House of Commons Hansard #167 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was opposition.

Topics

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK

Mr. Speaker, we have just heard from the government House leader a scaling back of the proposed changes to the rules that govern Parliament as proposed by her government. We appreciate there has been some movement on the government side. We appreciate there is perhaps some indication of a willingness to compromise. We on the opposition side are certainly prepared to take a very serious look at the new package of proposals from the government.

However, this initiative is coming at the very last minute. In fact, this set of proposals was presented yesterday to the media before it was presented to any of the opposition parties. Therefore, this obviously has not given us a lot of opportunity to consider the rule changes being proposed and it certainly is not something that builds a lot of trust or instills a lot of confidence.

Nevertheless, we are pleased to see a somewhat revised set of proposals coming forward. We are also pleased to hear from the member for Winnipeg North that the government is prepared to have the procedure and House affairs committee consider this question of privilege, rather than use that committee to try to ram through the much broader set of changes to the rules governing Parliament for which the government had previously advocated.

We also heard a very interesting argument from the government House leader about the need to make these changes to the rules governing Parliament because some of them had been in the Liberal election platform. That argument is a bit rich coming from the government. A lot of things were in the Liberal election platform that the government is not doing. One example that leaps to mind is electoral reform. The government was elected on a very clear promise that 2015 would be the last election conducted under the first past the post voting system.

We had the whole process of consultations on electoral reform with a view to making that change. The overwhelming majority of experts consulted by the committee of the House and the overwhelming majority of citizens who showed up at public meetings across the country said that we should implement a proportional voting system in which the share of seats that a party received in the House would more or less line up with the share of votes that it had attracted in a general election. The government's response was that there was no consensus and therefore it could not move ahead.

When it comes to this issue of changes to the rules governing Parliament, there is clearly no consensus at all. There is far less consensus on this than there was on electoral reform, yet on this point the government's argument is that some of it was in its platform so it had to do this, even if meant using its majority to ram it through. On electoral reform, why is the issue that the Liberals need 100% consensus to do anything even if it was in their platform, whereas on the issue of changes to the rules governing the House, the argument is that they have to do it because it is in their platform even if there is no semblance of consensus, even if there is nothing approaching agreement on these changes?

Beyond the analogy I just made, there is another connection between what the government is doing on changes to the rules governing Parliament and what the government is failing to do on electoral reform. What the government is trying to do is pass some of these changes to the rules and procedures of Parliament and then say it achieved something on democratic reform, that this was its democratic reform agenda and it has done it. We in the NDP certainly are not going to let the government get away with that. The Liberals very clearly promised a new voting system. There were very clear recommendations, something that was pretty close to a consensus in favour of a proportional voting system. The government has blatantly broke that promise and intends to go ahead with the outdated, outmoded first past the post voting system.

Whether or not the government puts forward some changes to the rules governing Parliament, it certainly does not make up for that very severe broken promise on electoral reform. In terms of these proposed changes to the rules of Parliament, we on the opposition side are going to need to take some time to take a look at this scaled-back package that we just heard about from the government House leader.

I would like to return to the question of privilege that we are discussing today. I do think it is a matter of great importance that should concern every member of this House. It is an integral principle of this institution that members of Parliament have unfettered access to the parliamentary precincts. As members of Parliament, it is fundamental that we be able to be here to vote and in general that we have access to Parliament in order to represent the people who elected us. When events happen that prevent members from accessing the parliamentary precincts and therefore prevent us from doing our jobs, it is very important that we investigate seriously.

According to the Compendium of House of Commons procedure:

The House of Commons and its Members enjoy certain constitutional rights and immunities that are collectively referred to as parliamentary privilege (or simply “privilege”).

It goes on to say:

Any physical barrier preventing a Member’s access to the parliamentary precinct or blocking their free movement within it may be treated by the House as a breach of privilege.

That is exactly what we are talking about today. When members are not able to come to Parliament, it fundamentally prevents each and every one of us from taking on the very specific and important role of holding the government to account.

The privileges of the member for Milton and the member for Beauce as elected representatives to this House have been breached. What happens after that is what brings us into this whole discussion of parliamentary privilege that was raised by the member for Perth—Wellington.

The member pointed out that it was an inappropriate violation of privilege for the government to end debate on the previous question of privilege in the manner that the government did without a vote. The Speaker quite wisely ruled that it is not appropriate for debate to simply end on this point. Equally problematic is that the government continues to try to shut down debate and limiting dissent in this House.

As I acknowledged at the outset, the government seems to have backed off a little on the sweeping changes to the parliamentary rules that had been proposed at the procedure and House affairs committee. We welcome that, as far as it goes, but I would also note that when the New Democratic House leader asked the government House leader whether this new package of proposed rule changes would require consensus or whether the government would just ram it through using its majority, we still did not get much of a commitment to a consensual process or much of a commitment to actually consult with other parties, which we believe is the standard required for changes being made to the rules governing this House.

It obviously would not make sense and would not be democratic for whichever party has a majority to use that majority to rewrite the very rules of Parliament. It is kind of a different category from all sorts of other public policies that we accept the government has the mandate and the authority to control.

We are faced with a very serious question of privilege. We are hopeful that it will be resolved either here or before the procedure and House affairs committee. We are going to take some time to seriously consider the scaled-back set of rule changes that the government House leader just introduced here a few moments ago.

11:50 a.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

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

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference that the NDP members are going to caucus over what was presented by the government House leader this morning. I would encourage the member, if there are any questions or comments specific to what he has heard here this morning, that he not hesitate to make direct contact with me, members of PROC, or the government House leader directly.

I have a specific thought that is outside what the member mentioned. It is an issue that has always been somewhat important to me. Every year in June, graduations take place. There are usually more than 1,000 graduates from grade 12 at those ceremonies. I would enjoy being at those graduation ceremonies. It sends a strong message to young people.

One of the thoughts is to sit more days in January as opposed to as many days as we do in June. We might be better able to serve our constituents by being there for things like graduations and have more sitting days in January when it is not quite as busy in our constituencies. I am interested in the member's personal thoughts on this issue.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting question whether we should sit more in January versus in June and how sitting days should be allocated throughout the calendar year. This is the kind of issue that members from different parties operating in good faith could probably come to some kind of agreement on, but in order for that to happen, there needs to be a genuine negotiation process that includes all MPs from all parties.

The reason we have not been moving toward any sort of agreement or consensus on proposed changes to the rules of the House is that, so far, the government has been using its majority to try to ram a sweeping package of changes through the committee. I am optimistic that this scaled-back set of proposals from the government House leader presented earlier today signals a change in the government's approach and that there will be an opportunity to hash out questions such as the one the member just posed.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion about eliminating Friday sittings which would mean probably sitting longer on Thursdays. If some of us from the west could not get out of here on Thursday night because of later sittings, we would have to get up at 3 a.m. on a Friday to get to the airport in time, and probably we would not touch down until 11 a.m. or noon, and probably would not get to our constituencies until 2 or 3 p.m. It is not a very good use of a Friday. By eliminating Friday sittings we would not really be gaining anything. It would mean more travel. Our constituents would hear that we are not in session on Fridays and they would expect us to be there. We would end up travelling every weekend to meet that expectation.

