SPRI Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ DES AFFAIRES ÉMANANT DES DÉPUTÉS DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 18, 1998

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.)): Ladies and gentlemen, we'll call this special meeting to order with respect to private members' business and the round table we've called for today.

Before I do, I want to welcome each and every one of you to this meeting. I also want to introduce some members of the committee who make up the subcommittee on private members' business.

First of all there is Madame Dalphond-Guiral, representing the Bloc. Mr. Epp is sitting in for Ms. Grey, representing the Reform. Mr. Jordan and Mr. Harvey are for the Liberals. I thought I saw Mr. Harvey come in. He was here a minute ago. Perhaps he'll be back. Unfortunately, Mr. Blaikie is absent. I think he's away from Ottawa.

I wanted to make a few opening remarks and then we'll get into the round table itself. For the record, I want to state at the outset that private members' business, and private members' bills and motions, are very important to the institution of Parliament. I think that's why each and every one of you are here—you share this sentiment. Certainly it's an opportunity for individuals to advance their own legislative work and make a mark in Parliament. That's very important, not only on behalf of your constituents, but on behalf of all Canadians. I think we want to recognize that accordingly.

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I also want to say this has generated a lot of debate. Certainly there's been a lot of keen interest in the area, and rightfully so. This is the reason why we're here today. We're here to take a look at what we can do to improve the system and perhaps make it more workable. I would hope that at the end of the day we could make those kinds of recommendations.

I also want to point out that last May we had a survey, you recall, and a number of people expressed interest in it. I'm sure you had a chance to review this document and take a look at what your colleagues said in their survey responses. There were 82 responses, by the way, which is very high when you take out the government leaders, the whips, the chairs, the PSs, the cabinet, and everyone else. So it was a very good response. There's no question that it gives us a very solid snapshot of what people think.

After this survey, what the subcommittee of the day did—this was a unanimous decision because there was a lot of interest in having all bills made votable—was not to recommend that. Rather, they recommended the measures I'm sure you've now had a chance to see as report 13 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This report, you recall, was adopted by the House on Wednesday, November 4, 1998. As you know, there are ongoing negotiations as to the status of that, although some things, as you saw in the vote the other night, are already adopted.

After giving some of the pros and cons of the votability of bills and motions and making everything votable, we say in question number 6 of the survey that when asked if all items should be votable, 50% said no, 48% said yes, and 20% said leave it as it is. What this says is there are some pretty strong feelings on both sides. What it also means is we should look more closely at the whole issue and see where we go from there.

I also wanted to put into context the reason for the round table today. For the record, I want to make this known. Because we thought as a subcommittee this was of such importance, we deemed it necessary to hold this round table so all members had an opportunity to have their views known in this kind of forum. In addition to this, some people have asked me, for example, whether or not they'll get an opportunity, because they couldn't be here today, to have input. With your permission, I said yes. In fact, we'll send out a memo saying if those of you who couldn't be here today at the round table want to submit further ideas or recommendations for consideration, certainly we, as a committee, would be very happy to look at those.

Also, early in the new year our subcommittee will get back together. With the help of our clerk and our researcher, we'll ensure we get a collated response to not only what happened today but what other colleagues will have said to us by way of response.

I want to touch briefly on four items I hope and I know we'll talk about today. Of course, there will be other things. Certainly we respect this as a committee, and we hope you'll feel free to make your views known.

The first question is this. