Debates of Nov. 22nd, 2002

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-2, an act to implement an agreement, conventions and protocols concluded between Canada and Kuwait, Mongolia, the United Arab Emirates, Moldova, Norway, Belgium and Italy for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion and to amend the enacted text of three tax treaties, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2002

[Don Boudria, Liberal, for the Minister of Finance]

moved that the bill be concurred in.

[The Speaker]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Speaker]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Monday, November 25 at the conclusion of government orders.

The House resumed from November 21 consideration of the motion.

Parliamentary Reform

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure this morning to speak on this very important agenda item that the very capable House leader has put before the House.

In fact, it goes back to March 2001, when the House affairs committee met at the time and considered a number of recommendations in order to address the whole issue of modernization. It reported in June 2001 and made a number of recommendations. There was a wide range of recommendations: the ratification of appointments of parliamentary officers by the House; a new format for emergency debates to take place in committee of the whole; more take note debates; allowing votes to be deferred to 3 p.m., after question period, therefore freeing the House and members to do other important things.

It also addressed the notions of permitting the Leader of the Opposition to refer two sets of estimates to the committee of the whole for debate for up to five hours each before the May break, as well as a 30 minute debate with the responsible ministers on motions, time allocation and closure. As well, it addressed the notions of tightening the sanction for questions on the order paper that are not answered on time, increasing advance notice of the text of opposition day motions and permanently equipping a second room for televised committee hearings. The report also looked at programming of government bills when referred to standing committees and increasing the use of ministerial statements.

I cannot state how important these issues are, for many reasons. Many of my colleagues have faced a lot of frustration in the process in the House and in how we have been dealing with issues that come before committee.

The House leader has gone to great lengths in order to consult with and bring on board members of the opposition parties in the House so that we can address this once and for all. It is timely. Why? Everything is changing around us and our citizens are demanding of us more transparency, more efficiency and value for money. You will recall that in the House not long ago, Mr. Speaker, we spent up to five days, 24 hours a day, voting in the House of Commons on issues, some of which were valid and others which were not so valid. I would say that it is high time for us to come together on a non-partisan basis and address those issues. This submission by the House leader does just that. I want to commend him on his commitment to the House for many years and his commitment to the renewal process, which began quite some time ago and continues to take place.

A number of initiatives have been passed so far in 2002. As a result of the minister responding to members and some of their queries, a change to royal assent was passed, allowing royal assent to be given to legislation through a written procedure. A new Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates has been established. Its members have been identified and it is already operational.

As well, the House of Commons has done something that I believe is extraordinary, which is to address the bilingual nature of our country and to reflect that in the House of Commons proceedings. As a result, we have established the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Also, the House adopted the procedure committee's report making private members' business votable. As well, the House agreed to require the election of committee chairs by secret ballot, although I am not in favour of that.

If we stand up to vote in the House, our constituents have a chance to see us voting. I do not understand why they should not also be allowed to see us voting in the committees. Why it has to be secret is beyond me. Nonetheless, it is water under the bridge. It has gone through.

Also, the modernization committee has taken a number of other initiatives. The House leader has agreed to propose to the House that there be a second phase of modernization to consider further changes to the rules of the House.

I would say that along with what has been done, which have been very positive steps, I believe there are other things the committee could consider. One is to see what other jurisdictions are doing, whether it is in the parliamentary system in the United Kingdom or that of Australia or other commonwealth countries, to see whether or not we can share some best practices.

One of the issues we would need to address, for example, is the whole notion of the handling of question period, such as the timing and how many times it would take place in a week. Perhaps we could look at themes that come from different departments and so on. Also, we should look at what the committee could do in terms of examining bills at report stage and how we can make that system a little more efficient.

There are other procedural issues that House leaders have talked about in the past and have brought to a debate in the House. One, for example, is how we handle private members' bills after the prorogation of the House. Speaking of private members' bills, I am one of those guilty people who has approximately 60 private members' bills. Every time the House prorogues I have to come back to my seat with a pile of private members' bills after they have been reviewed by the legislative counsel. Quite often I have asked the House for its consent so I can introduce them all at once without debate.