It probably takes the member for Winnipeg North almost as much time to travel to his constituency as it takes some of us from B.C. to travel to ours. Does he think it would be a benefit to eliminate Friday sittings, or as he said, with unanimous consent, would shuffling the schedule in other ways be more beneficial?

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK

Mr. Speaker, the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap makes an excellent point. I represent Regina—Lewvan and I am in a similar situation in terms of travel. There is no direct flight between Ottawa and Regina for most of the year. Eliminating Friday sittings but sitting later on Thursdays would not really make a positive difference for MPs from western Canada. That is exactly the kind of point that needs to be considered through a much more consensual and consultative process.

All members of the House agree there are a lot of trade-offs involved in these proposals. Eliminating sittings on Fridays could require sitting later on Thursdays which would entail other problems and difficulties for staff and employees of Parliament. Eliminating Friday sittings could involve adding sitting days at other times of the year which certainly would keep members out of their constituencies during those times. There are a lot of trade-offs and that is why we need to consider this very carefully and collectively.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today to speak to a number of issues surrounding the question of privilege and also the proposal the government brought forward. In recent hours there has been discussion regarding some accommodation, or what government members think is accommodation, to see whether or not we can move forward.

There is one premise that overrides all of this based on what I have heard from constituents this week. I had a very serious conversation yesterday over coffee with someone who is heavily involved in provincial government. The conversation revolved around how it is unprecedented in our country's history that a government would make changes unilaterally to the Standing Orders without the consent of the other parties. We boil it down to the fact that the government feels so empowered and so entitled that it wants to force its will upon the institution of Parliament. This is unprecedented in our country.

We are watching the Liberals go down a different avenue today from what we saw leading up to the constituency weeks from which we have just returned. We see them manoeuvring in a way to try to soften the approach, but the bottom line is it is still the same approach. They will force their will on Parliament on issues of the Standing Orders which, up to this point in the history of our country, have been primarily decided by unanimous consent. Unanimous consent means the will of the people, the will of all the people, not just the ones who voted for the government in the last election, but the ones I represent on the opposition side and the ones who voted for other opposition members on all of the opposition benches today.

If we really want to distill it to the point where we are today, I would say that is setting a very dangerous precedent not just for the next number of decades, but for our future as a country. This is the House of the people. When we change the rules of the House, we need to have all voices heard. We need to allow all voices to bring reasonable proposals to the table and all voices agree to those reasonable proposals.

On a number of fronts, in my personal portfolio now as the Treasury Board critic I have been dealing with estimates reform. Estimates reform was put on the table early on by the government and by the President of the Treasury Board. I want to speak to some of that today, because this is part of what the government wants to unilaterally impose on Parliament through changing the Standing Orders. It is not something which the government is prepared to step back on or moderate in any way.

We have spoken. Some of these changes are wise. However, that said, unilaterally imposing them on Parliament is wrong, number one. Number two is that these are changes which the government could undertake, and should undertake, and we agree with the President of the Treasury Board, in the current system without changing the Standing Orders. The four pillars of the Liberals' premise of changing and improving the estimates in aligning them with the budget are all items that could be undertaken within government offices, within government bureaucratic structures right now. They could be done, and there is no need to change the Standing Orders.

When we distill this one, it is that forever Standing Orders need to be changed for the convenience of the government and for the convenience of the people who work within the ministries and the bureaucracy of government.

As I said, there are reasonable explanations and discussions that could be had around these things if there were not such a digging in and arrogance of the government that we see over and over again. The Liberals say, “We know best. We are just going to do it. We do not care what the rest of the country thinks. We do not care what the opposition members think in their representation of the people who elected them in this country. Let us find a way to do this unilaterally. We do not have to worry about the opposition.” In our parliamentary system the Liberals have that luxury because they have a majority government.

I am here today to talk, to some extent, about the reasons and the comments that have been presented around estimates reform in terms of what it would mean for our country.

Any change needs to be unanimous. It should not be done by a government. It can be done that way, and I understand the Liberals are going to ram it through in a different government motion, but it would be much better to do it in a unanimous fashion.

The key, paramount element of estimates reform is it would drastically reduce the time Parliament would have to examine how the government plans to spend taxpayers' money. Let me put that in a different way. We should ask this question of Parliament: what is the appropriate amount of scrutiny for the spending of taxpayers' dollars? That is what we are talking about here. What is the appropriate amount of time for parliamentarians in considering what the government is proposing to spend, what it actually spends, and along the way refining those estimates by saying there are things in the estimates that we think should be questioned on behalf of our taxpayers, the people we represent.

When considering this proposal for estimates reform, let us not forget what we are trying to do here. We are trying to streamline the process in such a way that Parliament would have less time for scrutiny. The question then is, what is the appropriate amount of time for Parliament to have scrutiny?

Right now, the proposal is to move estimates up to May 1, to align with budgets. Estimates currently have to be tabled by March 31, so we would be missing the time between March 31 and May 1 for parliamentarians to take those numbers, crunch them, see what they mean, and bring them to the floor of the House, as we typically do, and ask our questions, not only on the floor of the House but also in committee, where it is of utmost importance. In committee we often have the advice and counsel of our parliamentary budget officer.

Let me read some quotes from our parliamentary budget officer with regard to the proposals put forward on estimates reform, which are now in a third or fourth iteration of being rammed through the House of Commons without unanimous consent.

This has been discussed since the start of this Parliament. It was one of the objectives of the President of the Treasury Board. He has said this is on their radar and is what they want to do as part of their mandate letter. It is all well and good for the government to say that, but there is a way to do it without diminishing scrutiny by Parliament.

I would like to address some of what has been said by independent thinking bodies, including the parliamentary budget officer's considerations of reforming what is called the business of supply, which is equivalent to estimates reform. This is a direct quote from the parliamentary budget officer from November 22, 2016, from page 11 of his report. He stated:

PBO acknowledges that the Government's proposal to delay the main estimates seeks to address a problem identified by parliamentarians regarding the absence of budget initiatives in the main estimates.

What the parliamentary budget officer is saying is that we could have better alignment. We agree. However, the government can do this without changing the Standing Orders. Many countries that have gone down this road have fixed budget dates. That is one of the tools available for the government. If the government wanted to fix the budget day to a certain time frame, then we could align estimates to that time frame. That is a simple solution, without changing the Standing Orders. It could be the choice of the government to do that, as many countries have done.

The quote of the parliamentary budget officer continues:

That said, Parliamentarians will need to determine whether the cumbersome workaround of creating a new interim estimates, appropriating money based on the previous year’s financial estimates, releasing a new main estimates in May and eliminating the spring supplementary estimates, is the best approach to meet their needs.

We have not had a discussion around the best approach to meet our needs. There has been no discussion of what this means that I am aware of. Rather, it has been an arbitrary statement of “Here is what we propose to do. Let's have sessions to show it to all parliamentarians of all parties and then tell them this is what we are going to do”, without much, if any, deep consideration of what it means for the long-term Standing Orders that make this House tick and are the rules of the floor of this House.

