Debates of Oct. 6th, 2016

Standing Orders and Procedure

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House.

I think Canadians who tune in to these debates could be forgiven for wondering just what the heck we are talking about today. Over 100,000 energy workers have lost their jobs, the economy has flatlined, growth is down, and here we are talking about the Standing Orders. We are doing that because the Standing Orders require us to do it, so we are having this debate today.

It is one of the few debates in the House that those who regularly watch will see is a free exchange of ideas from all sides, from all members. That is positive. It is unfortunate that when we get into government legislation or opposition days, we seem to stray from that and stick to similar lines, if I can put it that way.

We need to be careful, as we examine the Standing Orders, that as we propose changes, we do not do anything that would diminish the role or the relevance of Parliament to Canada. In the chamber today I have heard some members say that ideas have just popped into their heads. It is great to throw them out on the table, but this is not a brainstorming session where we just get together over a cup of coffee and change the way Parliament works. That is not what we should be doing. This needs to be carefully considered.

I want to make the point that we are members of Parliament. Parliament is not here to serve us; we are here to serve Parliament and the Canadians who sent us here. That is what the debate should be about. The question should not be how Parliament can better serve members of Parliament but how parliamentarians can better serve Canadians through this place. That is what we want to talk about today.

We are having this debate, in large part, with all these new ideas coming forward, because there are so many new MPs. There are 200 or so new MPs since the last Parliament. Some 59% of members of Parliament are new. Some are returning after some time away. That gives us some fresh eyes on the situation.

We should encourage meaningful, thoughtful conversations. However, I have heard things today that make it seem as if people are looking for Parliament to do a job that they should be doing for themselves as individuals.

I have heard people say that members of Parliament do not have to speak for 10 minutes. They can speak for five. I would encourage members of Parliament who have only five minutes of content to speak for five minutes and sit down. They do not need the Standing Orders to be amended to restrict the speeches of members who might want to speak for 10 minutes. If we are going to have five minutes, why not one minute? Why do we not just email our statements in? That would save all the trouble of having to stand here and have it translated in real time.

This is an important chamber we are in, and we should not diminish the role of members of Parliament.

Members of Parliament have great power. I have heard about re-establishing or changing the work-life balance. I have news for members. The Standing Orders will not change their work-life balance for them. Members of Parliament have to take control of their own situations. If they need more time with their families, they need to carve that time out.

Members are asking about taking Friday off, getting back to their ridings, and being here only Monday to Thursday. What would happen in most situations is that we would all go to work on Friday. We would be working in a different location, and there would be less accountability here for the government, with one fewer day for question period and one fewer day for legislation to be examined. It would do nothing for work-life balance.

When we are in our ridings, we are not at home with our feet up on the coffee table. Our constituents expect us to be out. They expect us to be at events. They expect us to be meeting with them. If members of Parliament are expecting the Standing Orders to save them from a bad work-life balance, it is not going to happen.

I have a unique perspective on work-life balance. Others here worked in the political system before being elected to it. My dad was a member of Parliament from 1993 to 2011. I was 15 years old when he was elected. Members could ask either one of us, and we would say that we missed a number of milestones. He missed my graduation because he had to be here in Ottawa. That was tough. We celebrated some milestones over the phone. I have had that same experience of missing milestones with my wife and young son, things that I am just not around for.

However, no one forced my dad to run for office, and no one forced me to run for office. We knew what we were getting into when we signed up. We signed up for a job that has gruelling travel. I have heard some talk about being 15 hours away. It is about 16 or 17 hours round trip to my house in Chilliwack. I campaigned in the last election for 78 days for people to give me the privilege to serve in the House. I did not complain about the work-life balance. I campaigned vigorously against a Liberal candidate who wanted to do the same thing. Now members are saying we need the Standing Orders to save our work-life balance. That is not what this is about. This is about reducing accountability by 20%.

If we extend work hours during the week, that makes it worse for families. It makes it worse for our local families and the ones who have moved their families to Ottawa, hoping to get home after a committee or a late night vote to see their kids for a couple of hours, for supper, and before bedtime. Now there is talk of working Monday to Thursday as a compressed schedule and extending work hours. People would not see their families.