Nonetheless, as everyone will recall, on a number of occasions some of my colleagues in the House have denied me the opportunity to introduce all 60 at once. As a result of that, I had to stand up, along with you, Mr. Speaker, 60 times. There has to be some sort of a mechanism so that we do not have to do that. While we have tried so far to move forward on bills that come from the government, I would suggest that perhaps it is high time for us to do the same thing when it comes to private members' bills.

Again speaking of private members' bills, I think we have a huge opportunity to make a difference in the House by eliminating some of the frustrations that exist in our community, whereby, if for whatever reason one of our colleagues has an idea that is worthwhile considering, the individual MP does not have to wait until his or her name is drawn and then decide which one of the bills or motions will be introduced to the House. I think what has taken place is very positive. In fact each one of us will be given an opportunity to choose legislation that the House will debate and the committee will consider it and report back to the House. I think that is a very positive thing.

Also, I think we have other things we can address and deal with, such as the use of modern technologies. I know that electronic voting is a pretty ticklish issue with some of the members in the House. I do not think it is a good idea for us to continue using the old system, which is for each member of the House to stand up individually. By the time two or three votes take place we have spent approximately an hour to an hour and a half of House time. Our translators have to be in place, the camera people have to be in place, Hansard people have to be in place, all of the clerks and yourself, Mr. Speaker, as well as many other support staff, have to be in place.

I would suggest that if we were to eliminate that alone the savings to the House on an annual basis would be tremendous. Somebody told me, and the House leaders can correct me, that the cost per hour for every hour we sit is over $30,000. If we multiply that times the number of days the House sits, the number of votes that take place and the number of hours, I would suggest there would be a substantial savings as well, not to mention more efficiency and transparency, which would be very important.

Regarding the use of technologies by members of Parliament, I am a telecommunications engineer but frankly I am embarrassed to say that I am not using the modern technology that is available efficiently. In fact, there was study done which found that only about 58% of MPs have websites. I do not have a website yet, which is terrible because I should have one, and I will undertake to have one.

Nonetheless, if we were to encourage our colleagues to use modern technology, I would suggest that our constituents would be a lot more pleased with us than otherwise, and at the same time we would have an opportunity to access information a lot easier, save staff time and improve efficiencies.

Speaking of modern technologies, and I am not getting off the subject here, but it is really frustrating for members of Parliament nowadays when we have, on an average daily basis, approximately 100 e-mails coming to us from all over the world. In some cases we do not know whether Sam or Sue is asking us about an issue involving a constituency matter, asking us to buy one item or another, or asking us to pass on propaganda of one form or another. It is a challenge for us because our staff time has been extensively overused in this particular area. I hope someone in the field will figure out a way where we could do some sort of a filtering in order to remove the junk mail that comes through the computer system so we can respond more efficiently to our constituents. Technology is not all good. Some elements of it are pretty good and other elements, I would say, need to be changed.

Other improvements have taken place. For example, the member for St. Paul's, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, is making great use of modern technology. Therefore, I think we could work a little more on that particular element. We could make our websites more interactive and use plain language, in a sense.

I would suggest and I would hope that when the time comes for phase two that we will work a little more aggressively in order to move forward with some of the issues that the House leader has been speaking about and consulting with the opposition leaders on. I also hope that we always keep in mind the interests of our constituents. To that extent, perhaps we need to do things on a non-partisan basis and move forward with them on a non-partisan basis.

I had the pleasure of sitting in for a colleague on one of the standing committees. During the half-hour I was sitting in the committee, the committee was taken up by one member who spoke about one issue. In my view, while the comments were exceptionally valid, I felt that the time allotted to individual members to speak on one item of legislation needed to be tightened up somewhat so that committees would not become somewhat inefficient and cumbersome.

As a result of my experience, I think it would be a good idea to have a standard system for all committees of the House so that, like the House here, every member of Parliament would have to play by the same rules. I would also suggest that we have standard rules for all committees to follow. As a result, we would not have one committee dealing with procedures in one way and another committee dealing with procedures differently.