Ultimately the current government will be in opposition one day and will be sitting on this side of the House. Just as governments have changed over the decades and the course of our history, so too will the Liberals be over here. I cannot imagine, having been here almost nine years now, what the outrage would have been if our previous prime minister, Prime Minister Harper, had suggested that he would come into this House and put through changes to Standing Orders on this basis. We had a study of the Standing Orders to gain consensus. We were not able to get consensus, so we did not bring the changes forward. The current government seems so entitled, so arrogant, that it thinks it is entitled to determine a change for the course of this country on this floor. It is absolutely staggering to think how much arrogance that takes.

Another quote from the parliamentary budget officer states:

Unless the Government is able to present a clear plan to reform its internal management processes, this example shows that it is unlikely that delaying the release of the main estimates by eight weeks will provide full alignment with the budget.

This deep analysis of what estimate reforms mean, done by an independent officer of the government, it suggests that reducing the eight weeks of scrutiny that this House would have over estimates may not even return the result the government is looking for. I will grant that some alignments may be improved, but ultimately the total alignment of budgets and estimates will be determined by the government of the day when it tables its budget. It can determine that. It can have estimates align with the budget without changing the Standing Orders, yet the current government stands firm in saying that this is off the table, that there will be no discussion, that the government still wants the prerogative of tabling budgets when it wishes.

If we look at the history of the country, we see there were some periods when no budgets were tabled—and for good reason, in terms of what this House has to consider with respect to government spending—yet we are suddenly being told by the current government that it wants to maintain all of those privileges and prerogatives and that the opposition does not matter, because the Liberals were elected with a majority, which was 39% of the vote. When we won a majority government with those kinds of numbers, that majority was howled at by this side of the House. The opposition said that we had no legitimacy because we were elected with 39.5% of the vote. I look at what this means in the context of the long term and in the context of the hypocrisy being shown by the government side. When the Liberals were in opposition, they said that this approach was not acceptable because of the percentage of votes that we received when we were elected; now, all of a sudden, they are saying they have a mandate from all of the people and they do not have to consider the opposition on this one.

They are saying, “Let us just reduce the opposition's scrutiny on estimates. Let us reduce the amount of time the opposition has, and ultimately, if we continue the process and think it through, it means fewer confidence votes for the opposition.” Ultimately, that is what it means if we align the two and we do not have votes on supply, which are all confidence motions, and this House knows it.

Time and time again confidence motions come to the floor of this House, and they are at a time when the people can speak with some authority—not the 39%, but the ones who voted for opposition members, if they so choose. It has happened in our history, but the government does not want as many opportunities for that to happen. That is ultimately what the government is saying: “We want to reduce our risk factors as government in terms of confidence votes.”

I will continue with quotes from the parliamentary budget officer. There are a number of of them, and I think they are all worthy. The words are in the context of the report of the parliamentary budget officer, who has spoken quite a number of times on this issue, and I think they highlight not only the concerns that we have been raising to this point in this debate but also the concerns that our independent, non-partisan parliamentary budget officer brings to the table.

Here is a third quote:

The Government asserts that the Parliament does not play a meaningful role in financial scrutiny.

This is what the government asserts. The parliamentary budget officer disagrees with this view, stating in the report:

We note that notwithstanding the Government's performance information of admittedly poor quality, and their inability to reconcile the Government's spending proposals, parliamentarians have performed a commendable job of asking pertinent questions in standing committee hearings, Question Period and Committee of the Whole.

What has the parliamentary budget officer observed here and what has he reported on? He is saying the system works well in terms of scrutiny. He is saying the right balance is struck.

Why do we have to do it for the convenience of the administration of government? Why do we have to do it for the convenience of the minister? Why do we have to do it in order to reduce the powers of the opposition? This is what the government is driving at. The government is driving at reducing the powers of the opposition to hold the government to account. That is why we were put into opposition: to strike that balance. That balance, right now, is being threatened by the government. The government is taking another approach to accomplish the same types of results that it wanted previously.

Has the government dropped some of the more contentious things? I understand it has. I have been held up with delays in terms of travel, so I have not yet been able to read all of the discussions that have gone on, but when it comes to estimates reform, what the government could do today is act on reforming the estimates without changing the Standing Orders.

I stand here today as the opposition critic for the Treasury Board to oppose the reduction of the opposition's ability to hold the government to account and to be able to be the voice of the majority of the people, who did not vote for the present government.

We accept the results. I am not in any way, shape, or form diminishing that, but to say today that the government can unilaterally come into this House, put a motion on the floor, vote on it because it has the majority, and shove it down the throat of the opposition and the other people who care about the scrutiny of spending in government, who care about how dollars are spent, is absolutely wrong. It is something the government should not be doing.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, I take exception to many of the things that the member has said this morning.

I want to highlight a different perspective. In my days in opposition when I was on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the government House leader never came before the committee to say that the government wanted to make these kinds of rule changes, or to even talk about rule changes to modernize Parliament. It was not a priority of the previous government. Instead, that government allowed the committee to do what it was going to do, and that was to look for any low-hanging fruit. It could maybe make some modifications, a period there, a comma here, or whatever it might be, and that was able to pass.

We now have a Prime Minister who is keen on modernizing Parliament. Conservative members have said that the government should not be allowed to modernize Parliament as long as the Conservative Party does not support it. Those members want to have a veto.

The Prime Minister has said he would like to see a rule change that would ensure that the Prime Minister is here for one day a week to answer every question. It would not prevent the Prime Minister from coming on other days. On that one day, every member who rises during that entire hour would get to ask a question directly of the Prime Minister. How is that a bad thing? I do not see it as a bad thing.

In the last election, I received close to 68% of the vote from my constituents, which is abnormally high. For me personally, I am very grateful for that and humbled by it.

Does the member not believe that this change would enable members of Parliament to better represent their constituents, if they know that for one day a week they can get up and the Prime Minister of Canada will answer their questions?

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to be respectful of the member's question, which was more of a comment than a question.

The Prime Minister did stand up in a couple of sessions prior to the constituency break. Whether he answered the questions is a matter of perspective. We do not believe that he answered the questions. It is talking points 101 over and over again. Does that help Parliament? No.

Did the member across the floor listen to my speech? Did he listen to the fact that it was about estimates reform, about less scrutiny of how the government spends money? It was about the government's own purpose, not Parliament's purpose, to streamline its own initiatives, so we would have less scrutiny votes, less votes on money issues, and eight weeks less of debate.

Did the member hear those elements, or is this all about the Prime Minister being able to waltz in here and avoid questions? I think that is what he just said it is about.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB

Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight something that was just asked of the member by our colleague across the way from Winnipeg, who was so gracious in receiving 68% of the vote in the last election. He asked if the government does not have the right to change the rules of the House. I wonder if my colleague from my political party would agree that the House belongs to Parliament and to the people of Canada, not to any government.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, I alluded to my colleague's comments in my speech.

Can one imagine what the howl and the outrage and the outright alarm would have been in this country if this had been proposed by our previous prime minister? It boggles my mind to think about it, and yet we have this entitled, arrogant approach by the Liberal government. The Liberals tried to take powers away from the opposition with Motion No. 6. They tried to shove it down our throats. They are trying it again, and they say they will do it unilaterally. This is the House of the people, as my colleague just said. It represents all of the people, all with diverse views.

The member for Winnipeg North may have well been honoured with 68% of the vote, but 39% of Canadians voted for the Liberal government. The Liberals are not entitled to do this. We should be standing up for all of the people of Canada, not just the governing party and those who supported it.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Mr. Speaker, today it is important to review what we mean by a question of privilege and make sure that everyone understands. As I explained in my speech earlier, when we speak of a question of privilege, we are talking about a member's duty.

What do members need to do in order to properly represent their constituents? They must be able to appear in the House of Commons to work, to give speeches, and to introduce bills, such as mine, for example, on the bilingualism of Supreme Court judges. It is extremely important that MPs carry out these duties.

I want to ask my hon. colleague whether some degree of balance has been achieved in the House of Commons. This balance must not be unilaterally decided by the current Liberal government. That is what is dangerous about the Liberal government's proposal. It wants to strike a balance of power without the consent or agreement of the opposition parties. This has not been done in the past 100 years; it is unheard of. That is why I went to represent my constituents at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the wee hours of the morning to stand up for balance in the House of Commons. Indeed, we must be able to maintain a balance. If the government wants to make changes, it must work with the opposition parties.

Would my hon. colleague agree with that?

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the NDP and I are totally aligned on that issue, and that is the issue of the day. Liberals use the word “modernization”, which can mean different things to a lot of people. Their concept of modernization, or what they believe it to be, may not be the will of the majority of people in this country who have lived with a balanced system, the rules of this House, and who elect members to both government and opposition. We are called upon, as my colleague said, to represent those views and to strike a balance. The balance has served this country well. We need to maintain it and defend it, not only in this Parliament but in future ones, to ensure it does not deteriorate due to the will of a partisan government.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

Mr. Speaker, we are using words like “arbitrary” and “arrogant”. Following the introduction of Motion No. 6, the House erupted because of the dictatorial position that the government and the Prime Minister took, not only then but now, to take away the authority of opposition parties. That is not just my party but all opposition parties, so Liberals can have dictatorial authority over debate in this place and committee recommendations. The Prime Minister did a couple of trial balloons and talked to us during question period, which he can do, quite honestly, anyway. He just wants to do it on one day a week now.

Is the member concerned that Liberals are already prepared to ram this through because they have done the trial balloons to see what the Prime Minister looks like when he stands up for three-quarters of an hour?

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Speaker, the agenda has been set, in case anyone cannot see through the smoke and mirrors of all of this. The discussion paper was tabled by the House leader. She said they were going to have a discussion on it and that Liberals wanted to accept other members' points of view. They said they wanted to have a discussion on estimates reform.

The government's presentations have been that this is the way it is going to be and if opposition parties do not like it, then tough luck. That is what the Liberal government is all about. It is all about doing what it did with Motion No. 6, as the member mentioned, and ramming it down our throats. It is trying to do it in a little softer, more pleasing way today, but we should make no mistake that this is the modus operandi of the government. It feels that it is entitled to do this. It says it is going to do it unilaterally, and that is wrong.

12:25 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak here today, and I mean that with sincerity, because it is relevant to the topic of debate. We are talking about parliamentary privilege today. I will definitely speak on that, but I will also comment upon what the House leader and parliamentary secretary to the House leader have talked about today.

One thing I would like to point out is that in June of this year we will be celebrating the 802nd anniversary of the Magna Carta. I bring that up because all of what has happened throughout history, in English parliaments and parliaments around the world, is related to the debate we are having today.

If members will recall, the Magna Carta was signed reluctantly by King John at Runnymede in the 13th century. It was the foundation of parliamentary democracy. It was when barons stood up to the executive and said that they were not going to be taxed without representation. It was not at all a democracy at that point, but it was the beginning of a check on executive power. That is very important. However, from that initial document, a series of rules and institutions were built around the relationship between the executive, which in that case was the king, or eventually the queen, and those who were governed, those who paid taxes or were covered by the coercive power of the state. Really the Magna Carta in our history, and we are modelled on the English and then British and then U.K. parliaments, is a check on the executive, and that is important.

The Magna Carta was signed after a long period of turmoil, a very violent state of affairs at that time, but that violence and instability within England and eventually United Kingdom continued right through the period. Thank goodness we have a relatively peaceful period of time now. However, what began to emerge through history, as parliaments began to sit more regularly, was that the king would decide that he did not like what some members of parliament were saying and would have them arrested. The king would send troops and would block the entrance to parliament. I do not know if Queen Victoria did it, but we do know that previous kings did it. Most famously, Charles I tried to have five parliamentarians hauled out of parliament for speaking against the king and refusing to pay tax. That did not end too well for Charles I, who was beheaded during the civil war with Oliver Cromwell.

This might seem like an esoteric argument, but this is directly related to what we are talking about today, which is privilege. The deal that was made between the executive, the king or royalty, and those who were government was that they would be able to go to a place where they could voice opposition. They would be able to challenge, agree or disagree, with what the executive was proposing and not feel threatened. They would be protected under the law. That, of course, rises to the supremacy of Parliament. Those are the foundations on which we are built here today.

What we are talking about may seem like a relatively small incident, and why are we debating it at great length? We are debating it because it speaks to the principles of what we do in this place. We carry the weight of history, of people who fought and died so that we can stand in places like this today. Our job is to be caretakers of this place so that we can pass it on to future generations.

What was usually happening when rules were reformed and new rules put in place was that something bad was going on. Take, for example, the English Civil War, with the king trying to haul parliamentarians, MPs, out of Westminster, and then being executed, and of course the country dropping into a civil war, when Thomas Hobbes described the world as being “nasty, brutish, and short”. This gives us a picture of what we do not want to happen.

After that settled down and peace broke out, parliamentarians and the executives sat down and asked what kind of rules could be put in place to avoid that from happening again. That is exactly where parliamentary privilege comes from. When we are in relatively good times, like we are today—we do not have any civil war on the horizon in Canada—maybe these rules do not seem very important, but they are important in bad times. Obviously, we do not wish for that; we see a bright future ahead of us. However, these things happen.

In governments around the world, we see surprising, shocking upheavals that we could not anticipate. I always think of the former Yugoslavia, which hosted the Olympics one year and then a few years after split up as a country. Things can happen.

We have to respect the laws that we have negotiated over the years. That is really what has happened. The bad times show what should not happen, and during the good times we negotiate the rules by which we try to avoid future bad times.

This is an important question of privilege. I have listened to the debate. There has been a good level of respect for this. The House allotted a good time for this. Again, it is good for us to remind ourselves of the boundaries of debate and our responsibilities here, and the roles we play. Of course we have a fused legislature here, with the executive sitting among the legislature. Sometimes it can get a bit confusing in that sense.

However, the role the opposition plays is essential. Voicing the will of constituents is one thing, but it is also keeping the government from making big mistakes. That is what we are supposed to do here. We are supposed to debate. I think all Canadians would agree, and a lot of people in the House agree, that these things could be improved, and we have seen some improvement.

