motion one more time because it is an important motion:
That, in the opinion of this House, the practice of vote pairing should be abandoned and the standing orders be amended to establish an absentee proxy voting system which would permit a party to cast properly authorized proxy votes for no more than 25% of its members.
In a moment I will go into describing what vote pairing is and why we should change it. First I would like to mention that unfortunately this motion is not votable. Even though it talks about amending the way this very House works and it would affect potentially every single member of this House it has been made non-votable.
I have a very good friend in the New Zealand house. As many members know, I am from New Zealand. The New Zealand deputy speaker, who also has the name Ian, is a good friend of mine. I was visiting New Zealand recently and I told him that some private members' business is non-votable. He was astounded because in New Zealand they are all votable. That gives a sense of accomplishment to members to at least get their material votable. It is very sad that this motion is not votable, because I am going to read from a portion of a 1994 report of the standing orders committee from New Zealand.
The reason I introduced this motion is that it is a part of a package of motions that I put forward based on some changes that were made in the New Zealand house in 1994 which proved so successful that they have been adopted as permanent changes.
On the issue of proxy votes, I will read a paragraph from the report, because it describes for everybody what vote pairing is and why there should be a change: “Parties in New Zealand have for many years operated a system of pairing where the effect of a member who is absent from the House is cancelled out by a member from another party agreeing not to vote while the other member is absent. Initially it was an arrangement entered into privately, but since 1951 in New Zealand it was recognized as part of the proceedings of the House. Paired members were recorded in Hansard for any division that is taken in their absence. The primary use of pairs was to ensure that members could be absent from the House to carry out public business in relation to their portfolios or constituencies and that ill members did not have to attend the House for close divisions”.
The system worked effectively for the two main parties of the House but the committee believed in New Zealand that it would be good to introduce a proxy system.
Under the recommended proxy system, instead the pairing members would be required to give proper authority for a proxy vote to be cast for an abstention to be recorded in their name. It must state, among other matters, who is to exercise that proxy. In practice what happened in New Zealand was that generally members would give the proxy to their party whip and the whip was able to exercise that vote in their absence. A member not wishing to vote with his or her party, in other words a dissenting vote, could be given to a member of any other party as long as it does not exceed the 25% limit.
The limits are policed fairly closely. As I mentioned, after having run this now for close to four years it was determined last year that it should be made permanent because it had worked so well. It has enabled members to fulfil their requirements in ridings and to attend conferences related to their critic roles or particular areas of interest. It has enabled ministers, for example, in close governments which the New Zealand government has to attend important conferences like the Kyoto conference without having to worry that there may be some sort of urgent vote where they suddenly have to be told to race back because it could be a close vote. It is just a very civilized way of handling necessary absences from the House that do occur.
There is no absolute requirement for the party to use its entire 25% but that figure was adopted in New Zealand and found to be very satisfactory.
As I mentioned, it is part of a package of changes that were introduced on a whole range of issues. Another thing they have done in New Zealand—and I have put another motion in on it—is that they have compressed the sitting days of the House into three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so that Mondays and Fridays are free days for members to have extended weekends in their ridings. This is working very well.
For members of this House who are from Ontario and Quebec it would be extremely convenient. Even for those of us who have to travel long distances, to have those extra days to do riding business would be very valuable. That is another change that was introduced in 1994.
We really should learn from houses that have gone through the process of studying these changes and have found that they are very good to introduce.
The New Zealand House has also dealt with the issue of quorum and, one that interests me, question period. The changes to its standing orders require reasonable answers to questions. If the speaker rules that the answer to the question was not actually an answer to the question, the minister must appear at the end of the day and re-answer the question. That has had the effect of tightening up the entire question period into something meaningful.
To get back to the basic motion I introduced today, it reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the practice of vote pairing should be abandoned and the Standing Orders be amended to establish an absentee proxy voting system which would permit a party to case properly authorized proxy votes for no more than 25% of its Members.
I defy any member to say that it would not be an advantage to be able to have that percentage available to a party whip for members to be necessarily absent for some purpose. It is an absolutely sensible position to take. It is very distressing that the motion cannot even be voted on when it is something that is important to the operation of this place.
Because the House has the power to do anything I would like to ask at this time for unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable so that members would at least have the opportunity to indicate whether or not they think it is a good idea. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable.