House of Commons Hansard #158 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was report.

Topics

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:05 p.m.

David Christopherson

That is not insincere.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

That is totally insincere, Mr. Speaker, to the point where all they have to do is start this study and get moving. That is all I ask.

Each and every time that we have done this, the opposition talks about the precedents, and there are a lot of them. I do not want to take this off the rails, in the sense that I do not want people to think that we are against a unanimous report. We would all love to have one, all of us. It is an aspirational goal that we believe in.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:05 p.m.

David Christopherson

We are good. We are getting there. It is not an aspirational goal.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

That is right, Mr. Speaker.

However, in the discussions, like I said, I want to talk about all of these things. Before that discussion took place, it was a race to a filibuster and a race to Facebook. That is their right. They can do that, and that is fine. However, I hope we can get through this, because I think modernizing Parliament is sadly overdue. We should do this in all aspects of programming, with voting, and all the matters we can modernize to make this better for all members of Parliament, now that we have 338 members.

That being said, I want to thank all members for listening to me on this. Unanimity would be a wonderful thing. Despite the fact that sometimes I get pretty angry about it, I certainly want that. This place deserves it, and, more than that, Canadians deserve it.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame for his remarks. He was doing pretty good there for a while, and then he got into a couple of rough bumps.

I know time is tight on these questions and answers, but there are a couple of things that absolutely scream out to be responded to. The first is, the member talked about the McGrath report and holds it up as something they want to do. In that report, they talk about how proud they are of the fact that they did not have to have any votes. The member says they are not saying that there have to be votes, though I am not really sure. It depends on what part of his speech we are referring to, as he kind of bounces around.

Here is the reality. There is no open, give-and-take, free discussion, as we would all like to have, if the government insists on retaining the right to ram it through if it does not agree with the proposed unanimity. This is the issue. The government keeps saying it does not know why the opposition is doing this, why it is causing such turmoil. By the way, they were the ones who forced it 24-7, not us. They wonder why we cannot have a nice discussion, why we cannot just talk about these things.

Let me ask the hon. member this question. If he were prepared to guarantee that there would be no ramming through, under no condition would the government believe it had the right to ram something through, would he accept that then we could have a fair and informed discussion? He must recognize that as long as the government retains the right, or believes that it retains the right to unilaterally ram it through, the idea of having nice, equal, fair-minded discussions is just not going to happen, for obvious reasons.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Mr. Speaker, the member has to back up a minute. What was the very first thing that I said? It was that he too uses the McGrath report. I agree with all the things he has said, all the wonderful things that are in this are real gems, about no votes and that sort of thing. That is great. However, if we look at the set-up for the report, it did not restrict these people into doing that. It started out on a good foot. It basically said that this is what they wanted to do and all the things they wanted to talk about to modernize the House of Commons where unanimity was not required. That was a set-up from the very beginning. That was what that was.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

They did not put a time on it.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Yes, Mr. Speaker, they did put a timeline on it.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

It was not two months.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Mr. Speaker, the very last sentence of that motion talks about June. The member knows it. I know it. The last sentence in that motion requires a timeline. If he is going to argue it, he has to read it first.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for offering some clarification. It is very important. Passions do rise here, because this is an important issue for Canadians.

As a member on the committee, we want to ensure that Canadians understand exactly what is happening. I am very happy to hear my hon. friend make very clear that this is about having the discussion. This is about inviting witnesses to come so that the committee can make best practices suggestions, evidence based, on how we move forward.

I have two questions for my friend. The first is with respect to the comment about this being expedited and trying to make it happen overnight. I know, as a committee member, that I am willing to work extra hours to make this happen. If we need further time, would my friend be willing to say yes to that? If we need further time to make a good decision, would we do that?

Second is with respect to efficiency and effectiveness. How important is this for Canadians? Can my friend give examples of how we are not being as effective and efficient as we could be, because I know as a new member that we could do much better.