We also have to figure out a mechanism whereby it will be a lot easier for our respective caucuses, as well as the government and the leadership within the parties, from time to time when members of Parliament come up with good ideas to bring them forward. I do not see why we do not approach the specific cabinet ministers with those ideas to see whether or not the cabinet minister is willing to adopt the private member's bill, whether from this side of the House or the other side of the House, and make it an initiative of the House of Commons and move with it as such. We would remove the element of where the bill is coming from and we would focus mainly on the substance of the bill and what the bill will do: is it really beneficial for our constituency, is it beneficial to the country as a whole. We should do that assessment and move forward with it. I would say that would prove to be exceptionally helpful.

Another thing is the way committees do their reporting to the House. I suggest that it is working but it could work a lot better. In some committees, without getting specific, some reports linger around in those committees for close to eight months and in some cases up to a year. There is nothing really in the system to ensure that once an item is referred to a specific committee that it has to report within a specific time to the House, in particular when it comes to studies.

The public accounts committee is a case in point where we are still sitting on a report that goes back to 2001 as well as early 2002. We are almost moving on to 2003. Something should be in the procedures of committees, such as that the committee has to carry on with the work once priorities are established, that it cannot move out of the priorities and decide along the way that it wants to debate other issues that may or may not have anything to do with the mandate of the committee.

It is exceptionally important to look at some of the nitty-gritties of procedures, not only when it comes to the House of Commons but also to committees themselves.

I sometimes sense, and I am not the only person, many of my colleagues have the same feeling, that when the House is in session it seems as though we run through corridors almost like chickens without heads. We do not seem to be able to control the flow of information that comes from every angle.

What the House leaders are proposing will improve efficiency so that we do not have to take away valuable time from our constituents and from our work as legislators, and to spend that time on useless votes and, in some cases, on fictitious motions and ridiculous amendments to legislation when the main objective is not to allow legislation to go through and delay legislation for pure partisan objectives. This does not improve on the efficiency of how government runs its business.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I want to commend you for the leadership you have taken because you have done a marvellous job in trying to make Parliament run more smoothly and more efficiently.

The member for Peterborough also played a leadership role. He chaired the same committee, the House affairs committee, where a lot of those changes that came to Parliament actually passed through that specific committee. With your previous leadership, Mr. Speaker, and the leadership of the member for Peterborough, whose constituents are very fortunate to have him as their MP, you both have done a marvellous job in bringing forward reports that respond to the aspirations of members of Parliament, to the needs of Parliament and to the overall hopes and aspirations of Canadians.

I am delighted that the House leaders have moved forward with this wonderful initiative. I am also delighted that discussions between all the House leaders on the very important issues that affect the House and the operation of the House are continuing to take place.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a question on one of the items that he spoke about. I found interest in a number of things that he said.

The item I am talking about is the one about members of Parliament actually choosing the chairs of the committees. If I heard him right, he said that he did not agree with secret ballots for the election of the chairs. I would remind him that the reason for the secret ballots was simply that instead of government members having to toe the line, as told by their party whip or the Prime Minister, on who to select as the chair, they could use their own judgment and choose the person who is best qualified for the position.

There would be nothing wrong with having public votes on this provided there was no coercion from the parties on their members. This is a way of freeing up the members from that coercion so they can use their own best judgment.

I need the member to explain to me why he is opposed to a secret ballot because it gives him the freedom to use his judgment which must, invariably, on occasion, be better than the judgment of others who would decide for him.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very interesting question and here is where I am coming from. We have a country that is huge, with different regions, some remote and some urban. We have representation in the House by males and females who represent their constituents, and this election of chair of a committee is not as straightforward as my colleague would think.

We need to have a balance, like the balance we have with the selection of members of cabinet, secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries. From time to time the government parties will have to establish a balance. How many women chairs do we want? How many male chairs? What regions do we want to have represented on that specific committee?

I am sure my colleagues go through the same exercise when they want to select people to sit on committees. It may not be all the time, but any member of any party in the House, including mine, who chooses a committee to sit on, does not always end up on that committee. I have selected committees in the past that I wanted to sit on and I was not given that opportunity.

The most important point I want to tell my colleague is that we are over the age of 18, most of us in terms of age as well as mental capacity. I am sure the member does not mean to generate insult here insinuating that some of my colleagues are afraid to speak their minds on committees. That is far from it. We already vote on the committees by a raise of hand or by roll call. However I also want to let him know that if we do not have a secret ballot in the House why should we have a secret ballot at the committee level?

