Jay Hill

[Committees of the House, October 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just taken to the amendment presently before the House, with Conservative members present voting in favour.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent to apply the vote just taken on the previous motion to the motion presently before the House, with Conservative members voting no.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to correct the record. I never ever said during my remarks that there would be a price to pay.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not know where to begin. I guess I will begin at the beginning.

My colleague, the House leader for the Bloc Québecois, says that the amendment I have presented is dilatory. He says that I am embarrassing myself with it. It is quite the contrary. I would suggest that it is the opposition members that are embarrassing themselves on this issue.

He said at one point we were all in agreement as to these provisional Standing Orders. Yes, we were all in agreement. We were also all in agreement on how to proceed, and that is the point. The point is not whether we agree with the provisional Standing Orders as they are.

I used to have a tremendous respect for the Bloc Québécois in how it dealt with the day to day operations of the House. When the House leader for the Bloc Québécois states that we all are in agreement with the provisional Standing Orders, yes, I agree, but were we not also all in agreement on how to proceed?

If we were not all in agreement on how to proceed, then why in heaven's name did the Bloc Québecois give its consent on September 20 when my colleague, the hon. government House leader, presented the motion to extend these provisional Standing Orders to November 21?

If the Bloc Québécois was not in agreement, I do not believe for a minute it would have allowed us to present that order. My colleague, the government House leader, would never have presented an order unless it was unanimously supported, which it was because that is how we operate in this place.

At the weekly House leaders meeting, as I said in my earlier remarks, we decide on a process. He asks, why let the government stand in our way? It is not standing in the way. These provisional Standing Orders are in effect today and right up until November 21. The government is not trying to prevent their adoption. It is trying to improve them as per the agreement that the Bloc Québécois member agreed to at the September 19 House leaders meeting, as did all the members present.

I ask him this question. If we did not have an agreement on September 19 that was exemplified and evidenced by the motion that was brought to the House the very next day to extend these provisional Standing Orders to November 21, then why would the House leader of the Bloc Québécois have agreed to that process?

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party lays out, quite rightly, the process that is normally followed. Even in the Standing Orders there is a requirement that the Standing Orders be reviewed from time to time. Along with the other three parties, I think we are all supportive of that.

However, my amendment deals with one thing on which I thought we had agreement. I raised this at the procedure and House affairs committee when, according to the chief opposition whip, we were filibustering. It is arguable whether or not we were filibustering, and some people might consider that, but we were making a lot of points. One of the points I made, in response to my hon. colleague, was that Standing Order 106(4) be amended, which is the purpose of the amendment that I just introduced into the House of Commons and which we are presently debating.

We believe that the five day requirement, five days being the time that a chairman of a standing committee of the House of Commons be requested by a certain number of the members to hold a special meeting, be changed.

We believe, especially during the break times, the three months of summer recess and the six week winter recess, that if that were to fall over a holiday period, such as Christmas or July 1, three days are holidays and we would end up with only two days to get people together, agree on a date for the meeting and call the meeting. We believe it would be a minor change to extend that time to 10 calendar days from the existing 5 days. It would be a sensible solution to that problem.

We presented that and I believed that all the opposition parties agreed with it. Since it does not substantively change the intent of the provisional Standing Order, I thought we could move ahead with that type of change. The other four political parties may have amendments that we have not even had a chance to discuss yet.

I also pointed out that the clerk had indicated to me that she wanted to make some minor changes to the wording just to make the Standing Orders more effective and work better for all of Parliament.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the issues that were raised during the intervention by the official opposition whip. She tried to defend this action undertaken by the opposition by stating that during the break week she made a telephone call to try to reach me.

Again, I have had the great pleasure of being elected to represent the people of Prince George—Peace River on five separate occasions now. My riding is huge. It encompasses over a quarter of a million square kilometres up in northeastern British Columbia. It runs from the central part of the province all the way to the Yukon. I can tell members that because of my role as whip, and my constituents understand this, when I have a break week I am on the dead run from one end of the riding to the other. I try to get to as many events as I can because of the distance my riding is from Ottawa.

I know that she tried to reach me. During that week, I was unreachable by cellphone in many cases. The Rocky Mountains cut my riding in half. There are more regions of my riding that do not have cellphone coverage than regions that do. I was in I think five different cities and towns on five different days. I guess that is, by way of an excuse, my reason for not returning her call, but the pertinent point here is that she had already moved her motion prior to that.

On the Thursday prior to the break week, she moved her motion to shove this thing through without even consulting with the government, after having agreed to the process of extending it to November 21. That is the point. Yes, we did debate it at some length, and the motion was held over during the break week, but she moved the motion on Thursday, October 5. She still has not offered any credible reason for doing that when all four political parties had agreed to a process of dealing with it. That was our understanding. A senior staffer for the New Democratic Party contacted our senior House leader's staff to try to set up a meeting for the break week, asking when they were going to get together to discuss this.

It is not like there was no communication. At any point in time prior to her moving this motion to ram ahead with these provisional Standing Orders, she could have called. She could have called before the House even rose for the break week before she moved her motion. This was the point that I and many colleagues made at that meeting of the procedure and House affairs committee.

She went on to say in her intervention just now that perhaps we could have reached consensus. We did reach consensus. That is the whole point. We had reached consensus at the House leaders' meeting on how to deal with this issue. It was only the subsequent action of the official opposition on reneging on its word, going back on its word and breaking the trust that has to exist between House leaders and whips, that brought us to this position today.

[Committees of the House, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my remarks today I would like to indicate to the Chair that I will be splitting my time with the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

This has been debated in the procedure and House affairs committee at some length over the past few weeks. I must start out by saying, as I did in my remarks when the chief whip of the official opposition brought forward this motion, that I am actually quite disappointed, disturbed, and a little annoyed by the tactics employed by the official opposition in this regard.

My colleague just referred to the process in his intervention and question to the official opposition whip. As he laid out, and as I will reiterate, it is not that we are opposed to any or perhaps all of these provisional Standing Orders. The chief opposition whip laid out in some detail the process that led to part of the Standing Orders that the House operates under and I concur with the detail she provided.

These provisional Standing Orders came about through negotiations in the last minority Parliament, the 38th Parliament, in which the Liberal Party was government and the Conservative Party filled the role of the official opposition. They came about through negotiations initially between the opposition parties and subsequently with the government. They were adopted unanimously on February 18, 2005, as the opposition whip indicated.

They had an expiry date because they were provisional and the tradition of the House is that when we adopt things like this we try them out for a while, take them for a test drive as it were. She is quite right that written into the use of these provisional Standing Orders was an expiry date of 60 days into the following Parliament, which is the current 39th Parliament. They were due to expire somewhere around October 10, 2006, which was a week or so ago.

This is what I find so disturbing and annoying. As I said at committee, the House must operate on a basis of mutual respect and trust. We must have that especially between the four House leaders of the four parties and the four whips, I would argue. I have had the very distinct privilege and pleasure to serve four times as a whip and once as a House leader, so I think I speak with some authority and experience in the role of a caucus officer.

I hold very strongly to the tenet that one's word is one's bond. That is the way I was raised in northeastern British Columbia, Fort St. John in my riding. That is how I was raised on the farm. That is what my parents taught me. I have tried to bring that to the House of Commons in everything that I do. One's word is one's bond. We simply must as House leaders, whips and I would argue deputies as well, have the responsibility on behalf of Canadians to keep this place functioning. We must have that mutual respect and trust between all House officers of the four respective parties.

What unfortunately has happened in this particular process is that this trust has been broken, hopefully not irretrievably but it has been broken. Allow me to explain.

When it was getting closer to the expiry date of these provisional Standing Orders, the opposition brought it to our attention at the weekly House leaders and whips meeting. There is a weekly meeting, as you would know, Mr. Speaker, and I see you are nodding, as you served as the House leader for quite some time for the New Democratic Party.