This is exactly what the committee wants to undertake, so that we can fulfill our promise to Canadians, so that every minute we spend here, we are making the absolute best use of our time so we can serve Canadians to the best of our ability.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Mr. Speaker, this is one of those times when I hear an intervention and I just want to say that is a good point and then sit down. However, I will not. I will elaborate by saying this. There were several times in this House, and I point to the opposition because I mentioned two earlier, when I kind of picked on the opposition. I am reticent to do that because I supported both of those initiatives. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Now we are looking at more holistic changes, in a much broader fashion, for the discussion. If we look at it through private members' motions, they start talking about changing, but we do not have a lot of time by which we can examine fully some of these concepts we are talking about. Here, we can. When we look at changes, we can get witnesses to come in to talk about some of the concepts. These witnesses are people who have not just read about it, they have been through it. They are parliamentarians and former parliamentarians from around the world who can discuss that they tried programming, that they did electronic voting, that they did many of these things. In doing so, they can say that here are some of the snags.

The bad thing is that when countries come last, they are plodding along and are the last ones to do it. However, one of the good things is that we can take from the good and the bad from everyone else who has done it, in cases such as New Zealand, Australia, certainly from Westminster, and maybe Scotland as well, because the Scottish parliament, being fairly new, adopted some best practices as it started. That is one of the things we can do to modernize, and I hope that is the type of discussion we will get into when we do this study.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague from Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame this. He indicated in his lengthy remarks that he is not willing to negotiate on everything in his motion, but he is willing to negotiate on the deadline. I have the feeling that would not be enough for me and my colleagues, but it does raise a question.

The member introduced his motion on March 22, and about two weeks have gone by. We will be returning to this on April 5, so that is two weeks gone. If we push back two weeks from June 2, we are at June 16. As well as now having some time lost on this important business, we have the important business of changes to the Canada Elections Act. This is a matter which the very day before the member introduced his motion, the Minister of Democratic Institutions said it must be rushed through committee by the end of May. That is a schedule that conflicts entirely with our timeline.

Therefore, my question is this. Would the member be willing to consider moving back his deadline to the autumn in order to allow us to properly fulfill that mandate regarding democratic institutions while still dealing with the Standing Orders in more detail? I would point out that would leave us the entire summer to have meetings and discuss this.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Mr. Speaker, I would be willing to discuss it, but I do not think that was in their amendment. Their amendment was solely concerned with the idea of unanimity, if I recall. That is what we are on right now, which is the amendment.

However, when I mentioned earlier about discussions of the time spent, I was talking about the time during the day that we can sit, a time throughout the week, five days a week. As a matter of fact, the finance committee does this during pre-budget consultations. It goes for five days a week and extends the hours. I see nothing wrong with that, unless maybe Fridays are out of the question for the member. I would be willing to sit on a Friday. I am not sure about my colleagues, but there we go.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, the member had a lengthy speech. He is well versed in parliamentary process and knows the material very well. In his experience, he mentioned understanding fully the importance of parliamentary privilege for members, having sat on both sides of the House, and the importance of each member who has won an election representing her or his constituents.

The member commented on the high quality of the debate that is taking place at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and wished that some of that would be part of the discussion itself. However, does the member not see that it is entirely within his power and his colleagues' power to make that happen, by simply either adopting the amendment that is before the committee or withdrawing the motion and then beginning the debate where we can discuss modernizing this place?

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate where my colleague is coming from by talking about the beginning of a debate, but we already began this debate. It started in October. All through that period we talked about it at committee. Now we are moving a motion to begin this discussion.

A take-note debate took place, and I really enjoyed that. Now we are into a discussion over how to have the study looked at. We can use the time wisely to do all that without withdrawing anything. The member talks about the amendment, but we have not voted on the amendment yet because the floor has not been ceded.

I appreciate what the member has said, however, we are to a point now where we are ready to move on this to say that in committee we want a study and provide recommendations to the House in order for the minister and other parties to consider it.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to concurrence in the committee's report, as well as the amendment to send it back to committee, and importantly to affirm and clarify that, in all of its reviews of the procedures and practices of the House, the committee will only make recommendations to the House that enjoy the support of all members of the committee. As I am sure all members know, that has been the subject of some debate pertaining to some other issues before the committee.

It may be that, at various times, some members in the past in Parliament may have made arguments as to why it might not make sense to always proceed on the basis of all-party support. I am not sure I would agree with those arguments. However, I want to speak to them because it is important both to this motion and to other matters at PROC. In the particular circumstances of this Parliament and where we have come from October 2015 until now, it is important that if parties are to engage in discussions, whether it is about family friendly or other rules about the House and changing them, opposition members have some assurances from the government that before setting out on that discussion it will have a proper decision-making process for the end of that discussion. What we do not want to do is create a pretext for the government to ram through whatever changes it would like, whether with respect to family friendly or other changes to the rules of the House.

That is why, notwithstanding any general arguments about why we may not in every case want all-party support for this or that or the other thing, in this Parliament it is important we have those reassurances. Whatever good faith or trust the government might have asked for at the beginning of its mandate has been burned up by the government. It took a serious hit about a year ago when it decided to introduce Motion No. 6, which was an ugly motion that sought to handcuff Parliament and make it a creature essentially of the government. Whenever something was going on that the government did not like, it would simply be able to shut down debate or adjourn the House, and to do it at will. That is why we see arguments from the government on some issues about programming bills, for instance, because it wants more predictability in the House.

Motion No. 6 had nothing to do with a predictable schedule. It had nothing to do with making the hours that we stay or leave predictable for the sake of members with young families or for the staff of members with young families. Therefore, there is good cause to suspect that when the government talks about making the House more predictable for the sake of families, really what it is doing is using the arguments of predictability and using young families as a screen for doing whatever is convenient to it at the time.

Because I will be splitting my time with the member for Hamilton Centre, he will have more to say on that, so I will leave that alone for now.

I do not think predictability is a real value that the government is promoting. It is cherry-picking when it talks about predictability. It is cherry-picking when it is convenient for it to have concern for members with young families and when it will not. That was part of Motion No. 6. I raise that argument just as one example. If people are just listening through the news and are not in this place every day, they do not see the way the government operates on a daily basis, so it sounds like a reasonable argument. If they have a family, it would be nice to know whether they would leave at 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. When the government had Motion No. 6 in its mind, it had nothing to do with that.

Another issue that pertains to this, because it has to do with democracy and how we set the rules for democracy, was on electoral reform. Again the government said that it needed opposition members to engage it in good faith. It even went so far as to tell members what they should or should not do, which the government ought never do. They were told to go into their constituencies, hold town halls, and then report those findings back to government. Many MPs on this side of the House did that in good faith. The results that came through that process and through the extended travelling of the committee, which heard from a number of experts and ordinary Canadians themselves, was they wanted a change in the voting system.

Then the government went further. In supplementary estimates, it asked for over $3 million extra to conduct a survey. As we found out later, that was the cost of the Liberals breaking a promise they never intended to keep, but not before they caused Canadians to have to pay a considerable amount of money for them to get to where they felt comfortable breaking that promise, not because of what they heard from Canadians, but simply because they realized they would not be able to blame it on someone else.

Those kinds of moves, whether it is Motion No. 6 or whether it is on electoral reform, really undermine the sense of trust that is necessary to move forward with democratic reforms in a country. Whether it is changing the way we vote or whether it is changing the rules in this place, members want to know they are dealing with a government that is actually negotiating in good faith. I put to the House that those two examples go a long way in explaining why all opposition parties are not prepared to extend the benefit of the doubt to the government, as we did on the electoral reform file. It only gets so many chances to engage in those processes in good faith.

What the opposition parties are asking for when it comes to reforming the rules of this place is quite reasonable, particularly in light of that lack of trust and good faith. We want the government simply to commit to what has been done many times in the past. When we are to change the rules of the House, we sit down with the other parties and say that whatever the government goes forward with will be something all parties of this place agree to, and that is it. That is not a lot to ask for.

There is a number of examples where that has been done before. That includes the McGrath committee. If anyone wondered if all-party consent would lead to gridlock and not being able to get anything done, I would remind the House that it was on the McGrath committee that we had a Speaker elected by secret ballot for the first time, which was interesting. It was a major reform of the House. That was not the case before the McGrath committee. It was out of the McGrath committee that we got votable private members' business, granted not in the form that we do it now where every PMB becomes votable if it makes it to the floor of the House. It was out of the McGrath committee, which required all-party consent, that we actually got some of those first reforms.

There is the idea that we cannot make substantive, meaningful reform to the rules of the House because we require all-party consent. On the other side of the coin is that somehow the only way to make meaningful and substantive changes to the rules of the House and to improve the functioning of this place is to have a government come in with less than 40% of the vote, steamroll the opposition parties and make whatever rules it wants, whether it is with respect for what we are talking about today, which is some of the proposals around family-friendly things, or other rules of the House.

If anyone gets up and says that the only way to make the House more modern, more efficient and substantially change the way we do business here is by having a strong-handed government come in and whip this place into shape, it is not true. Members of all parties traditionally have been willing and able to get together and hammer out new ways of going forward that represent the changing trends of society and work-life balance and everything else. It has been done.

The idea that somehow it will take a strongman government to come in and make things right in a place that has its challenges but overall operates pretty well is not on the table. It is particularly funny coming from a government that has one of the most cautious legislative agendas we have seen in a long time. The Liberals have been in government for a year and a half, and they have only seen fit to introduce about 40-some bills. Most of those are just regular procedural bills that have to do with the estimates process. Some of those are bills that were because of decisions of the Supreme Court, which required the government to make a decision. Then a third major category of those bills is simple repeals of Harper-era legislation. It is not like that it took a lot of time to prepare, and with the exception of some of my colleagues on the opposition benches from the Conservative Party itself, who tend to have pretty widespread support here in the House of Commons. When we take those three categories of bills together, what is left in terms of an authentic legislative proposal of the government is not very much.

The idea that we somehow we have to overhaul the rules of the House to make it easier for government to ram things through, which I submit is a good part of what is really going on, and for a government that cannot bring itself to write any legislation of its own is just laughable. Of all the governments, at least if we are to change things to make it “more efficient” around here, it should be for a government that is actually presenting a lot of legislation.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

Before moving on to questions and comments, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, The Environment; the hon. member for London—Fanshawe, National Defence; and the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, National Defence.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:30 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I have had the good fortune of being able to work on PROC before, and in different capacities in my days as an MLA I also dealt with rule changes and the importance of rules for the House.

The last time we attempted to change rules, it was very difficult to get real, tangible changes, because at the time there was the feeling that we should be looking at getting all parties onside. The government of the day did not really feel motivated to change any rules. It seemed to have a laissez-faire approach to rules and the need to reform. We believe it is one of the reasons that Canadians want to see a modernized Parliament.

Would the member not agree that looking at how we can modernize Parliament is something that is very laudable, and that at the very least we should get on with the discussion paper or have that talk at the committee level and allow those expert witnesses to come forward and share their thoughts? I have a number of thoughts that I would like to share with the House and I hope to do so relatively shortly.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I would start by mentioning it is hardly a criticism that the previous government did not have a desire to change the rules and then did not get them changed. I do not even know if it is really the beginnings of a criticism.

I do know that the current government has committed to changing the rules of the House. Then the question becomes whether the Liberals are proceeding in a way that will actually achieve so-called “real change”.

If we look at their record, attempt number one was Motion No. 6. It was a colossal failure for the government, and rightly so. That motion never should have come to the floor of the House of Commons in the first place, and certainly there was no attempt at collaboration.

Then, instead of learning from that mistake as a government that in good faith wants to change the rules of the House to make it better, as many members on all sides of the House want to do, the Liberals took the same tack, which was to publish a paper.

They had some ideas; fine, share them around. The issue was that at PROC the Liberals said we should come out with recommendations from a government majority-led committee on a timeline that they decided. They were going to have their members ram that through at the committee. That was the problem. It was a problem of process.

I submit to the government that if it is serious about changing the rules of the House and not just throwing the House into disorder, it should get on with having an appropriate process and proceeding in an appropriate way. With the lack of good faith that is in place now because of the government's way of proceeding, the Liberals need to have all parties agree with any changes that they will make.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a very good speech. I would first like to make a comment, and then I have a question for him.

Page 2 of the document tabled by the minister regarding the modernization of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons talks about ways “to empower Members...to increase their influence in the legislative process”. What needs to be done is simple: just close the Prime Minister's Office, which was created by former Prime Minister Trudeau, and put an end to party discipline. That would be fantastic. It is not complicated. Those are the two things that prevent members from doing their work and representing their constituents properly.

We have heard about electronic voting. I came here to safeguard the honour of this institution, as much as possible and as much as I can as a private citizen. The idea that someone could vote while sitting at their desk and simply pushing a button seems completely dishonourable to me. Plus, if that were to be done from our constituency offices, I see all kinds of terrible scenarios potentially playing out. Imagine if a staffer were to vote instead of the member.

Does my colleague not find dishonourable this effort to ensure that one day members are no longer required to stand up before Canadians to vote?

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I came here to stand up for the issues and measures that I consider important, and I am pleased to do so every day.

I also have a problem with the idea of electronic voting. If we were to do something like that, it should be done here in the House of Commons so that we would know which members are present. That way, other members would not be able to vote on behalf of those who are not present in the House of Commons by pushing a button.

I do not support this electronic model, because it has numerous flaws.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:35 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to join in the debate. I would like to start by coming back to the focus of what is actually on the floor, which is a report from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It just happens that this report is on the family-friendly Parliament changes. My friend from Elmwood—Transcona made a great deal about the fact that the problem we have right now is not whether we agree with electronic voting, or Wednesdays with the Prime Minister, and Fridays off; our problem right now is on process.

We pride ourselves in being a sports nation. Most Canadians have had some kind of attachment to some kind of sports. We all know that the first thing to do is to decide on what the rules are going to be. When the committee did this report, the one that is actually in front of us right now, I cannot say—and when this motion came up, it was not on the agenda, and I did not have time to look at Hansard to see whether an express statement was made—that there would only be things included in this report—I was there, I was part of this—but only if we all agreed.

I can certainly say, if we look at Hansard, that that was the working assumption. The proof positive would be that the government was very much pushing its idea of Fridays off at that time. It was the Conservatives and New Democrats who made it crystal clear at the beginning, the middle, and at the end of our discussion on that subject that there was no way in heck that there was going to be unanimity. Liberals can make all the speeches they want. They can have the floor; we would not dream of denying them that. However, they should understand that as it is right now, neither opposition party is willing to accept that.

When one turns to this report, one would start looking through to see what happened to the Fridays. I know every member has read every page and word of this report, because we are voting on it. However, I would remind people, in case they have forgotten since they read it, there is no reference to Fridays because everything in the report was agreed upon by the entire committee.

My friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, said if there were only one agreement, how would we guarantee that there would be tangible results? This very report shows that we can do it. That speaks to how we run Parliament, which is why we all work under the implied understanding that if we did not all agree, it does not go in the report. That is exactly what happened, and the report is here now because it was approved with all-party agreement. There were things that members did not agree with that are not in the report. What is agreed to goes in the report and what is not agreed to does not go in the report.

As we talk process, as I share some side comments with the former government House leader, what is really interesting is again harkening back to my friend from Elmwood—Transcona talking about process. I am not showing everyone some arcane documents, but the document that is actually the focus of what we are doing, and it is only here because we all agreed.

Not only that, but on the process of how this was approached, again, I was here. Do members know how this started? It started when the previous government House leader, the current government's previous House leader, wanted us to undertake this study. It sounds familiar, right? That is exactly what the current House leader asked us to do, except the previous House leader did not just drop a document out there in the public domain, in the middle of a constituency week, with really no comment and no consultation. It was just, “There you go”.