I also want to tell him that when it comes to cabinet proceedings, even though they are confidential and after 30 years are rendered public, is he suggesting that committees should use the same procedures to release the voting patterns of members? I do not know. I would say that it is gone, we have voted on it but, nonetheless, I would suggest it was the wrong thing to do.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. We are engaged in a very important debate which has to do with thinking about how this place runs. The way we run it, both the standing orders and the customs, have evolved over generations and are very important. We should constantly look at them and change them with care.

He mentioned that he has many private member's bills tabled and that he makes a practice of doing that. One of the things we are engaged in very directly at the moment is a change in the way we deal with private member's bills. Part of the objective is to make more of them votable.

However, I found it very useful to have private member's bills, to use them to publicize issues and I did once have one drawn. I was disappointed that it was not votable but we had a debate about it in the House of Commons. I found that very useful. I have used that debate since to press different corporations and various groups on the issue that was raised in my private member's bill. Although I would have liked it to have been votable, I found it very useful to have private member's bills, and I have used them to the limit of my capacity.

I wonder if my colleague could give us some idea of why it is that he continually reintroduces and introduces new private member's bills, knowing that many of them will not become votable?

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent point. Out of the 54 bills I have introduced, I am happy to report to the House that through the administration of government I was successful in having about seven or eight of them adopted, nearly all of them dealing with the UN convention on the rights of the child.

Treasury Board, for example, adopted my private member's bills when Mr. Masse was the minister. On the issue of the definition of a child, the justice department adopted my propositions. The former justice minister, who is now the Minister of Industry, adopted two of my private member's bills dealing with certain aspects of the Criminal Code. The industry minister adopted two of my bills, one dealing with whistleblower legislation, as part of the Competitions Act.

Introducing private member's bills gives me an opportunity to put them on the record and from there on to approach the specific ministers to see if there is a possibility for my bills to be adopted as part of a government initiative. Whenever a bill from the government is introduced which has something to do with my private member's bill, I approach the ministers to see if I can get their support.

On private members' bills, the government and the Prime Minister have allowed more free votes in Parliament than ever before in the history of Parliament and far more than the opposition has ever allowed on bills as well as on motions. This Prime Minister has allowed more freedom for members of Parliament than any other prime minister ever in the history of Canada, not only to speak their minds within caucus, but outside of caucus as well as in the House. This Prime Minister has taken more initiative to bring about changes to Parliament than any other prime minister in the history of Canada. This Prime Minister has done more for Canada on the economic front as well as on the political front than any other prime minister in the history of Canada.

It is a privilege to serve with members of the House with the leadership we have in the Prime Minister, specifically on the notion of free votes, of reform to the parliamentary system and of leadership, both economically and politically.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to further follow up on our previous interchange, the member has the audacity to say that what member in the Liberal Party would not go against directions given from the party.

I was part of the finance committee when the whip signed herself in to get the correct number of people in committee to implement the Prime Minister's choice.

Furthermore, I cannot believe that the member thinks that only the Prime Minister can compute who are the best people for the job and whether they are the right gender or whether they represent the right region. As there will be secret ballot elections in the committee now, those facts will become known and they should then influence the voting decision of the member of Parliament, unless he has a brain the size of an asp.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr.. Speaker, Hansard is here to stay. The member can review Hansard . Historically, since we came to government, it is his party as well as other parties in opposition that have voted more en bloc than this party has done. Consistently on important issues we have had the freedom to choose and to vote.

Unlike what he said has taken place, the hon. member can review Hansard . They always vote on a blockbuster type of arrangement.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

But not because we were forced to. That is the difference.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will not use words that are not parliamentary, but sometimes it is tempting.

The opposition parties move in droves in voting against government initiatives and government policies, unlike what happens on this side. There is a lot more freedom on this side than there is on the other side, because this side is a liberal side.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join in the debate. I have chaired the senior committee of the House which has particular responsibility for the Standing Orders. If we read the annotated version of the Standing Orders, each of the subsections of the Standing Orders has a history. If we read that with care, those histories together are really a history of this place. The Standing Orders are very special. Therefore, although I know many of the people watching on television know relatively little about the Standing Orders, this debate is very important.