Putting aside members of Parliament, our staff are working while the House is in session. Therefore, staff would be required to stay here Monday to Thursday late into the night, not see their kids after school, not see their kids before bed. Then, on Friday, when they are supposedly improving their work-life balance, their kids are in school, so they would not see them then either. This is not a solution to the problem. I challenge anyone to ask their constituents about the need for MPs to take some time off while 100,000 energy workers have been laid off. That is a non-starter on this side of the House.

We can talk about ways to make it more efficient. I congratulate the House leaders and whips for having made this Parliament much more family friendly than the last one. How have we done that? We have done it by having votes after question period when all members are already in the House. The 200 new members of Parliament can go back to check videos or Hansard, and they will see that we used to vote on three and four nights a week, every week.

Now members of Parliament, if their families are here, are able to get home, have dinner with their families, and tuck the kids into bed. My family is in Chilliwack, and I do not have that luxury. However, the fact is that the House has wrapped up by seven o'clock most nights, which means that I can phone home or FaceTime my son. It allows more flexibility. There are things we have already done that have made this Parliament more family friendly. We need to make sure that we do not reduce accountability in this family-friendly language.

No one talks about the work-life balance of an oil sands worker in my riding, who leaves his family for three weeks at a time. He is home for a week and gone for three weeks. Long-haul truck drivers are gone for weeks at a time. What about our men and women in the military? My cousin served for 10 months in Afghanistan. No one talked about his work-life balance, or asked the military to change the way that things were done to accommodate that. They signed up for those jobs, and they did the work well. That is what we should be doing here as well, not looking for ways to diminish the accountability of the government.

When the Liberals were the third party in the House, they never talked about going home on Thursday night. This was never an issue for the Liberal Party when it was the third party. Now that Liberals are in power, there is suddenly a shift away from the House. They want to diminish the importance of the House. They want to diminish our time in the House. We should not allow that to happen.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Chilliwack—Hope for his contribution. While I do not accept his premise on the intention of the government with respect to the possible elimination of us sitting on Friday, I think we all accept on this side of the House that when we signed on, this was a seven-day-a-week job.

The question we are framing is in terms of our accessibility to our constituents, and our ability to have more opportunities to interact with them and bring their issues and concerns to this House. Therefore, I take some exception to what I see as a clear sense of opposition from the Conservative Party with respect to this particular initiative. Again, I want to encourage members on all sides of the House that particularly with this debate, it should not be a partisan debate.

I am a member of the procedure and House affairs committee, and we all want the best ideas to come forward. We want to try to make this place more attractive to Canadians to serve in this place, and to make this a place that all Canadians can embrace. I would encourage my friend to consider that, and perhaps make a different contribution with respect to how we could better serve our constituents through some changes in the Standing Orders.

The Standing Orders are the blunt instrument by which we get things done. I am not suggesting that is the way it should be. It should ultimately come back to our practices and how we conduct ourselves with and between each other.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree. We should be talking about good ideas. We should also be disagreeing with bad ones, and it is a bad idea to cancel Friday sittings.

What is happening now, and people who tune in will know, is that on Thursday nights a lot of members of Parliament head for the exit. If one tries to find a minister on a Friday in the House, there are probably two, because they head out to the rest of the country to do their work.

I have been a parliamentary secretary. I have been here every Friday for an entire two years. That is a sacrifice that one makes when one is on that side of the House. However, if Friday is cancelled, people will start leaving on Wednesdays, and then we would have no ministers here on Thursdays. We would diminish the role of the House of Commons, and we do not want anything that would do that.

I respect the member and people who are trying to make this place more family friendly. I would argue that we have done it. On what the member is talking about by cancelling Fridays, I was in the procedure and House affairs committee when members of the NDP brought their staff out. There were two young moms who said that if we cancelled Fridays, they would lose time with their families. They would not be there for the critical hours from after school to bedtime, from supper to bedtime. They would miss that, and then on Friday, they would have to work anyway while the member was back home. Therefore, this is bad for our staff. It would not do anything for our families, unless we, as individual people and members of Parliament, carve out that time for our families.

The divorce rate here is astronomical. It is a very tough job on families. Again, we have signed up knowing that. It is up to each one of us to take the steps to protect our family, to protect that work-life balance. The Standing Orders are not going to do that for us.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here to try to make Parliament work better, and there have been some great suggestions today.

From the point of view of my constituents, question period is not exactly a shining example of how we should be working together collaboratively in the House. In fact, the system right now is partisan questions and partisan answers, which does not inform my constituents about very much at all, other than that we can be quite partisan.