We have to be careful to not take questions of privilege too lightly and ensure we consider them very carefully, if we feel privilege has been breached. Perhaps we can learn from this so we can make adjustments to ensure these things do not happen again.

A lot of this debate has been related to the changes to the Standing Orders. We have heard debate on the other side. In the last Parliament, I closely related to the change in the Standing Orders. I was able to put forward a private member's motion to bring electronic petitions to the House of Commons, which was eventually successful. I would like to walk the House through that a bit, because it has been misrepresented by the other side.

Initially I put forward a first motion and then after some discussion a second motion to Parliament. Right now in the Standing Orders, we have the ability to do paper petitions. If constituents write a petition in a particular way and they get 25 signatures, we are able to submit it to the House for consideration by the government and also speak to it briefly.

What my motion was designed to do, and did, was change the Standing Orders so these petitions could be accepted electronically. A new web page would created, people could post their electronic petition ideas online, a parliamentarian would sign off on the petition, and then the petition, if it gained 500 signatures, would be sent to the government, just like a paper petition.

The innovation, of course, was that when the government issued a response, this response would be emailed to all those who had signed it. For example, with the recent e-petition on electoral reform, which had about 130,000 people sign, when the government issues a response, those 130,000 people will receive this notice.

That is an important innovation because with the paper petitions, people were not really getting the feedback. It was difficult for them to find out what the government response was to their petition.

I was of course hoping for more changes, such as if petitions received 50,000 or 100,000 signatures, it would trigger a debate in the House of Commons. There would not be a vote, but there would be a debate. This is modelled on the U.K.'s parliamentary system.

I brought forward a motion for a study of electronic petitions. It was not a motion to change the Standing Orders; it was a motion for a study of the Standing Orders, with some suggestions about how we could move forward with electronic petitions. That idea was opposed by Mr. Harper's Conservative government. However, with the kind support of the Liberals, the Green Party member, as well as the Bloc and eight government backbenchers, that motion passed, 142-140, in the House. What passed was a motion that we study electronic petitions and that it be sent to PROC for consideration.

The motion went to PROC. There was a lot of debate. Some of my ideas were adopted and some were not. The report was sent back to the House of Commons and in concurrence of the report, it was adopted unanimously. Even though the discussion started off as a close vote and there was rigorous debate at PROC, when it came back, a compromise was agreed to and it was adopted unanimously. Hundreds of e-petitions have been used at this point. Almost every parliamentarian has used them in one form or another.

Again, that has been represented as a majority vote, but it was not. It was concurred on unanimously at the end of the process.

That is important because it talks about how we amend the Standing Orders. What is being proposed is ham-fisted. Motion No. 6 was proposed by the previous House leader, who is no longer House leader because he muffed it so badly. He tried to ram through changes to the Standing Orders without any discussion. That did not work. Now a new House leader basically has decided to do the same thing. That is not working either. We are looking at a third attempt today to force unilateral changes on how we do business in the House. The processes have been agreed upon over a very long period of parliamentary history, both here and elsewhere.

The government has two things wrong. The first is the process by which we make changes and the second is the content. The process we have been using is a consensual process. We look at the Standing Orders, sit down with political parties, find a way to tweak these orders, look at how we incorporate new technology, those types of things. That is how we have traditionally made changes.

The Liberal government is in a panic at the moment. If we look at its legislative agenda, it has really passed nothing. It has had budget bills that have to pass through the House and the Senate, but really there is very little legislation. From the promise in the election to have real change, we have really had no legislative change.

For example, the assisted dying bill will be struck down by the courts eventually. Members in the other place are waiting for ideas to come from the House of Commons. As the opposition, that is not our responsibility. We try to do the best we can with private members' motions and opposition motions, however, it is the government's job to set the agenda.

The Liberals love campaigning. That is why they are trying to make changes so the Prime Minister does not have to be in the House, but they do not like legislating. This might make the other side upset, but it reminds me of what is going on in the United States. The U.S. President likes to campaign and does not understand how to govern. The President makes promises he knows he cannot keep, and he has not kept them. Apparently, Obamacare was supposed to be abolished in the first order, but that has dropped off the agenda.

Although it is being done with a smile here rather than a sneer, it is still the same thing. It is a government that is unable to accomplish its legislative agenda because it really does not know how to and now it is punishing us by trying to change the Standing Orders unilaterally to force legislation through more quickly. That is not the way it is supposed to be done. We did not vote for Donald Trump in Canada and we do not expect that kind of treatment here.

The process is really important. We found this on electoral reform. We had a committee that was built on consensus. The committee arrived at consensus. It was rejected by the government, but at least we got that far in looking at electoral reform.

The government ended up breaking its promise on electoral reform. We will see what happens in the next election. The Liberals promised they would abolish the first past the post single member plurality system 1,800 times and then they did not do it because they did not get their preferred system. The voters will decide in the next election whether that was a promise worth keeping. I think it was. I am a huge proponent of proportional representation and I am deeply disappointed we did not get that change. However, that is what the government has decided to do.

The process by which we make changes to the Standing Orders is very important. It should not be taken lightly, because it does set a precedent for other changes. If the government decides it will just ignore us or ram through Standing Order changes on this group of changes, why will it not do it again in the next round. It breaks the whole precedent about how we have managed to change the rules in the House in the past.

The other is the content. The content of this new proposal was dropped to the media first, again breaking precedent, and then mentioned in the House of Commons before it is brought up at PROC. The content is also problematic. I am of two minds about whether the Prime Minister should be here for every day of the week or if he should be here one day of the week mainly because I have not seen enough evidence of the impact that will have on how we do business.

I have talked to some colleagues outside the confines of this place. Some of them are okay with it and some are not. However, there is no real space for us to have that debate. Therefore, what happens is that the government brings in a so-called discussion paper, which is actually the motion that will go to PROC. It will go into this forum when we have to vote on something, but there is no place outside of either the chamber or PROC where we can have neutral discussions, have input without the pressure of having to have a vote.

Since we are talking so much about the United Kingdom, and this would perhaps fall on you a bit, Mr. Speaker, its has something called a Hansard Society. It has been there for a very long time. It is actually funded by the Speaker's office and by Parliament and it sets up a neutral place, run by academics, who continually review how parliamentarians do their business.

The Hansard Society came to prominence when there was a huge election expenses scandal in Britain in 2010. The Speaker of the House ordered the Hansard Society to review how the standing orders worked, and it is a great forum. Parliamentarians came in on their off times. They went to sessions, which are actually held in the parliamentary precinct. They would discuss what changes could be made with the public and with experts.

The Hansard Society releases reports and there is no vote, so parliamentarians can speak as parliamentarians. There is no rigorous partisan whipping that happens and it does a courtesy to those members who have been sitting in the House for such a long time to hear their views. We sit here day after day doing good work, but also observing and thinking about how we can make this place work better. The Hansard Society allows that space for that discussion to happen without having the pressure of a vote at the end.

I have had many great discussions with Hansard Society researchers like Dr. Ruth Fox. In fact, they were kind enough to share their experience with electronic petitions with me and helped influence how we built our system here.

