Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, for introducing Motion No. 517.
I think all members in the House would agree that anyone who brings forward a motion or attempts to improve decorum in the House should be applauded. I am certainly a party to that. I know that I have many times abused the privilege given to me in acting in a manner that would reflect the decorum required in the House. I have at times had to stand voluntarily to apologize for my actions or more specifically my words.
Therefore, any time we can have a discussion, whether it be debate or just a discussion itself on methods that can improve the decorum in the House, particularly in question period, is a good thing. It is a worthwhile debate because, as has been noted by many other members, question period truly is the window to Parliament. That is the one period of time, on a daily basis, when most Canadians view parliamentarians. Quite frankly, I think, Mr. Speaker, you would agree with me, and I think all members would agree with me, that from time to time it is not a very pretty sight.
I also believe there is not one member in the House who has not been approached at least one time by a constituent complaining about the antics or the lack of decorum in question period. That alone should make all of us take pause as to our own actions.
Therefore, this motion perhaps is overdue, but also it bears careful examination. Many of the members who spoke before me this evening have suggested potential changes to the motion. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills has said that he would be open to friendly amendments because he recognizes the fact that there is no monopoly on good ideas.
The concept and the spirit of the motion is excellent, but also there can be improvements to the motion. I would like to go over two or three ideas that I would suggest for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills on things I think would strengthen and improve the motion. I would like to present them now for members in this place for their consideration as well.
The first point I would recommend that needs to be changed is a portion of the member's motion that states the procedure and House affairs committee should recommend changes to the Standing Orders regarding question period.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, probably better than anyone here, being an occupant of the chair, question period is not governed and bound by Standing Orders. It is a convention, and an informal convention at that, that has really guided question period practices over the last 100 years.
To recommend that the Standing Orders be changed to reflect what question period should look like is somewhat restrictive. Rather than saying the procedure and House affairs committee should recommend changes to the Standing Orders, it should merely recommend that a study be taken by the procedure and House affairs committee. At the end of the day, the committee may not recommend changes to the Standing Orders. It may recommend a number of other things, but it should not be restricted to looking only at Standing Orders. The phrase “to study” is far more encompassing than to recommend changes because this needs very careful study.
Also another portion of the member's motion that says we should examine the convention that ministers need not respond to questions directly asked of them, in other words, suggesting that ministers must respond directly to questions, I am not sure if that is quite what we need.
As the member for Wellington—Halton Hills pointed out, many times there is a good reason for a particular minister not to respond. To force a minister to respond to a question would be a little restrictive.
We have seen many times where, because of the complexity of files, several ministers share responsibilities. Sometimes, inadvertently I am sure, members of the opposition ask a question to a certain minister when it should have been asked to a different minister. That portion of the member's motion is a little restrictive and we should change that, if not outright delete it.
I would also suggest that the six month period that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is suggesting that the procedure and house affairs utilize to conduct this study is a little too short. I will explain why.
A good example is what we have seen over the course of the last few months here in Parliament. We know that members raise questions of privilege and if there is a prima facie case found by the chair that there was a breach of privilege, it is referred for discussion immediately to the procedure and House affairs committee. If that happened again, I suggest that six months is not quite long enough, although it may be. I would like it to be extended to longer than that, although I will present in just a few minutes, a friendly amendment for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and I have not in my amendment put anything longer than six months. I would think the committee should engage itself in that discussion.
I truly believe this motion bears a lot of discussion.
With your concurrence, Mr. Speaker, I would move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by replacing the words “recommend changes to” with the word “study” and by replacing all the words after “(iii)” with “allocating half the questions each day for Members, whose names and order of recognition would be randomly selected, (iv) whether the practices of the Westminster Parliament in the United Kingdom, such as dedicating Wednesday exclusively for questions to the Prime Minister, and dedicating Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for questions to ministers other than the Prime Minister in a way that would require ministers be present two of the four days to answer questions concerning their portfolio, based on a published schedule that would rotate and that would ensure an equitable distribution of ministers across the four days, are appropriate and useful in a Canadian context; (v) whether there are other practices of other parliaments based on the Westminster model that may be adopted and adapted to a Canadian context; and that the committee report its findings to the House within six months of the adoption of this order.”