Debates of Sept. 29th, 2014

Opposition Motion—Changes to the Standing Orders

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion tabled by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. As my colleague, the member for York South—Weston, has clarified, the intent of this motion presently being debated is to empower the Speaker to address the breakdown in question period, and consequently, the continued erosion of respect for this place.

Our concern about the lack of serious, informative answers to questions is but one of a litany of concerns we have about the erosion of respectful debate in this place. For example, we have an increasing number of omnibus bills, allowing for very limited debate. Second is the tabling of significant bills, including amendments to criminal law, by private government members, with the consequence of there being limited debate.

Also, as the member clarified, question period is in fact intended to be a one-way street. It is the time in this place when the opposition is provided specific time on the agenda to ask questions of the government of the day, and there is a reasonable expectation that the government will provide timely, informed responses.

How have government members responded to this motion? They have responded by alleging that our motion is one-sided, because it only talks about responses to questions and not the questions themselves. Incredibly, they have proffered that the opposition members merely seek to change question period to their own advantage. If the Conservatives cannot recall similar frustrations they faced while in opposition, perhaps they might give a care to a time in the future when even they are no longer the governing party.

Government members have also proferred that the Speaker has the current power to rule on the content of questions but not on answers. Indeed, the Speaker confirmed this view in his ruling on January 28, 2014, yet added his support for the principles laid down by previous Speakers, including, “But the Speaker must adhere to the longstanding principle that question period is intended to hold the government to account”.

The Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification has argued that granting a power of scrutiny to the Speaker to command relevant responses to questions is unnecessary, as the standing rules were previously amended to allow for late shows. With all due respect to the minister, Mr. Speaker, I can attest from personal experience that this opportunity has been reduced to a hollow right. The ministers choose not to attend to respond, and in my experience, the responses have tended to be uninformative, despite the clear opportunity for the minister to become better informed and respond at this later opportunity.

Incredibly, the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre objected to addressing “one-off” amendments to the Standing Orders, this from a member who has repeatedly defended the tabling by his party of one-off reforms to important statutes. He then went on to advise that he is working on comprehensive changes to the standing rules.

As the member for Toronto—Danforth has pointed out, our party is more than enthusiastic about participating in an all-party, thorough review of the Standing Orders. Will the government undertake any or all such reforms, and will they be by unanimous consent and not imposed through government majority, as has been its practice? As the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre has suggested, will his substantive review of the Standing Orders proceed with all parties and be agreed upon by unanimous consent? That is what is important.

It is important to consider that when the OGGO committee tabled a close to unanimous list of recommendations for the government to reform the estimates and spending reviews in this place, the minister rebuffed a good number of the recommendations that could have ushered in a more thorough, inclusive review process.

Finally, a number of government members objected to the practice of opposition members posing questions repeatedly on the same subject. Would it not be terrific if more ministers provided a full response at the outset?

My colleagues and I take very seriously our duty to both our constituents and all Canadians to raise questions to the ministers of the crown on critical matters, matters of great importance to Canadians. Far too often members of Parliament have raised questions in the House, on behalf of constituents, regarding the failure of the government to respond to inquiries.

That is regrettably the situation that has arisen in this place that has required the official opposition to bring forward a formal motion explicitly proposing a change to the House procedural rules to explicitly empower the Speaker to require relevant responses to questions.

The Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification has today expressed her preference for self-governance of behaviour by the ministers in tailoring their responses to questions. At least this is consistent with the government's policy on self-governance in all other ways.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice complained that members of Parliament too often repeat the same question. Why is that? It is because of the failure to respond to the prior questions.

As my colleague has clarified, this motion we are debating relates specifically to question period, when the Prime Minister and his executive, the cabinet, has the responsibility to provide constructive responses to questions presented about matters impacting Canadians.

It is important to consider that this motion for expanded powers for the Speaker to intervene during question period is not so untoward. The Speaker already has the recognized power to intervene during question period, such as in response to a point of order made following question period that raises an issue about the nature of the question or response, including the use of unparliamentary language.

Second, in practice, the Speaker from time to time intervenes immediately during the course of questions, or even answers, to seek clarified or better use of language.

As laid out in the second edition, 2009, of O'Brien and Bosc, Speaker Bosley, in 1986, when addressing this very issue of guidelines for question period, called for recognition of four principles. I would like to reiterate one of those four principles, the third:

While there may be other purposes and ambitions involved in Question Period, its primary purpose must be the seeking of information from the government and calling the government to account for its actions.

It is pretty clear.

I have long suggested to my constituents, who have expressed frustration to me about the lack of credible, cogent responses during question period, that I may need to table a motion calling for a name change from “question period” to “answer period”. I used to think that this was an amusing concept, but it has become the reality, and I am pleased that this motion is exactly addressing that issue.

I am hopeful that all members in this place will recognize the seriousness of our motion and will vote to restore the credibility of this place in the minds of Canadians and those elected to represent them.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite knows, I said that I will be voting for the motion. I am interested in her ideas, though, regarding question period, beyond just the issue of enforcing the irrelevancy and repetition rule.

One thing I think would be helpful for the government, and one day the Conservatives will no longer be in government and it will be a different party, would be to establish a rotation schedule for the first minister and other ministers so that they do not have to attend to the House every single day of the week to answer questions.

In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister comes once a week for a full question period, and other ministers appear on a rotation schedule. One could be set up so that ministers of the crown appeared twice a week on a rotation schedule. It would allow members of Parliament who are interested in certain subject areas to attend during certain days to ask specific questions of specific ministers and for the House as a whole to attend on Wednesdays to hear the first minister, the Prime Minister, respond to questions about the whole of government.

I would be interested to hear the hon. member's views on going to that sort of rotation schedule.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member will support the motion.

I appreciate the suggestions the hon. member made. I think the time for that kind of discussion is during the time the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre has suggested he is considering many changes to the Standing Orders. We are hopeful that this will done with all parties and that the changes will be unanimous or with the consent of all parties. That is one of the many proposals.

The concern I have is that sometimes these questions are urgent. That is one of the four principles. The questions should deal with matters that are urgent. Therefore, there should be flexibility when we raise those.

The important thing is that the ministers stand and respond to the questions and that they in fact respond to the questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the member's comments, when she talked about the erosion of respect. That is in fact what we have been witnessing. When we think of question period as a stand-alone issue as this motion suggests we do, it is important that we point out that one of the Conservative members made reference to the fact that it is difficult for the Speaker in a short time span to determine whether a question is repetitive or an answer is repetitive or relevant.

I would ask the member to acknowledge the fact that quite often it does not take much, a matter of seconds, to virtually determine that a minister's response in certain areas is completely irrelevant to the question that has been posed. We witnessed that last week on several occasions. It was not a question of having to wait until the answer or response was complete; we knew within 10 seconds that it was the intent of the minister not to provide an answer to the question.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not totally clear on the question that is being raised, but I certainly can attest to the fact of sharing the frustration of rarely, if ever, getting a genuine fulsome response to any of my questions. I and my colleagues in the opposition have been raising some very serious questions on serious matters, such as the potential of engaging in war, the rights of Canadian workers, the treatment of temporary foreign workers, the health of Canadians, and the protection of the environment. These are serious questions that we raise on behalf of our constituents and all Canadians; therefore, it is incumbent upon the ministers to respond seriously to those questions. As we have been reminded by previous speakers, Canadians are watching and the failure to give respect to those questions further erodes their confidence in the role of elected officials.

We encourage that all members support this motion and proceed with making whatever reforms are necessary. It would be nice if they self-governed, but they have shown in their time in office that they are simply not self-governing in the public interest.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I need to inquire if the member intended to share her time.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I am very sorry; I was supposed to say that I am sharing my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay. I look forward to his remarks very much.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always it is a great honour to stand in this House. In standing and speaking for the people of Timmins—James Bay, I never forget the honour I have in carrying their trust and being part of an institution that predates me by many centuries, and which I hope to God will continue on. It is something we are all part of.

Tonight we are debating an issue which in the many lows I have seen in our Parliament may be among the lowest. This is not to dwell on it, but sometimes there may be a breaking point when parliamentarians need to step back and say that there is something fundamentally going wrong within this House. This is not to denigrate the role of the Speaker, but I was very surprised when the Speaker threw up his hands in response to such a crisis, and said that he reads the rules literally, and unless it was written literally, he is not able to act. I was very surprised by that. However, what we are attempting to do tonight is to provide those tools.

We need to look at the issue at hand and what sparked this motion.

In the 10 years that I have been here, I have seen a continual decline in the quality of discussion. I am not trying to present anything naive such that there was a glory day of Parliament. I think Parliament has always been somewhat of a challenged place because it is made up of human beings. This is what democracy is. We have had better conversations and we have had low-brow conversations within this House.

However, the most serious thing that we are ever asked to do as legislators is to consider sending men and women into harm's way. That is the most serious thing that will ever confront any of us. Therefore, when the Leader of the Opposition asks a respectful question in question period and is treated to ignorant gibberish as a response and the Speaker says it is allowable, then we have a problem. When the responder for the crown can swear in question period not once but six times over three questions and that can be considered parliamentary because it is part of question period, because as we are told, “Well, it is question period, not answer period”, that is really not acceptable.

I have heard my hon. colleagues from the Conservatives tell us that this motion would somehow tie their hands unfairly. Yet, we know from within this Parliament that the Speaker has enforced the rules, that if the question is not pertinent to the issues of government, he cuts off the question. I have seen questions cut off numerous times in this session. The Speaker will tell us that if he feels the questions coming from the opposition are not respectful enough of ministers, he will cut off those questions, and he has cut off those questions. However, it is perfectly acceptable within his reading of the Standing Orders to treat the Leader of the Opposition to such contempt on the issue of Canadians going to war as somehow being parliamentary, but we know it is not.

We do have to address this issue. We have to address how it is in the interpretation of this House acceptable to swear six times in three questions and consider that to be parliamentary, or to respond on the issue of Canadians fighting in Iraq with some of the most ignorant drivel that I have ever heard in this House is parliamentary, but to call it out and question it is unparliamentary.

We see this pattern repeated again and again in this Parliament. We see it even with the apology. Normally when a member makes a mistake and comes into the House and gives an apology, the issue is considered done. It is sort of a gentlemen's and gentlewomen's code that we have always had. However, we saw an apology come after three days of defiant repetition of this side-show gibberish. The member stated in the apology that he did it on his own, that nobody told him to do it, but within minutes of that apology, we are seeing reports that that is simply not true. We are hearing that the plan had come right from the Prime Minister's Office and that the member was told by Alykhan Velshi, the director of issues management within the Prime Minister's Office, to say these lines.

Suddenly now it is parliamentary to stand up with an apology and not tell the truth, but it would be unparliamentary for me to challenge it because somehow, as an hon. member, we are supposed to take him at his word, even when the apology is simply not credible and not truthful.

What we are speaking about is something bigger than decorum. We are speaking about something that is bigger than just this charade that is being played out within Parliament, this contempt of democracy where we call each other honourable members and we stand and talk about the institution of Parliament and speak in the third person, but what we are seeing is that our parliamentary system is becoming increasingly a sideshow. It is a Potemkin democracy.

We see the officers of Parliament continually undermined in their work. Their role as independent officers of Parliament is to hold government and members to account. Yet we see that their ability to do their job is continually undermined.

We have seen how the parliamentary committees have been turned into a circus, once again, a sideshow, taking away the traditional role which the parliamentary committees had. We are not naive about this. There is a fundamental obligation to Parliament to work together, but that does not happen anymore. I have seen the deterioration.

The only thing that is left for Canadians to tune into now is that 45 minutes of question period where the issues of the day are supposed to be debated, where ministers of the crown are supposed to stand and answer. I used to tell my American friends that no matter what they say about the parliamentary tradition, we have a fundamentally vital Parliament because we know ministers of the crown have to stand and answer. However, it is getting harder and harder to tell Canadians that they can look to question period as a credible place to get answers.

This is not to say that in changing the Standing Orders the ministers cannot hesitate. It does not mean they cannot prevaricate when it comes to answering. It also does not mean they are not allowed to obfuscate, which we know they have done many times and they consider that part of the parliamentary tradition. It means they cannot denigrate this place through ignorant sideshow antics that take the fundamental credibility of the House to do its job and shoots it right down into a sideshow. That has to stop.

We know that in the parliamentary tradition the Speaker does have that obligation to stand and say that there is a bigger institution. I heard our hon. Speaker talk the other day about the obligation we all have to respect the office of the Speaker. I certainly believe that. But I do not believe it is the respect of the Speaker because he wears the black robe, but because the Speaker represents the obligation of Parliament to stand for something besides the cretin act that it has become. If the Speaker tells us that he does not somehow read the authority that stands in the Standing Orders that there have to be questions of relevance and answers of relevance, that somehow question period is exempt, then we have to change the Standing Orders because question period of all the periods of discussion in the House is when the matters of the day, the matters of national and international importance have to be addressed. If we see a pattern developing where this can be turned into something that is absolutely meaningless, then there is absolutely no credibility left in this Parliament.

I am sure many of my hon. colleagues have seen where the speaker in the British Parliament called out the prime minister of the day on questions of relevancy. That is a reminder of a larger obligation. We see within the British parliamentary system where within its committees if they do not actually have unanimous reports, it is considered a failure of the parliamentary system because within the committee system parties are supposed to work together. Under this present Conservative government that would never happen.

We are debating an important issue tonight and I actually hope that the government will even allow it to come to a vote. We saw the procedural shenanigans it came up with before. Once again, the opposition day is one of the few opportunities that opposition members have to set the agenda, and the first response of the government this morning was to attempt to play procedural high jinks and prevent it from getting to a vote.

I think the Conservatives felt the blowback from the Canadian people who say they are tired of this attitude, this contempt for Parliament. They want a vote. They want us to behave better than how we have been behaving. If the questions that are put in the House of Commons in question period have to be based on the relevance of government business, then there has to be a quid pro quo and recognition that the answers somehow must be relevant to that. I think all of us pray that we will never see such a spectacle again as we saw last week.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his very enlightening speech.

One of the rules of the House is that ministers must reply to oral questions to the best of their ability. Another very important rule is that answers should not create disorder, or undisciplined reactions in the House. I would like my colleague to provide some examples of instances where members of the executive failed to follow these rules or meet the needs of the public we represent. Canadians need clear and meaningful accountability.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my 10 years, I do remember when it was considered contempt of Parliament to mislead the House in an answer. Again, one could obfuscate. One could make a mistake. However, someone who set out to mislead Parliament, that was considered the most egregious crime that a member could commit, whether it was a sitting prime minister of whether it was a minister of the crown, and there were consequences.

We are at a point now where people just respond somehow with “Get over it”, “Come on”, “Welcome to Parliament”, “It's question period; it's not answer period”. However, the fundamental respect for even telling the truth seems to have been lost within this last Parliament, and that is a concern.

The Standing Orders have always been clear, in terms of the obligation to respond as best one can and as truthfully as one can. The fact that we even have to make it clear shows the fundamental problem that we are seeing in this democracy right now.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a question earlier of his colleague, the member of Parliament for Toronto—Danforth, and I want to ask him a very similar question.

The NDP has talked many times in this place about the importance of consultation, whether it be consulting with a group affected by a piece of legislation. Obviously, the group that would be affected by this proposed amendment to the Standing Orders would be yourself, Mr. Speaker, and the people who work in order to make this place function. Therefore, the concern I have is that by placing the Speaker as the arbiter to determine whether or not someone is relevant or where someone might see that someone is on topic or someone might see that, and I think the member for Toronto—Danforth mentioned this, in the good judgment of the Speaker, when the Speaker rules on something, as could happen under this, what we would end up with is a politically divisive issue that may undermine the working of the Speaker and the role itself.