We are talking a lot about, for example, Prime Minister's question time being on a Wednesday, which is done in the U.K., but it was developed through neutral discussion in places like the Hansard Society, where parliamentarians could come, let down their hair and have a good chat about how they did their work. We could do the same thing here. If there is one thing that comes out of this discussion, it is perhaps that we need to think about how we can have these discussions without the partisan intensity that happens in this place and in PROC.

Although the privilege question is a serious debate, I am glad we were able to have these discussions, to think about how we do business in this place. I am glad there are thoughts about changing the Standing Orders. However, I am not happy about the way the Liberals are proceeding.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the process for bringing electronic petitions, and he recognized that consensus did not exist until the end of the process. I think there is a very important point there. Consensus came at the end, at the very end, at the implementation point rather than at the discussion point. I think that is a very worthwhile point.

He also made the point that the electoral reform committee had consensus, which I think is a totally spurious argument. I do not know in what world a whole lot of members not agreeing and having four supplementary reports constitutes consensus.

I wonder if the member could tell me how he sees consensus being important and how it actually exists in the context he describes, because I do not think it does.

12:50 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between what is being proposed here today and how electronic petitions evolved. I was an opposition member who put forward a private member's motion for a study. I was not in government. We have a very different dynamic happening here.

If, for example, a private member said, “We'd like to go to prime minister's questions being on Wednesdays”, and put it in a private member's motion for PROC to study, and we then had a vote on it, it would either go to the PROC committee or it would not. However, that is not what is happening here. We have a government that has a suite of changes it wants to slip into PROC, kind of avoiding the debate here in the first place, and saying that it has arrived at some kind of consensus or has some kind of mandate to do this, and it does not. There is a big distinction between the two things.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, I was not here in the previous parliament, but I know there was a lot of noise every time the government moved time allocation, and I am sure my colleague, who was here, was one of the ones who was making some of that noise.

This discussion we are having today, it seems to me, is following a trend we see with the Liberal government, which is that it does a bait and switch. It says that it was terrible when the Conservatives moved time allocation. It does not want to have to use it, but it still wants to implement its agenda.

Here is a quote, in a recent article, from the government House leader:

Canadians elected us to deliver an ambitious agenda. So, it is with regret, but with full transparency, that I want to inform you that under the circumstances the government will need to use time allocation more often in order to implement the change that we promised.

All of this seems to indicate that the government is trying to get around having to use time allocation. Does this appear to be a bait and switch, with the government saying, “We will never use time allocation, but now we have to, because we can't make the changes we wanted to”?

12:50 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Mr. Speaker, as an observer of parliament, what I see happening here is pretty simple. We have 200 new members in this place. We have a new Prime Minister, who is new to that job. We have a number of new ministers. I think when the emphasis was on campaigning and winning the election, there was little thought put into how to actually govern. I think that is what has happened in the first months we have been here. The attention has been on the exuberance of a majority government. I saw that in 2011 as well, but I think in the last Parliament, we had a prime minister who understood governing. I did not agree with much of what was put in place. However, what I recognized in the last Parliament was that although time allocation was used frequently, it was within the purview of what is agreed to in terms of the Standing Orders, so it was allowed. I do not agree with it.

What I see on this side is a party that does not have a plan for governance and is starting to scramble. One thing it is recognizing is that if it could just change the Standing Orders to limit the powers of the opposition, maybe it could push its agenda through more quickly. I think that is a wrongheaded approach. I think it is a bit confusing to the public. It would be better if the government just got its act together, rather than changing the rules.

12:50 p.m.

NDP

Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Burnaby South, for a really excellent speech and for putting this apparently esoteric discussion into something of a historical frame so people who watch these debates will understand just how important it is.

Charles I, as the executive, lost his head over this very topic, and here we have a government that seems to think, as the executive, that it has the ability to ram through changes unilaterally. The government got 39.5% of the vote and believes that gives it the mandate to change the rules of the House.

He talked of the fused legislature and executive in our parliamentary system and how they think, as an executive, they can impose their will on this place. I would like the member to speculate on how that might have been done if the government wanted to make changes to another branch of the government, such as the judiciary. Would that have been acceptable?

Could he enlighten us with the experience he had when he made his changes to the parliamentary rules to bring in electronic petitions and how that compares with how the present government is choosing to proceed in this instance?

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Victoria does excellent work as House leader in this place and in British Columbia.

What we are experiencing here is a newly elected government with too many jobs to learn all at once, one that is more excited about the campaigning side of things, being in public, and getting accolades than it is about focusing on governance. It is now starting to panic and is changing the rules unilaterally, which is going to get it in a whole pile of trouble, as it is already finding.

Opposition members have powers for a reason. It is to make sure that there is real deliberation, as we heard in the last speech by my Conservative colleague, on how we spend money and use the coercive power of the state.

If, for example, the Prime Minister decided he was going to make unilateral changes to the Supreme Court or other levels of our justice system, it would be met with shock and horror. While this is perhaps a little less dramatic, it is no less serious, and the Canadian public needs to be aware that this is breaking with precedent and consensus.

12:55 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I generally agree with every word my friend from Burnaby South says, but I have to say I was disturbed to hear in a comparison that the Harper administration governed better than what we are seeing from the current government. I have lots of concerns about broken promises by the Liberal government, but I have to say that when it assumed power, I was encouraged by, for instance, initial signs, such as the transparency of the mandate letters. That suggested a readiness to govern. The Prime Minister's Office is no longer all-powerful. Clearly, cabinet ministers are actually running their own portfolios.

What I am deeply distressed about in the current debate is that we must not conflate anything done by the Harper administration. Prime Minister Harper used prorogation, for the first time in the history of Canada, to avoid a vote he knew he would lose in this place. The current proposal from the government would improve that, but not as much as the proposal the Green Party has made to ensure that there is a vote of confidence in the House before any prorogation to keep any future prime minister from using and abusing powers egregiously, as Stephen Harper did. We must not, in our effort at the moment to make partisan points, forget what the last nine years were like, when we had 100 uses of time allocation.

Since my hon. colleague and I are actually friends and have worked academically on a new book looking at how Parliament gets distorted, I would put it to him that it is not that one party does it better than another. It is that the power of political parties over the lives of MPs inevitably erodes democracy.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of debate we should be having in this place, where we have different perspectives and work out the best way forward.

For me, this whole debate is about the process by which we make change. As I pointed out, and as we talk about in the book, there is really no place for debate. Because this place is so controlled by partisan politics and leadership teams, it is very difficult. It does not operate like the U.K. Parliament, where there are frequent disagreements within parties. That does not really happen in this place, where there is almost a uniformity of votes on every matter we discuss here. Because of that, it is very important that at least when we make changes to something like the Standing Orders, there is some degree of consensus and the Prime Minister's Office does not call the shots on how we do business in this place.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join this debate. My colleague from the New Democrats in his contribution mentioned King Charles. It was King John who dealt with the Magna Carta, and he was not beheaded, actually. He died of dysentery. It was King Henry III who reintroduced the Magna Carta a second time. Three of those clauses are still part of the United Kingdom's constitution. It speaks to the strength and traditions, which have lasted through the ages and form the rights and privileges that both members of the public and members of Parliament enjoy.