I am interested in the member's views on how we can improve question period moving forward, so that we actually have serious questions and serious answers.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard some members suggest an alphabetical order or rotation.

I think it is important that the government answers the questions from the opposition every day. I know that sometimes its members might not like the format that questions are given in, and the format coming back frustrates us as well. That is part of what we do here. There is a challenge function that this side of the House provides to the government. However, whichever way question period is organized, I do not know that it will inform the member's constituents, with a 35-second question and a 35-second answer. It is very difficult to do that.

Certainly by taking away a question period, which would happen if we left Fridays out of the schedule, it would take away accountability. We want the government to be accountable, Monday to Friday, all the time. We certainly want to be able to hold the government to account here with question period, Monday to Friday.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to stand here today to discuss this subject.

As a new member, I arrived here some nine months ago wondering what the rules were, and found out that not only were there a lot of rules, but there were a lot of unwritten rules as well. This was difficult for me to get my head around.

When I heard that we would be spending today talking about the Standing Orders, I welcomed it. It is indeed a chance to brainstorm all of the different ways that we could make the House conduct its business in a better way. I listened with great interest to the speeches this morning, and there are more to come later today from my fellow members about how we could do that.

For my part, I want to take things in a different direction and talk about how we can make the debate in the House much more meaningful to each other, more meaningful to the work that we do here as members of Parliament, which is to create, to review, to vote on legislation, and hold the government to account.

I want to again thank our clerks and officers of the House of Commons for the terrific support that we receive from them.

I did some research from our big green book, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Chapter 13, on the evolution of how things came to be here with respect to maintaining debate.

There were things that were of particular interest to me. I realized that I broke one of the rules very early on in the game. I learned why we have the mace on the table and why we are not to pass between the mace and the Speaker. The reason is that at different times in our history, members tried to impede debate by grabbing the mace. I do not know what they would have done with it, but they did grab it. That was certainly not my intention when I did that. That is the kind of thing that I have learned.

I also learned that in the early years, the debates were very vigorous. Members sat for long hours, and apparently it was not unknown to have some imbibing going on outside the premises. This also led to the invocation of different rules, where the Speaker was able to tell a member that he or she was being repetitive, redundant, or off topic. At that time, members did speak off the cuff and were not always to the point.

I am doing my best today to speak to the point because it does bring back stimulating and vigorous debate in the House.

I do believe in preparation. It is a good idea to do one's research and to know what one is going to talk about before speaking. Do forgive me if I resort to my notes from time to time.

When we are looking at decorum here in the House, I have to ask what the purpose is of that. It is not because we are having a tea party here. It is because we want to engage in civil and free discourse to the greatest extent possible, so we can have an exchange of ideas and constructive criticism as we debate the many important topics before us.

Apparently, it is the Speaker's job to maintain that decorum. The Speaker has a very heavy-handed tool to do that. Basically, it is in article 11, which allows the Speaker to name a member and cause that member to withdraw from the House. It is my understanding that naming a member came out of British parliamentary tradition. We are talking perhaps around 1913, and I am sure that someone will check that for me. Naming was such a shameful thing for the member in question, and the member would immediately apologize to the House. Decorum was basically kept for another 30 years after that. There is something to be said about members knowing they have crossed the line, that they have disrupted the House and are being called to account for that.

There is something to be said for having intermediary measures. In my own background, one of the many things I did—and I do not know how it happened—was act as the disciplinary officer for the director of a student residence at McGill University, with 750 18-year olds. If members want to see wild and disorderly conduct, they should go to a student residence on a Friday or Saturday night. They are young people who are very active. We had one rule at McGill, which was respect. However, they did not always know what that meant, so I had to spell it out for them in different ways. I did not want to use the heavy-handed tool of a formal reprimand, which could lead to suspension or expulsion, as that was too much and went too far. What I found very useful was a very timely call to a 7:00 a.m. interview, in a formal letter to the students that would be put under their bedroom door at the residence. I figured if they were going to bother me, I was going to bother them. Those interviews really led to a general calming of the waters, to the extent that when students learned that there would be consequences to their actions it became a much safer and more enjoyable place for everyone.

Coming back to the intermediary measures, I had a few ideas, and we were kicking them around a bit. I sometimes think of this place as a bit like a sports arena, so I was thinking of a penalty box at the end of the chamber. The Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities had a great idea, basically like in soccer, where yellow and red cards could be used as a warning to members who are being disruptive in the House and interrupting another member. If we were in a baseball frame of mind, it could be that members are given a first warning, a second warning, and a third warning; three strikes and they are out.

