Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in today's debate on Motion No. 431 on the process for selecting the chairs of committees of this House.
The first part of the motion would require the procedure and House affairs committee to consider the election of chairs by means of a preferential ballot system by all members of the House. The second part of the motion would require the committee to study the practices of committee chair elections in other Westminster-style parliaments and table its findings within six months of the motion being adopted, including any necessary modifications to the Standing Orders.
Before I begin, members of this House will know that our current system for electing committee chairs involves the election of committee chairs by members of each committee. Under this system, Standing Order 106 provides that at the start of every session, and when necessary during a session, each standing or special committee shall elect a chair and two vice-chairs. When more than one candidate is nominated, an election is conducted by secret ballot. This system is consistent with the view that committees are the masters of their own affairs.
These rules for electing committee chairs have been in operation for over 10 years. I believe it is fair to say that the current system functions relatively well. Prior to this motion coming forward, I had not heard of any major issues with the current system.
That said, I would like to remind members of the circumstances under which the current rules were adopted by the House. In October 2002, an opposition day motion was brought forward by the then official opposition, the Canadian Alliance Party. The motion proposed to change the Standing Orders to require the election of committee chairs by secret ballot. The rationale for the motion was that committee members should have the freedom to vote by secret ballot for the member of their choice to be chair.
The House agreed with that rationale and adopted the motion with an overwhelming majority of 174 to 87; in other words, the House voted to adopt the current system of electing committee chairs by a margin of two to one. Members of all recognized parties at the time supported the motion. In fact, there were over 30 members who supported the motion who are still members of this House today. I should note that although the previous Liberal government did not support the motion, many of its members did.
With respect to other jurisdictions, I would like to point out that most Westminster-style legislatures have the same system we do with respect to electing committee chairs. Australia and New Zealand, and most provinces, for that matter, have systems for electing committee chairs that are essentially the same as the approach currently used by this House. An exception to this general approach is the United Kingdom, which only recently changed to a preferential ballot system for electing committee chairs, in 2010. That was further to mounting public pressure due to patronage-related expense scandals.
With respect to our Canadian system, it should be noted that the Standing Orders already include a provision for a review of the operation of our rules by the procedure and House affairs committee. That occurs in each Parliament, as it is currently doing, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(a) and House order from February 17, 2012.
I believe that it is important that any changes to the rules of the House be carefully considered and be based upon parliamentary principles and traditions that reflect the interests of its members. Prudence, due diligence and broad support among members are extremely important before making any significant changes to the Standing Orders.
That being said, the motion before us today proposes a significant change to the manner in which committee chairs are elected. This proposed change raises some important questions and necessary considerations.
Some of these include the following: Is there a pressing need for changing the current system? What is currently not working? What would be the mechanism for removing chairs from their positions once elected? Would all members of the House need to address such a matter?
The current proposal could also lead to some unintended consequences with respect to adequate gender or regional representation of committee chairs. These are important considerations to look at. The reforms to the U.K. model for electing committee chairs were only implemented in 2010. The verdict is still out on the longer-term unintended consequences of its implementation.
Notwithstanding these questions and concerns, I do believe this motion could be improved and would be worthy of support with a simple rewording of sections A and B of the motion.
Currently, section (a) of the motion asks the procedure and house affairs committee to first:
—consider the election of committee chairs by means of a preferential ballot system by all the Members of the House of Commons...
Section (b) of the motion would ask the committee to:
—study the practices of other Westminster-style Parliaments in relation to the election of Committee Chairs.
On the face of it, the motion as currently ordered is asking the committee to first consider a specific option without having first considered and identified all the options that exist.
I would like to propose a simple amendment to improve this motion. Switching the order of the first and second sections of the motion would create a more logically coherent and ordered motion. It would allow members to review how committee chairs would be elected without first prescribing a particular solution and without presupposing any one specific alternative only after having considered all the options and determining whether a new system of electing chairs would be warranted.
As I said, I am happy to support the motion with a friendly amendment. I hope the sponsor of the motion accepts this amendment, which to be clear, does not change a single word of his original motion, but simply changes the order of sections (a) and (b). Before I propose the amendment, I would like to conclude by re-emphasizing that I believe it is important that all members recognize there are potential important and unintended consequences with the implementation of any change to the Standing Orders.
Before making the significant changes the motion is proposing, there should be a careful and thorough review of the current rules for committee chairs and serious consideration should be given to the potential, unintended consequences. We need to fully examine all potential consequences before we implement this.
Therefore, I move that the motion be amended by replacing the words in section (a) with "study the practices of other Westminster-style Parliaments in relation to the election of committee chairs", and replacing the words in section (b) with "consider the election of committee chairs by means of a preferential ballot system by all the members of the House of Commons, at the beginning of each session and prior to the establishment of the membership of the standing committees".