I want to begin with a quote from Lady Thatcher on the quality of debate and the arguments made by different sides. She said, to The Times, in 1980, “I love argument. I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me -- that's not their job.”

I very much agree with the emotion and sentiment she shared. When members of the House from the different political parties we belong to, but also some of us who are more independent thinkers than others, debate in the House, we do not necessarily have to come to an agreement. It is the same at committee. It is not a requirement that we always have consensus, with 100% of us voting every single which way. Fundamentally, all members, especially when in opposition, and members of the government caucus will be there some day, have to agree that the rights and privileges we enjoy as members of Parliament are worth protecting, not just for the work we do today on behalf of our constituents but for the work future members of Parliament will do on behalf of their constituents. These seats do not belong to us. We are stewards for a next generation, for the future members who will sit in the House and defend the rights and interests of their constituents, as will be their right and privilege at that time.

I have listened to the debate. I have read and re-read the transcript of the debate when this was before the House before. Some members of the House, especially on the government side, must have some form of cognitive dissonance that must be experienced communally.

We have a ruling by the Speaker. The matter we have before us is a breach of the privilege of two members of the House. The member for Beauce and the member for Milton, who sit behind me, were affected directly by this, because they were unable to come to the House and vote on a matter the House had under consideration.

The Speaker's ruling established certain themes. He also said there were sufficient grounds for filing a prima facie question of privilege. Thereafter, the Speaker advised that the member could move the required motion to have this matter rightly referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It is a committee I have been at during the PROC filibuster, of course. It has been mentioned here several times now. I remember being there until 3 a.m. participating in debate. I remember doing a straight eight hours of debate. I promise not to do that here. I promise not to speak for eight hours, but I was required to do it at the time.

My point at committee was that we are here to defend the rights and privileges of members. The changes to the Standing Orders being proposed by members on the government side would reduce our ability as members of Parliament, especially the opposition, to serve our constituents.

Last year, in December 2016, Jim Prior passed away. He was a great House leader in the Ted Heath government as a member of the Conservative government in the United Kingdom. He said in his book that the way to make a well-functioning democracy work is to ensure that members of the opposition are able to do their work. It was a government House leader saying that the right way to do it is to ensure that the opposition members have the ability to speak up and take the time they need to deliberate, debate, and contribute. They need to both be able to do it and feel that they can do it. One is the actual function and one is believing that they are able to do it. Both have to exist.

Mr. Prior, although he passed away in December 2016, wrote a fantastic book. By no means was he a great promoter of Lady Thatcher. She was prime minister of the United Kingdom after 1979. He served in her government as a cabinet minister, but he was considered one of the “wets”, while she obviously preferred the “dries” in her cabinet.

The matter before the House is on the Speaker's ruling that says there is a prima facie breach of privilege of two members of the House. It is definitive, insofar as it establishes that something went wrong and that the something is up for interpretation.

I am quoting from the Speaker's ruling and not the exact details that are then discussed based on the two reports that the Speaker received. Here is what appears to have happened. It “appears to have happened” does not mean that it has happened. It “appears to have happened”. Many Liberals have confused this statement. The member of Parliament for York—Simcoe quoted Speaker Milliken, and I am paraphrasing here, that it is not the role of the Speaker to be definitively involved in making a ruling every which way on matters of a breach of privilege.

There is a role for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs here that must be undertaken. There must be a review. The matter of a breach of privilege must be reviewed, because it is serious. Imagine if this had been a deciding budget vote. We have had close votes in the House before. If it had come down to two votes going in any one direction, it could easily have been a much more tense, disruptive, and emotional debate in the House.

If a vote had been decided by one or two votes on that day, it would have been a far more serious matter. I am convinced that we would not even be having this debate. The issue would have been sent to committee immediately. There would be questions in question period about it to find out specific details. Thankfully that did not happen that day, but who knows what would happen in the future if members were obstructed from entering the chamber, whether direct entry to the chamber or by the bus service that gets us here from our offices.

The parliamentary precinct has grown over time. Some office locations have moved farther away. Members who are perhaps getting up in years, senior members, more experienced members who have mobility issues, take more time to get here. They all plan for that. All members, regardless of party affiliation, consider the time needed to travel from their offices. My precinct office recently moved, as have many others. We all judge how long it will take to get into the House to vote. This is one task of our jobs that no other job has. Voting is fundamental. It is critical. It is the one thing we do that no other job has as its most central role. If members do not like voting in the House, then they should not have decided to run for Parliament, because voting in the House is the most important thing that we do. It is the only thing that our constituents cannot do. Most parts of this job with respect to the functions and tasks that we do as members of Parliament can be done by somebody else, but only we, as elected members of Parliament, can enter the chamber to vote on behalf of our constituents. That is the most fundamental thing.

I have a Yiddish proverb here, and many members have heard it before. I like them and have used them at committee: “Nothing tastes more bitter than the truth.” With respect to the Speaker's ruling, the member for York—Simcoe said that this matter must go to the procedure and House affairs committee. It can go nowhere else. This is a breach of privilege as a result of the two votes that were not able to be cast. Voting is fundamental to the role of a member of Parliament, and as a result we have to look into what happened.

The Speaker's ruling is clear. It appears that something has happened. Members of Parliament on that committee will be able to review the contents of those reports, and I truly hope that they will be provided. They will perhaps be able to ask questions of the member for Milton and the member for Beauce. They will perhaps be able to ask questions of other members of the House from past instances, where they were perhaps delayed entering the House, or they feel that security or other measures are being introduced or being removed that impede their ability to get to the chamber as quickly as they need. They might have suggestions with respect to improvements, as well.

The Speaker's role is that of a servant of the House, a servant of all members of Parliament. That is why Speakers are elected in this chamber by preferential ballot. It ensures that one candidate has the most support required in order to fulfill the role. The Speaker is not necessarily here to render judgment as a justice among members of Parliament, because at the end of the day the Speaker is equal to all members of the House. All 338 of us, including the Speaker, are equals.

We do not expect the Speaker to render judgment on things like a breach of privilege, especially in this matter. What kind of servant would a Speaker be if his or her judgment on this would be considered the facts, that there would be no other consideration given, and that the committee could not consider it going forward? A servant of the House cannot tell the House what to do. The House renders judgment through the vote. The House makes a decision through the vote. The best decision in this matter would be to approve the amendments to the original motion in order to take this matter to committee, so it can receive a complete review, a complete study, with witnesses and members of Parliament giving it full consideration.

It is a matter that is more important at this time. “At this time” are words that the government House leader likes to use quite often. She used them this morning, referring to the changes to the Standing Orders she would like to make “at this time”. The government will not proceed with all of the ideas and changes that we on the opposition side find so reprehensible, and in some cases illogical. In the long term, it will hurt members of the Liberal government caucus when they some day return to opposition, some day soon I hope, in 2019.