We can look to the kind of practices that we already have, whereby the Speaker has the authority to recognize or not recognize a member as he or she chooses. I believe that is something we need to get back to and perhaps also codify in the Standing Orders to make it evident to the members. Then, the Speaker could say something to the effect of “I admonish you under Standing Order x, y, or z”, so that the member stands warned, because as it is now sometimes one side or the other will lose a question, but it is not normally the offending member.

Those are the kinds of things I was thinking of, because I really do believe that the best thing we can do for Canadians is to make the debate and the work we do in this House more meaningful. We need something that would bring out the best in us, rather than the worst, as we have unfortunately seen on too many occasions.

Also, I am a great believer in apologies. I have used that to great effect when I was working with students. There is something to be said about people acknowledging that their behaviour has hurt other people.

Therefore, I would call upon the procedures and the House affairs committee to think about these different measures. Let us give our Speaker the authority and the tools that he or she needs to help remind all members why we are here and what kind of behaviour and decorum we should be keeping.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have never before heard of a Liberal being a party-pooper. It sounds as if what the member did before was a tough job. I coached hockey for a long time. I have four beautiful children, aged 22 to 28. Indeed, teenagers sometimes look at us as if we have four eyes and are a bit hard to handle at times.

I want to acknowledge something today that our hon. colleague from Chilliwack mentioned, which is that the folks at home are probably having a hard time following along. As well, I want to acknowledge that our poor pages are also listening today. I am sure their eyes are rolling in the back of their heads at times as we go back and forth, and I wanted to apologize to them for the discussion.

My question for our hon. colleague is this. We have heard a lot of great partisan and non-partisan discussion today. We have heard some suggestions about bypassing long-standing traditions or procedure with respect to private members' bills. We know why we have these long-standing procedures in place, and we need to go through that proper process. I wonder if our hon. colleague would support bypassing some of those long-standing procedures, as suggested by some of the other members. I will very quickly say that I do not support that.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to make it clear for the record, I am not against the thrust and parry of vigorous debate, with the occasional pithy remark or interruption. I have heard quite a few, sitting on this side of the House, and there are few that come over from that side of the House, too. That is what makes this an energetic and real place.

Talking about private members' bills, I am 87th on the list, so I have to admit it is sort of far right now. I would just like to see that be a more useful process. I understand from the stories of other members that there are some longstanding members who have never had a chance to present a private member's bill, yet somebody else just fresh out of the gate gets told that he or she is number two on the list. I do not see how that is useful. I do not see how that is productive. There are definitely things that need to be done in looking at how private members' bills come to the floor of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague. In the 12 years I have been here, I have seen some deplorable, thuggish behaviour. It is up to the Speaker to handle that, and I think in this Parliament the role of the Speaker has attempted to do that.

I guess my concern is there is a tendency to infantilize this House as though we are all bad children; we use penalty box metaphors.

I came here to speak truth to power. I did not come here to belong to an august little club where we all pat each other on the back and say, “What an excellent question”.

Decorum is about truth and answering.

I would suggest one of the main problems that I see, which adds a great deal of frustration, is that we have people standing in the House, reading things that were written by somebody else, and we can tell they are reading something that was handed to them five minutes ago. What are they doing here? Why not just have their staff come in?

To read repeated notes from ministers, day after day, is a debasement of debate, so yes, I get frustrated. I would suggest we return to the Standing Orders that existed, whereby we have to just speak. It might be a bit more difficult for us. We might be a little wibbly-wobbly for a while; but that would actually restore a level of accountability in the House, because what is happening under this faux decorum is that we are being run like vacuous marionettes by whatever political staffers higher up are saying, such as “This is what you are going to read today. This is what you are going to say, and in trouble, say only this”.

That is not democracy.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about how we can cut those strings of the marionettes so we can actually start to speak truth to power, get proper responses, and do it in a dignified fashion.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his remarks, but I beg to differ. Order and decorum are here so that we can engage in just the kind of speaking truth to power that we are all here to do. In that regard, yes, we need to have more substantive debate, more spontaneous debate.

I thought we had to read from speeches. Now that I know we do not, members can be assured that they will be hearing more from me.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very instructive to hear my hon. colleagues talk about the standing orders and decorum in the House.