As a member, I believe it is extremely important from time to time to think about the Standing Orders and consider modernizing them. If we read those annotations since confederation, in fact some of the annotations go back before confederation, it shows that whenever we engage in this exercise we should proceed thoughtfully and with care. Every Standing Order in this place has evolved over a long period of time and has had the input of many members of Parliament like ourselves. We should respect those opinions, not to the point of doing nothing but of proceeding with care.

I would like to talk a bit about being careful, when we engage in this exercise, of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In other words, we must think very carefully about the place as a whole, not condemn it when we are concerned about one facet or another of these very important Standing Orders.

I would like to share some of my experience with the Ontario legislature at Queen's Park, where I was for three years. Like all the legislatures in Canada, it is a remarkably open place. However, I stress that in comparison to the openness that we have here, it is still very much a closed place.

I want to draw back a bit on some of the discussion of private members' business, the nature of question period, how committees operate and so on. I will give one example of that.

The Ontario legislature operates on a calendar which is determined by the premier of the province of Ontario, in other words by the leader of the government party. The legislature is called at the whim of the premier and is closed and prorogued at the whim of the premier. People might say so what. However think of the fundamental freedom and influence of members of Parliament. If our Prime Minister could close the House down now or could say that we would not meet for the next six months, or sometimes in the case of Ontario eight months, that would be control.

I am sure viewers have little idea of this, but we operate on a two year rolling calendar. The House of Commons functions in 10 months of the year. On working days, we work for nine or ten hours a day, including meal times. The House of Commons rolls on, but in a predetermined fashion. Our Prime Minister, I and my colleagues know that next April we will be here on certain days. We have a reasonable idea of the flow of business. Throughout the year we know what we will be doing, and our Prime Minister cannot stop that.

I would urge members to remember that, in a very real sense, the House of Commons controls its own calendar. Every year the two year rolling calendar is changed, I assume through discussion among the House leaders. In principle the forum throughout the year is controlled by the House itself. That is a very important power. Whether our legislature can be closed down by the Prime Minister is where members of Parliament have limited power.

I want to give another example from Queen's Park. We have what we call S.O. 31s. These are statements by members and we have 60 seconds. I do not know how it works among the opposition parties but on this side it is like a lottery. When a member has something he wants to say, perhaps it is about your constituency or about a political point, the statement is submitted and it is drawn out of a hat. Then there are 60 seconds in which the member can say whatever he or she likes.

Sixty seconds may not sound like very much to people watching this. However, when I was at Queen's Park I was supporting the idea that the Olympic games should be in southern Ontario and not in Greece. This is a pretty obscure thing. I am interested in sports and in southern Ontario, so I submitted what we would call an S. O. 31, a private member's statement, about this. Private members' statements are vetted at Queen's Park. In my statement was a line which I thought was a joke, and I am sure the House will think it is a joke. I said that if the people of Greece had really been interested in having the Olympic games, they would not have given them up 2000 years ago. Because of that sentence, my private member's statement was pulled from the list. To members opposite, and I do not know how theirs are chosen, that sort of thing does not happen here.

I also want to talk about the Standing Orders with respect to this debate. When we have debates, there is discussion among the House leaders and it is determined how long speeches will be and whether there will be questions and answers, and there usually are questions and answers. Typically in this case, if I manage to speak for 20 minutes, the Speaker will allow 10 minutes of questions and answers. If I speak for 10 minutes, typically members from all sides are allowed five minutes of questions and answers.

On my very first day in the House of Commons, when I was first elected in 1993, I came in and we went through the opening of the House and then we went on immediately to the predetermined calendar. I was on duty on this side. I had to be here. As a new member, I sat in my seat throughout.

I was in awe of being in this place. Gradually the light changed, the sun went down and the stained glass windows changed their hue, and I was impressed. It was my first day and I was not on the speaking list. Nor had not tried to be on the speaking list. However I noticed that when a member stopped speaking other members got up and asked them questions. When I was at Queen's Park that never happened.