Did the NDP consult with any current Speaker or previous Speaker before embarking upon this amendment?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to sound like I am getting long in the tooth from my many years here, but what he is asking us is this. If the Speaker had the authority to rule whether a question was relevant, what would we end up with? We would end up with the Westminster parliamentary tradition.

I do not know where my friend thinks he is sitting, but the Speaker has that authority. What would we end up with? We would end up with the tradition of the Speaker that exists in every Parliament in the western world.

What we are saying is that when the Speaker comes to the House and says that he does not have the authority to tell someone who stands and swears six times in a row and produces ruthless, ignorant gibberish in a question about going to war, if the Speaker says he does not have the authority to fix that, then it is our obligation, all parliamentarians, to do the right thing and fix the Standing Orders.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that some of the Conservative members during the day today have asked that questions should also be put more respectfully. I would like to go on record as saying I think that would also help question period, that questions spoke to specific areas of facts that the opposition members want to receive. This is essentially part of responsible government. However, the answers must be relevant as well.

I ask my hon. colleague if he does not think it would improve things around here if members of Parliament, in a number of parties, were not summoned to do something as ludicrous as question period preparation, QP prep, where people rehearse their questions and rehearse their answers. I think that contributes to making question period more partisan, less respectful, and encourages what I have referred to earlier as bad high school theatre.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take my role very seriously.

The fact that I practise my questions does not make me unparliamentary. I think it makes me more professional. I would like to think that my hon. colleague would come here prepared, as I do.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if time permitted, I would share what little time is left on this issue with my colleague from Labrador who is also interested in this particular issue and who brings a great deal of experience, in terms of House rules and procedure, to the table.

It is important that we recognize what we have witnessed in the current government over the last number of years is a genuine lack of respect for the chamber. I would suggest that we have seen a growing lack of respect. Canadians are, and should be, justifiably concerned in regard to this issue. It is a very important issue before us. Liberals, in speeches and in questions, have clearly indicated that we are supportive of the New Democratic motion today.

I do not say that lightly. We have had time allocation brought into the chamber in record high numbers. No government in the history of our country has used time allocation in the same fashion that the government has used time allocation. It is almost as if it were a normal part of the process, as if it were a part of the Standing Orders.

It severely restricts the engagement of members of Parliament on important pieces of legislation. We have seen a growing abuse in the way in which budgets are brought in. These budgets are massive, huge, multi-hundred page documents, which change numerous pieces of legislation that are totally irrelevant to budget issues. This is something that has been given life under the majority Conservative government, and the list goes on.

Today we are talking about question period. We can go from the Conservative contempt of Parliament to the Prime Minister's own guidebook for ministers, which was entitled “Accountable Government” and states that:

Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the use of all powers vested in them. This demands constant attention to their parliamentary duties, including being present in Parliament to answer honestly and accurately about their areas of responsibility....

This is not the case in most questions that are put forward to the government. The responses that we have been getting to the questions have been lacking. It does not meet the requirements that this Prime Minister, when he took government, said his expectations of his ministers were.

Last week was nothing more than just a good, tangible incident that occurred that everyone in this chamber, even the member who answered the questions, would today acknowledge was wrong. When a question is put forward, not only does the government choose not to answer the question but its answers are completely irrelevant to the question that has been put forward.

This is not the first time, the second time, the third time, and I could keep going to the hundreds if I were to list each instance. This is an ongoing problem that is getting worse with the government, and it needs to be addressed.

My colleague, the member for Guelph, made reference to the administration of government. When we put forward a question, we have to have a question that is relevant to the administration of the government. If that does not happen, the Speaker will stand in his place and say that question is out of order. Quite often we will then lose the question. That has happened on a number of occasions.

Hopefully through this, we will see guidance to the Speaker's office in regard to the need for us to make sure the government is in fact not only relevant to the questions, but hopefully if the ministers respond to what the Prime Minister had initially indicated that the area—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order, please. It being 6:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the motion that this question be now put. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion, the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I propose that the division be deferred until tomorrow, Tuesday, September 30, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

So ordered.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I request that we see the clock at 6:30 p.m.