Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that we are talking about a process that his House leader and all the other House leaders and I have developed and have adopted unanimously. He said that he was not sure that this is sufficiently independent. We have voted. The hon. member says it is not true. I beg to differ. I would beg him to find the report of the first modernization committee. That report was adopted unanimously in committee and it was adopted unanimously by the House.
Standing Order 111 gives effect to that particular provision. Almost word for word his House leader and I wrote that provision.
How it came about was for the appointment process of Dr. Dyane Adam, the Commissioner of Official Languages. We had a process before. Opposition members were asking how they could consult for this. It was a couple of House leaders removed, the member for Langley--Abbotsford is actually the person in committee who said “Why do we not hear who you propose and we will bring the person to committee. We will quiz the individual and we will see whether we can support that individual and then you can submit the candidate to the House”. That is what we did.
When it came time to revise the standing orders in the modernization committee report, again we said “Wait a minute. This is the process we used informally before. Why not put it in the standing orders and we will do them all this way?” That is what we did. We formalized it in the standing orders. In the standing orders we said we would make all of them subject to consultation and all of them subject to a vote of the House on a non-debatable motion. The debate occurs in committee.
There were about five different formulas of doing it, depending upon which officer of Parliament we were talking about. In some cases, there was no consultation with the opposition. In some cases, there was consultation with the opposition. In some cases, there was a vote of the House but not the Senate. In some cases, there was a vote of both Houses. No two of them were the same. We standardized them in a way with which we all agreed.
That is the process we used. Members should ask themselves the question it is so obvious. It will ensure that the individuals we choose are those who enjoy the support of all members of the House.
We used it again to appoint Mr. Reid as the Information Commissioner. The name was actually proposed, even though he is a former Liberal MP, by an opposition MP. That is the process we use.
The hon. member will know of the case in Alberta. The ethics commissioner there is a former cabinet minister supported by everybody. That is the kind of person we need to hold that position. Should that person be a retired justice of the Supreme Court, or a retired member of the House or the other place? I have no idea. It has to be the person that we support as an institution.
That is the structure we have established. I did not invent that model; I will not even take that credit. The model was invented by the House leaders together in the modernization committee chaired by the Deputy Speaker of the House, but in the preceding Parliament it was modernization phase one.
That is the structure. And believe me it was unanimous because the modernization committee could only report on those things where there was unanimity, otherwise they were automatically expunged. I ask the member to refer to the House order that created the first modernization committee. And if he does not believe me, he can always check with the hon. member for Langley--Abbotsford.