After I have finished speaking here, members can get up and they will have either five or 10 minutes, depending on how long I speak, to ask questions.

However later that night, at seven or eight o'clock, I got up and made a comment. I asked one of the speakers a question just so that I could test the waters. As a result of that, the following day I received a phone call from a lady in Vancouver, who happened to have seen it, and she had a comment on what I had to say.

Those question and answer periods are in our Standing Orders, which they do not have at Queen's Park. People say that this is a whipped and highly controlled House of Commons. If a member can come in here and he or she has five minutes to get up make a comment and ask a question, how can the whips control that?

I know the member for Elk Island takes an extraordinary interest in this debate and in other debates. Let us say that he has come here today and he is seething with some problem in agriculture or something of that type. Even though this debate is on modernization, we all know that, if he wishes he can get up and speak for two or three minutes on the record about agriculture today, whether his whip wants him to or not. That is the sort of freedom we have in the House. That is what I mean about not throwing the baby away with the bathwater. We have to think of the strengths of the House of Commons as well as its weaknesses.

I mentioned question period. Question period is different in all the parliaments around the world. We often have had the Westminster model quoted to us during this debate from the other side of the House. In the Westminster model the members of parliament give notice of their questions. They say that they will ask this person or that person a specific question about health care.

In our House of Commons no notice is given. The Prime Minister and our ministers come in here and the members opposite can ask them anything they like. Not only that, the official opposition gets a question and then two supplementary questions on the first few rounds. The rules are not in the Standing Orders exactly, but I know the Speaker has developed them.

In addition to not having any notice, the Prime Minister answers a question and the official opposition can ask him another question on the same topic. It can probe through the question and two supplementaries. In many other parliaments this does not exist. That is a good example of the way the official opposition party, in this case the Canadian Alliance, is protected by our standing orders. It is given very special privileges in question period which it would not have in other parliaments.

Modernization is very important but we should proceed thoughtfully and carefully. I mentioned the official opposition. I am not demeaning other legislatures because they also have their particular strengths, but in every other parliament around the world which is modeled on Westminster, the standing orders are geared to nurture the official opposition party.

The idea is that if the official opposition, as members may recall was the case in New Brunswick recently, is reduced to one or as happened previously is reduced to zero, it has to think of some way of generating opposition at the same time. Even if the opposition party is reduced to one or two members, those members should be given all the strength possible.

We believe that through the standing orders the official opposition should be nurtured. It holds the government accountable and it trains future governments. That brings me to the comments made by the member for Elk Island regarding the secret ballot.

As I have mentioned, I am chair of the procedure committee which tabled the report on the secret vote. I function as chair of that committee as well as I can. I have to say to the hon. member that it is not the secrecy of the ballot itself or anything of that sort that concerns me, but I believe that change which was cobbled together very quickly is flawed. It is flawed in that it has weakened not only the present official opposition, but future official oppositions. One of the special roles of the standing orders is not to nurture the government because it does not need any nurturing, but it is to nurture the people in the opposition party.

The official opposition has already lost five vice-chairs of standing committees. We could conceive of that party losing all of them. If I were debating in a partisan way, I would say good, the Canadian Alliance has lost five vice-chairs. However as chair of the committee which is responsible for the standing orders, and as someone who is very conscious, when I am not engaged in partisan debate, of the preservation of the intrinsic strengths of this place, I hope there can be some modification in the future of the secret ballot so that the official opposition, not the opposition in general, but the official opposition and future official oppositions are not weakened by that change.

Those are my general baby in bath water comments. There are some things I am interested in that do not require changes to the standing orders but which I have promoted for a long time and wish to promote again. They are simple changes in the way committees operate which could be done by consensus by members here in this chamber.

One of these changes is the televising of committees. I have worked very hard not just as chair of the procedure and House affairs committee, but before that to see to it that committee work is televised whenever possible. People say that is just vanity and members just want to be on television and there is some truth to that statement. I believe that when committees are televised, people can see members working and they know what their members of Parliament are doing. Televising committees changes the way members operate. Members think very seriously and speak differently when they are on television.