The previous House leader, when the government wanted us to undertake a study, showed the respect the government said it was going to show more of to committees. He showed the respect of coming to the committee, presenting his thoughts, and making reference to his mandate, which I would like to underscore and which is on the front page of the report. The mandate letter the previous Liberal government House leader had stated:

Work with Opposition House Leaders to examine ways to make the House of Commons more family-friendly for Members of Parliament.

The first thing that veteran House leader did was come to the committee, have the respect to present what the government wanted us to do, and ask us to undertake it, which we then did, under the assumption that we would only put things in the report that we all agreed on, which we did. We had quite a number of significant changes that are going to make things better for the work-life balance of members of Parliament.

What is the problem? Why are we not doing the same thing? In this case, it was the official opposition formally asking the government, since it brought papers and we were not really sure what was going on, because we did not get the courtesy visit we got from the previous House leader, when we could ask questions. We just had this thing kind of dumped out there. The first thing that happened was, guess what? There was an amendment on the floor calling on the government to acknowledge that it will not make any changes unless there is all-party agreement.

Normally, what should have happened, if we followed the process we did with this, is that the government would have said, “Of course. What's the big deal?” We would have had a fast vote.

Now, as we are wasting all this time, we would have been discussing the very issues the government has asked us to undertake. Instead, look at the mess it has got us into.

I wish I had more time. I only have two minutes? That is what happens when we are having fun. I will do this as quickly as I can.

The government is the one that did not and would not adjourn that committee meeting, which pushed us into 24/7. Technically, in parliamentary la-la land, down the hall in one of the committee rooms it is still only a week ago last Tuesday. That is the bizarre situation we are in. The government amped that up, not the opposition. The government decided that it was going to take it from a filibuster in committee to a filibuster that overtook the committee.

All we are asking is to recognize that we cannot have honest and free give-and-take negotiations, or discussions, that are actually equal and fair and are going to get somewhere as long as the government still maintains that it has the right to ram them through afterwards. We cannot have that kind of discussion. I have been at the negotiating table. It is like saying to a company when at the table, “No matter what you offer, we are going to strike”. The government is basically saying, “We are going to negotiate with you, we are going to listen to you, we are going to be fair-minded, until you want to do something we do not agree with, and then we are going to utilize our majority and ram it through anyway”.

That is why we are in this jam. It is the government's doing. The same government, a year ago, did it the right way, and we did not have any problem. There were no filibusters. There were no accusations of a power grab.

The very report that we are looking at here now is the result of the same process that we should be undertaking, and yet the government is still, to this moment, refusing to accept the fact that it does not have the moral right to change the rules of the House unilaterally, without the agreement of the other participants. That is not on.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:45 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I do not necessarily agree with all of the words that the member across the way has put on the record.

I do think it is important that we recognize that many members have a desire to modernize Parliament. What was asked of the procedure and House affairs committee was to take a look at and study a discussion paper that would help facilitate changing the Standing Orders, and in particular to look for experts in Canada and possibly outside of Canada. My question to the member is related to that.

Procedure and House affairs, as a standing committee, is afforded the opportunity to have individuals provide some opinions and some experiences. The member across the way has many years of experience, as I do. There are others who would like to participate in that discussion.

Would the NDP and the Conservatives recognize that what this is really about is an initiative by the government House leader to get people talking about the discussion paper, which will help assist us in changing the Standing Orders?

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

4:45 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, again, the government is insistent that the opposition should just be reasonable and start talking. What it is failing to accept is that the process that it has followed has made that impossible. The proof of that is where we are right now.

The member asked, in good faith, if I would like to have that kind of a discussion. Yes. Quite frankly, I enjoy working together and trying to find the language when we come from different places. It is a lot more stimulating and fun than just attacking the government and going for a headline. We have been doing that for decades, and it gets old.

What I really enjoy, though, is when all three sides come from different places and struggle to find language and an approach that we can agree on because it is for the betterment of all of us. That excites me. I enjoy that. I feel it is putting my experience to good use.

I am quite prepared to say yes to the member and commit our entire caucus to that process. Make it like we just did for the report in front of us, and we are more than willing to sit down. Maintain that the government has the right to unilaterally ram through what it wants if it does not like the way those negotiations happen, and it is not on.