That is a matter that the standing committee should review. The standing committee should review cases where there is a breach of privilege. The Speaker's ruling was clear. It appeared that certain things happened a certain way, based on two reports. I would very much prefer if a committee of members of Parliament were to review this. I have full confidence in the chair of the committee, the member for Yukon, and the other members who sit on the committee on a regular basis, to review this matter and render judgment, and then to get back to the House to instruct the House and the Speaker on the best way to avoid such instances in the future.

The Speaker's ruling, and this is something that the member for York—Simcoe brought up, said that the two reports provided an excellent minute-by-minute summary of events and were supplemented by witness statements. I know that the Speaker at the time he made the ruling did not refer to specific witnesses in this report, or outside of the report. It is not very clear, based on the Speaker's ruling. I would very much like to see the Standing Committee on Procedure and House affairs consider this matter, who the witnesses were and whether we could hear from them once again.

The nice thing about a standing committee is that all of us can attend. We can all participate by being there and listening to the conversation. I have been to these late sittings of the procedures and House affairs committee, even though I was not a full member. I was a fourth or fifth member on the Conservative side, sitting, participating, listening, having conversations, along with other members there, and at times, when I was substituted in, providing for a point of order. Then I contributed with some observations I had made, based on what I had heard at committee and read in the transcripts as well.

That line in the Speaker's ruling about “what appears to have happened” is critical to the entire matter before the House today. What appears to have happened is not a determination of fact; it is simply a collection of views provided to the House by the Speaker. It is not an instruction to the House on the facts of the matter. The standing committee can determine the facts and then return to the House.

Generally, though, we have heard many members speak about the problems that the government is having, and I do not mean the government caucus but the front bench, the members of the executive council, in pushing through the government's agenda. Many members have mentioned before that the government seems to be having a very difficult time in proceeding with its agenda.

It is having a great deal of difficulty passing legislation and following through with its platform promises. Some of it is simply because it does not have the public support it thought it had, such as on electoral reform. In other matters, the government is simply in no rush. Sometimes the government gets to decide the business of the day, to decide what we debate during the day, and sometimes I see legislation that, in my mind, should not be such a priority. A priority should be border security or taxation.

I hear a great deal of things from constituents. I held an open house on Thursday in my constituency. The primary concern for people in Calgary Shepard is jobs, pipelines, oil and gas industry jobs, getting people back to work, and making sure we have the right policies to assure industry that it can hire workers again and proceed with the construction of large energy infrastructure projects. None of that exists right now, and I do not see that as a priority on that side.

We also saw the government push through Motion No. 6, which was dropped because of public pressure. We see the continuation of a filibuster at the procedure and House affairs committee at this point. I do not know how long that will continue, based on what we heard from the government House leader this morning.

The Senate changes are being rammed through the Senate, which are very similar to the ones being proposed in the House. We cannot forget the other chamber. We form Parliament together; we are not a unitary form of government. We have another chamber that does good work in reviewing the government's legislation.

What about the Prime Minister's obstruction of a New Democrat and the manhandling of our opposition whip last year? It is a trend. It is a pattern of behaviour, and it is typical of how the government has been run. Liberals say the nice things and use all the right words, buzzwords especially, but consultation is not a shield for incompetence. If they are incapable and do not know how to pass legislation and push it through the process, perhaps consideration should be given to standing aside and letting another member of the executive council take a shot at it. There are Liberal backbenchers who could perhaps do a better job than the government House leader.

I have another proverb: “A trick is clever only once.” I have listed all of these patterns of behaviour. Motion No. 6, what Liberals are doing in the Senate, and what they have tried to do at the procedure and House affairs committee are not consultations, not discussions, not nice ways to talk about things. At the committee, the government discussion paper and the motion were moved on a Friday. One only drops bad news on a Friday. That is a general joke made by the media, by members of Parliament, by public servants. It is very common. One does not just drop a discussion paper that needs a thorough discussion. Liberals should not surprise members this way on a Friday, which is exactly what the government House leader has done. Now the Liberals do not even want to sit on Fridays.

Having a conversation is not a replacement for doing something, for going through the motions of passing their agenda, actually following through on what they intend to do. The motion moved by the member for Milton, with amendments by the member for Beauce, is reasonable and logical. It ensures protection of our privileges that protect members of Parliament primarily from the government and the crown. The obstruction of a member or breach of privilege goes beyond simply blocking a member. I am going to refer to page 111 of O'Brien and Bosc, chapter 3, “Privileges and Immunities”, which expands on what constitutes a prima facie case of breach of privilege. It also includes damaging a member's reputation, “the usurpation of the title of Member of Parliament, the intimidation of Members and their staff and of witnesses before committees, and the provision of misleading information.”

I mention these things because it goes beyond obstructing members from entering the chamber to vote. It includes a whole slew of rights, as the member from the New Democrats just spoke on, going all the way back to the Magna Carta. All of these inheritances we have, these traditions we have picked up from the mother parliament here in Canada are valuable to protecting future members of Parliament. Our role as parliamentarians, both in opposition and on the government side, should be to protect them as best we can. The only way we can do that is to take this matter directly to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Some members of the government have implied that the members for Beauce and Milton have misled, or attributed the breach of privilege against them on the Prime Minister. We are told that MPs are not to imply or say that another member is lying. I am not implying that any member here is lying. I believe every statement made here by a member is truthful, in as far as they believe it to be true. I absolutely believe that. Speakers have brought to order many members who have implied that another member has lied in some way. I am not implying that in any way. I believe the facts as they were said by the member for Beauce. He believes, based on what security said, that it was the Prime Minister's vehicles that were blocking the way.

Parliamentarians make the rules, and we give the Speaker the role of arbitrator, deciding on the rules. We cannot decide the rules and clarify the rights and privileges of a member without this going to the standing committee. That is what we need to remember, and that is where the discussion needs to go. It is fundamental to the chamber that matters of breach of privilege are questions of equality that the members enjoy. We should deal with this expeditiously and send it to committee so it can in a detailed way look at the evidence and call witnesses.

1:15 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

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

Mr. Speaker, a couple of thoughts come to mind that I would like to share and maybe see if we could get a response.

First and foremost, we have now had a number of members stand up and talk about the legislative agenda. Yes, a legislative agenda is important, but to try to give a false impression in terms of the government not being able to do things is somewhat wrong. Canadians understand and appreciate that this is a government that has accomplished a great deal virtually from day one. We can talk about the legislation that dealt with the biggest tax break to Canada's middle class. We can talk about the budgetary measures, the increase to the GIS. We can talk about the Canada child benefit program. The government has been very successful at bringing forward what we believe Canadians want, and that is special attention to and a focus on Canada's middle class.

In regard to the legislative component in particular, the member spoke a great deal about the privilege itself and the importance of having unfettered access. There is not one Liberal member who is questioning the importance of unfettered access to the parliamentary precinct. In fact, we have consistently said that we want PROC to deal with this. We entrust PROC, as it has dealt with the issue in the past, to do it again. In fact, we support the subamendment that is being debated right now.

Does the member not share the same confidence in the PROC membership and in PROC being able to do what it has done in the past very effectively in dealing with this issue? Every Liberal member and, I would like to believe and I choose to believe, every member of this House acknowledges and appreciates the importance of having unfettered access. Would he not agree with that?