As one of the cohort of new members in the House of Commons, I greatly appreciate what I have discovered upon arriving here, such as tradition and parliamentary procedure. I love being here. It is a privilege to have a seat in the House.

Then again, it must not be forgotten that this is a job for which we are very well paid. Canadians see this and they are watching us. We are very lucky, but we also have very good conditions that oblige us to work from Monday to Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday. If we have such fine conditions, it is because Parliament has recognized that MPs have a job to do and that we ought to do that job as best we can, while taking the time to do it to the best of our abilities.

That is why all the suggestions we have heard about shortening the work week are hard for working people to understand or accept. For example, a friend of mine in my riding works a seven on, seven off schedule. He goes seven days without seeing his family, then spends seven days with them.

People who work 21-day stretches up north work all the time. They adapt. They still have families because they do what they have to do to maintain that. I am sure we can have our families and still do the job we are here to do.

Our job is to ask the government questions and hold it to account. The government and the ministers' job is to answer our questions because we speak on behalf of Canadians who want to ask the government questions but do not have access to ministers like we do.

That access is what I want to talk about in the House today. How can we improve Canadians' access to the House of Commons? Petitions are among the few ways Canadians can send their messages directly to the House of Commons. We present petitions every day, at every opportunity. Petitions are messages from Canadians to all parliamentarians.

Unfortunately, I have a petition here that I cannot present to Parliament because it does not comply with the Standing Orders, which contain not one, but eleven requirements that someone from Lac-Drolet who never comes here must satisfy if he or she wants to be heard in the House by presenting a petition. I think that shows us an easy way to improve access to the House.

I have a concrete example. It is a petition signed by many of my constituents to get cell phone service. Since there are no cell phones in Lac-Drolet, people signed a petition to demand cell phone service, but they made a few mistakes.

First of all, the municipality that wrote the petition included its logo. Too bad. Petitions must not have any logos on them, or they cannot be presented. Second, who provides cell phone service? It is certainly not Parliament. The petition calls on Bell to provide cellular service. That was the second mistake. Petitions must be addressed only to Parliament. Third—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order, please. Since we are discussing the rules of the House today, I would remind the member that the use of props is prohibited in the House. Members can read something from a device, but otherwise, props are not permitted.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, these are my notes. On the one hand, we are not supposed to read our notes, and on the other, when I read them, I am told that I am reading my notes, but anyway.

The attachment that included logos did not call on Parliament to act directly. It is important to understand that the people who draft these kinds of petitions are unfamiliar with our rules. They want to do the right thing and send a message. I would like the members here to allow non-standard petitions to be presented, like the National Assembly of Quebec does, with the members' consent. If, by chance, our constituents want to present a petition that does not meet all the requirements, we can recognize that it does not conform. However, we could simply stand up and seek our colleagues' consent to present the petition anyway, recognizing that it does not conform. Our constituents could then have the opportunity to present a petition and speak with their MP, and all MPs, and their message would be heard. They could then expect a response from Parliament. I think that small change could make a big difference in regaining the trust of Canadians.

For example, when I tell people that I cannot present their petition because there is a logo on it, they are going to say that this is more red tape and they will wonder why they were not informed and why we are making this so difficult. Please, help us. We can work on this together to make our Parliament more accessible.

There is another thing: to me, 15 minutes is 15 minutes. We have allocated speaking time. We have 10 minutes for speeches, and then five minutes to respond to questions and comments, or 20 minutes of speaking time and 10 minutes for questions and comments. However, when a member does not use the full 10 minutes, we move into a five-minute period for questions. If, for example, I speak for only seven minutes, which would surprise me a great deal, that would be followed by five minutes of questions. My intervention would therefore be two minutes shorter. It is hard for our staff to set schedules and it is hard for us to manage. Why not have a period of 15 minutes, with a maximum of 10 minutes for the speech? Then, the time that is not used for the speech would be used for questions and comments.

This would improve debate and allow us to have more discussions with our colleagues. It might prevent the problem that some people mentioned of talking for the sake of talking or to fill up the time. Instead, members could say what they have to say in seven minutes and then give everyone the chance to ask questions.

I think that would be a good thing and that it would really help parliamentarians who do not necessarily always want to speak off the cuff and who then have to consult their notes because they absolutely have to fill 10 minutes. This would allow us to take debates further. That is a suggestion that I want to make to the House.