We all know that you are very familiar with the process where the four House leaders, four whips and their senior staff meet once a week to decide on the agenda and how to conduct business in the chamber. We meet behind closed doors because we have to take the partisanship out of it and we have to work as cooperatively as possible in the best interests of all Canadians.

So what happened? On the meeting that was held on September 19 we talked about this. I think it was the government House leader who brought it to the attention of all parties at that meeting, because it had been raised earlier by the opposition.

On September 19 we came to an agreement. How do we know and how is it proven that we came to an agreement? Because the very next day, with unanimous consent and support, the government House leader brought forward a motion in this place to extend those provisional Standing Orders to November 21 to give us time to work through it.

The agreement was that the senior staff of the House leaders would get together. We anticipated that during the Thanksgiving week break from parliamentary duties they would get together and discuss how we could move this forward, and any possible amendments, because there was some consideration for amendments that we have raised.

The Clerk of the House of Commons herself had some suggestions for wording, not to change the intent, and I want to be very clear about this. It was not to change the intent of the provisional Standing Orders, but to perhaps make them work more effectively for all parliamentarians and for the institution itself.

We wanted to consult with the Clerk. We wanted to have our senior staff meet and work through these provisional Standing Orders, certainly well before the extension of the deadline to November 21, and come back to the House with these provisional Standing Orders, amended in a way that we all agree to, just as we did on February 18, 2005, and by unanimous support, with no debate, to just pass these and make the necessary changes.

Why I am so upset, as I have said, is because this House, to be functional and to operate in an effective manner, must be based on mutual respect despite our political differences and our partisan differences from time to time. Mr. Speaker, you know it, I know it, and anyone who has worked here knows it. The reality is that now this trust has been broken, because we had an agreement, and the official opposition, I would submit, for partisan reasons broke its word. That is the reality. The chief opposition whip knows it. There is no logical reason.

My colleague asked her the question. When the deadline has been extended through unanimous support, unanimous agreement, why is there this rush all of a sudden? She knows, as I know, that this is all about payback because procedurally we used to use a few processes in the House to try to push our agenda forward.

I have served almost my entire career in opposition. I know that procedurally, when one is in opposition, one uses any Standing Orders and processes that one can to try to promote one's agenda and stymie the government. We understand that, but not at the price of breaking one's word. That is the point. The point is not the provisional Standing Orders themselves although, as I have laid out, there are some minor changes that we would like to see. What the reality is, and the more important issue, is the breaking of one's word.

I submit that at the next House leaders' meeting, which is this afternoon--it is held every Tuesday afternoon--what is the point in trying to reach agreement on how the agenda is going to move forward if the next day or the next week we find those agreements broken? The House cannot operate this way.

I know, Mr. Speaker, because I have the utmost respect for you and the Chair in all the roles that you have played. You are the dean of the House. You have been here longer than any other sitting member of Parliament. I know that you know this better than I, this need for this trust and respect so that when people commit to something, they are committed to it. That is the issue that has to be dealt with today.

I understand that I have about one minute left. Time goes so fast when one gets emotional about these types of issues.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that in all of my 13 years in this House I have always tried to conduct myself that way. I have learned from some of the veterans, people like you, and people like past Liberal House leader Don Boudria, who conducted themselves in that manner, and that is the way I have tried to conduct myself.

At the end of my remarks, I would like to amend the motion today.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

the Seventeenth Report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented on October 20, 2006, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that Standing Order 106(4) be amended by replacing the words “five days” with the words “ten days”.

[Committees of the House, October 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find acceptance to defer the vote until the completion of government orders tomorrow.

[Witness protection program act--Bill C-286, October 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I believe you will find there is unanimous consent for the second motion. I move:

That, four members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be authorized to attend the CASIS, Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, 2006 International Conference, in Ottawa, from October 26 to 28, 2006, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

[Witness protection program act--Bill C-286, October 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, with the House's indulgence I have a couple of motions to present. There have been discussions among all four parties and I believe you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That Bill C-286 be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security if passed at second reading, instead of the Standing Committee of Justice and Human Rights.