There is a pilot project in the House whereby any committee can be televised. It will go until the end of the year and then the committee will look at it again. There are two official television rooms. If a commercial television station gives the chair of the committee notice, for example the night before, that it will be putting a camera in the committee room the following day, the camera can be put there and the event can be televised. There are some rules associated with that.

That exists but it has not been widely used by committees, and committee members could do something about that. It has not been widely used by the television companies either. I hope they start to use it. I think by that simple change, by more frequently getting committees on television, individual members of Parliament would be strengthened.

The other one is in the same vein. It is the matter of committee travel. When committees travel, it empowers the individual members of Parliament on the committees. They go to different parts of the country and come back here to report on what they heard. People listen to them more carefully as a result of their travel.

At the moment in theory all the committees can travel. However it is expensive when 16 or 18 people travel. We might have enough confidence, which is within the standing orders, to send seven or eight members of a committee rather than the whole lot. Again, the committee could decide on that itself and it could have a quorum for receiving witnesses which is in the standing orders. Then it would be easier for the committee to travel.

More significantly, in order to travel, the committee has to agree that it wants to travel. It has to submit a budget, which is as it should be. It has to come to the House to get unanimous consent to travel. An individual member in here can stop a committee from travelling and it happens.

Speaking here particularly about the two smallest parties which have 12 or 13 members, I know it is difficult for them to release one of their members to travel for three days to the west coast, to Nunavut and to the Maritimes. I would urge that individual members think seriously before stopping committees from travelling.

Individual members can say no, and a committee will not travel. A good example is the Standing Committee on Official Languages which has tried to travel numerous times and has never been able to travel to my knowledge, simply because of a voice that was heard in this place.

That would not be a change in the standing orders. It would be a change in attitude in the House of Commons and among the parties.

I will conclude on that point. Like my colleague previously, I compliment you, Mr. Speaker, on allowing us to conduct this very important debate on modernizing the House of Commons.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, since I was mentioned in the member's speech, I feel privileged to respond to him.

I begin by saying that of all of the members I have seen chair committees, that particular member has to be one of the best. He is fair, very efficient and I have always enjoyed serving on the committees when he has been chairing. I have not done that too much, but from time to time I have been involved in committees that he is on.

I would like to talk about the issue of free votes. He mentioned that we vote as a block more often than the Liberals do. I do not really think that is true. I would have to check the actual records to see how many dissenting votes there were from the Liberals.

The member may have been referring to private members' business and in that case, it is true. We all have the freedom to vote as we wish on private members' bills and as far as I know that is true for all parties in the House. On those occasions, yes, because there are some 170 members of the Liberal Party, a greater number of them would be voting on one side or the other.

With respect to government bills and whipped votes, I do not think we would find that to be true at all. Of course, in our party not only do we have the privilege of representing our constituents first and foremost instead of taking our voting orders from the party hierarchy, but we have an obligation to do so. I have always been very proud to be part of a party, formerly the Reform Party and now the Canadian Alliance, that stands for representing our constituents. However, I will say unequivocally that I have never once in the House voted in a way that I did not agree, in order words I was persuaded, not forced or coerced, and there is a fantastic difference in that particular measure.

I have used quite a bit of time. In deference to other members I will allow the member to respond, but in the event that no one else rises, I will be up again.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his remarks and his compliments. By the way, this is a good example of what I was saying. These questions and answers are an opportunity to engage in whatever we wish.

It was my colleague who spoke previously who made the remark about it being more common for Liberals to vote against their party than members of any other party. It was not I, Mr. Speaker. On the other hand, my colleague is using the standing orders to make a point and is referring to a previous speaker.

As it happens, I can answer his question. My colleague was absolutely right. I cannot give the exact reference, but there is a study by Professor Wearing, I think of the University of Toronto. He studied voting patterns, not in this session but in previous sessions. It is more common for members on this side to vote against their party than it is for members on the other side. That, by the way, is a statistical fact.

If I could go further though, I accept absolutely what the member said about having always voted the way he thought was most appropriate and having voted with his conscience, if that is the right way to put it. I do accept that. The same is true of members on this side of the House.

[The Speaker]

When the debate resumes on this matter, the hon. member will have six minutes remaining in the time for questions and comments on his remarks. Given the hour we will now move to statements by members.