People often wonder why question period gets so heated. It is a question period, but unfortunately it is not an answer period. Things get a bit complicated, but that is understandable. When a member asks a minister a question and the Leader of the Government decides that a different minister is going to answer, how can we expect to get a real answer? Why can the members of Parliament not ask someone, even a parliamentary secretary if need be, a question and have that person respond? Why must it be up to the discretion of the Leader of the Government?

This is a way of making ministers accountable for their files. It would allow us to get real answers from the person involved, rather than evasive answers that were prepared ahead of time. I think that this is a constructive suggestion that would enable the opposition to do its work properly and enable the government to give real answers to Canadians. We are here for them. They want us to ask questions and they expect the government to answer them. How can we get good answers if the right person does not respond? That is another suggestion that I want to make.

I will close by commenting on the famous planted questions, as they are known. The government sometimes launches a program on Tuesday and a member on the same side of the House will ask, “Is that not a great program that you launched yesterday, Minister?” It is a little over the top, and people can make it ridiculous. That is not uncommon. At that point, it is very obvious that the House only serves as a propaganda machine for a government program.

I think that MPs in government have the right to ask the minister questions when their files are not moving forward. Instead of being told to ask a question to raise the profile of a minister who does not speak all that often, why not allocate this time to the opposition and government MPs so they can ask real questions on behalf of the people they represent, and so they, too, can get real answers about their files right here in the House? That is why we are here.

In question period, there are not that many questions for government members as it is. Thus, these questions should not be used to make ministers look good, but rather to advance the files of members in government.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the members all recognize, standing committees are where the work happens. In here, as was mentioned earlier, a lot of times we get parliamentary theatrics. We have things that are read and sometimes, most times, comments that are made from somebody else's pen.

With that, also at standing committees, public participation happens. They open up the doors of government and include more people in the conversations and issues we are dealing with on a daily basis, within every aspect of government business.

This morning, for example, at the transportation, infrastructure, and communities committee, we were able to move forward, as the member opposite recognizes because he does sit on that committee, to establish a Canadian transportation and logistics strategy. With that said, it gave us the opportunity and gives us the opportunity once again to dive a bit deeper into those issues, and of course include the public in the dialogue we will be establishing and of course the decision that will soon be ultimately made.

When we do move forward with the possibility of changes on Fridays or even any other day of the week and any other hour of the day, does the member not agree that we should and can and would support the idea of working extended hours in our days, working extra days in a week to include a Saturday or Sunday, and ultimately to possibly even include a Friday as a day for more standing committee work, to once again get to those issues more diligently and involve more public participation?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that makes no sense. On the one hand, people are asking that Friday be used to enhance the work-life balance, and on the other hand, people are asking members to arrive at 7 a.m. and leave at midnight. We cannot do that. We already work long hours, and the House already has the power to extend those hours.

As things stand, members who live here do not see much of their family. Shortening the week and then adding hours of work to the other days of the week goes against the fundamental desire to improve the quality of our family life when our family lives with us in Ottawa or Gatineau.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable more.

My constituents do not get to decide to take Fridays off, and I do not think we should decide to take Fridays off. I think actually that it is deceptive to say it is more family friendly. I totally agree with him that lengthening the day is not just not family friendly for MPs. Think of the hundreds of staff who work for us in this institution and what it would do to their family lives to extend those sittings to midnight every night during the week.

Extending a Thursday night sitting for me, from Vancouver Island, means I would be here on Friday anyway. If I have to stay until midnight on Thursday night, I would be stuck in Ottawa on Friday without a sitting of the House, and I would lose a significant amount of my time as an individual member to contribute to debate and questions.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose the member wants to know if I agree with him. I certainly do, because it makes no sense to spend more time travelling every week than we do in the House. During the week, we have to spend our time doing our work here in the House. That is what Canadians expect: a Monday to Friday work week.

When I am in my riding, I work Monday to Friday. I do not ask my staff to hold down the fort on Fridays because I do not feel like it or I had a busy week. We are here to work. I think that all Canadians expect us to work hard and make progress on their issues.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the Standing Orders and how we can improve this institution, and in the process, better serve our constituents.

My remarks come from the vantage point of a new member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park with one year of service in the House, but also from the perspective of a lawyer with 14 years of courtroom experience and from the lens of a 44-year-old husband and father of two young children, both of whom are under the age of six.

As a preliminary comment, I am very proud of this, our 42nd Parliament. I am proud of its composition and its diversity. Importantly, we have elected a large number of first-time members, 197 to be precise, many of whom are from a younger age demographic. I see this as an inherent good. New MPs have the benefit of bringing fresh perspectives and new ideas, which serve to improve the development of legislation in this chamber. However, with younger MPs at different stages of their lives come different challenges, particularly among members who are raising young families or considering starting a family.

My goal is to do everything I can to keep that youth momentum going so that young MPs return to the House in 2019 and other young people who want to run for the first time are encouraged to do so. I hope we all share that goal. Improving the way the House works will make it easier to achieve that goal. With that in mind, I would like to raise three points.

First is decorum. I will be frank. I come from the environment of the courtroom. Having spent 14 years as a litigator, I am very used to passionate debate and articulate submissions, but I have also become accustomed to control over decorum by no-nonsense judges who run strict courtrooms. What I am not used to is the inability to hear oneself think, being shouted down, being constantly interrupted, jeered, or heckled. Such behaviour is not befitting this chamber. Such behaviour is not befitting the office of a member of Parliament. Such behaviour is not respectful of the very voters who sent us to this institution.

I have heard over and over again from engaged and informed residents of my riding of Parkdale—High Park that they want, indeed they expect, an elevated tone of debate, not the cacophony that is our daily question period. This behaviour is tactical. The only strategic purpose for such behaviour is to rattle the person at the microphone to get him or her off their train of thought, rendering their oral delivery less effective. I have witnessed this used repeatedly in this Parliament, often by experienced members against newer members. In particular, I have personally observed a very disturbing trend, a pattern where outspoken male members of Parliament redouble their efforts to heckle female members. I will call this what it is. It is a form of intimidation and bullying that should never be countenanced in this institution.

This is not a basketball court. Parliament is not a forum for trash talk. It is a forum for the exchange of ideas, a form for rigorous and passionate debate, a forum where elected representatives are expected to vigorously present their views and the views of their constituents and be met by equally vigorous but disciplined opposition. I believe it can be that forum. We are certainly not there now.

How can we improve the civility and decorum in this chamber? I have a few ideas. One is the proximity of you, Mr. Speaker, to the actual orators. Many of my colleagues who have moved from seats closer to your chair to seats that are now closer to the Sergeant-at-Arms at the far end of the chamber have noted that the decline in civility as one moves further and further from the Speaker's chair is evident. To put it plainly, the further away members are from you, the easier it is to misbehave. Therein lies a simple solution. We could employ one of the deputy speakers to take up a formal seat near the Sergeant-at-Arms during question period to serve as a second set of eyes and ears down at the opposite end of the chamber. The mere presence, I believe, would have a moderating effect on members' behaviour.

My second point is the reprimands that are meted out. I understand, Mr. Speaker, you already have various options: verbal warnings, removing questions, depriving members of the ability to speak in the chamber, calling them to the bar, and even ordering them removed from the House. It is critical for you to not only have these methods of reprimand, but also to employ them, and I would respectfully ask you to do so more frequently.

My third recommendation would be to keep an active written record of MP transgressions. In this way, each member would have a report card of sorts. I would urge in this era of openness and transparency that such reports be made publicly available on the Parliament of Canada website. The same level of public scrutiny that is brought to bear on MPs' expenses, with quarterly publications online, should be applied to the behaviour of members of Parliament in this very chamber.

There is a troubling culture of impunity in the House, one that emboldens disruptive members of Parliament into being vocal. This occurs because MPs are aware that their behaviour is not only often out of the sight of you, Mr. Speaker, but out of the sight of Canadians. In this regard, I am referring to the cameras in the House of Commons, which according to our current rules may only be focused on a member who has been recognized to speak. This, is my view, would again be a simple fix.

My fourth recommendation is that if outspoken members of Parliament knew their heckling, jeering, and interventions could actually be caught on camera and beamed via CPAC to the living rooms of people around the country, it would mitigate their misbehaviour.

I propose to continue the remainder of my speech after question period is concluded.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the member. He will have four and a half minutes left in his speech after question period.

Union Park

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to recognize the opening of Union Park, a new community park in Meadowvale. I would also like to commend Councillor Pat Saito and the City of Mississauga employees who made this project possible.

In 1957, the Union Natural Gas Company of Canada constructed a gas transmission facility that was operational in the 1960s. In 2012, the City of Mississauga obtained the land from Union Gas. It is now one of the most innovative parks I have ever seen, complete with a new playground, shaded canopy, walking paths, a dog run, and a multi-sport court with basketball nets that turns into one of two hockey rinks. The fun does not stop there, as the park also includes a water feature, adult exercise stations, a tobogganing area, and a skate park with a half-pipe.

I would like to encourage all residents to get out and enjoy this park.

Special Olympics

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Speaker, three weeks ago I attended the breakfast kickoff for Special Olympics Saskatchewan.

Special Olympics Saskatchewan is dedicated to enriching the lives of people with intellectual disabilities through active participation in sport. It is part of Special Olympics Canada, an organization with over 40,000 special Olympians and 20,000 volunteers. The Special Olympics builds community inclusion and is good for everyone.

At the breakfast, I promised to challenge my fellow MPs to get involved with the Special Olympics across the country. To each and every member of the House, I challenge you to meet special Olympians in your riding and during their Hill Day on October 25. Have them tell you why the Special Olympics is so valuable, and post it to your Facebook and web page. Their story of success and inclusion needs to be told. I know you will enjoy meeting these admirable Canadians as much as I did.

Lucienne Rioux, Juliette Thibeault and Adolphe Leduc

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to send my best wishes to Lucienne Rioux, Juliette Thibeault, and Adolphe Leduc, three of my constituents who all celebrated their 100th birthday in September.

They were babies during the First World War, teenagers during the Great Depression, and young adults during the Second World War. They have watched our national identity evolve over the years.

They also witnessed the ways in which our world has changed and became more connected and, most of all, Canada's ascension as a strong and respected autonomous state.

Today Canada exists because of the hard work and dedication of people like Lucienne, Juliette, and Adolphe, and all of our seniors who, for generations past, contributed immensely to Canadian society.

I thank them for their lifetime as proud, honest, hard-working Canadians, and again wish them a happy 100th birthday and many more to come.

Michel Pageau

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Abitibi-Témiscamingue is in mourning. It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Michel Pageau yesterday evening. Thirty years ago, this former trapper and his wife Louise founded a wildlife shelter near Amos, which remains a tourist hotspot in our region.

Still today, the mission of Refuge Pageau is to take in injured animals, care for them, and release them. The shelter also welcomes thousands of visitors annually and teaches them about local wildlife and the boreal forest. Michel Pageau had become an icon of Abitibi-Témiscamingue and one of the most famous ambassadors of Canada, even outside our borders.

The documentary, The Man Who Talks with Wolves, and a book about him, J'ai entendu pleurer la forêt, will keep alive the memory of this gentle trapper, this Santa-like figure who loved and communicated with animals.

I want to extend my deepest condolences to his wife, Louise, his children, and all their family, not to mention the wards of Refuge Pageau, who have lost their biggest champion.

Oktoberfest

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians of German ethnic ancestry are one of the largest ethnic groups in Canada. One out of every 10 Canadians is of German ancestry, and one out of every five people of German ancestry in Canada lives where I do in Waterloo region.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 48th annual Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest, a nine day celebration of German heritage, filled with food, music and festivities. Put on your lederhosen and your dirndls, and experience the gemütlichkeit as you polka the night away at one of the city's seventeen festhallen.

On my own behalf and that of members for Kitchener Centre, Kitchener—Conestoga, Cambridge, and Waterloo, it gives me great pleasure to invite all members to join us tomorrow at noon at Kitchener City Hall, as the Prime Minister taps the keg at the opening ceremonies.

Orangeville Public Library

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to congratulate the Orangeville Public Library on the commencement of its Canada 150 renovation project. This $275,000 project was approved last year with $91,000 in federal funding under the Canada 150 community infrastructure program of our previous Conservative government.

The renovation will include an expanded children's area, quiet study space, an accessible family washroom, and electrical and lighting upgrades for new technology. The new renovations will help create a contemporary dynamic design that will emphasize openness and flexibility for the future, while preserving the library's historic charm.

Located on Mill Street in downtown Orangeville, this historic building is an important landmark for the Orangeville community. The recipient of a grant of $12,400 from the Carnegie Foundation in 1904, this key part of our community has been providing exemplary service to the residents of Orangeville for well over a century.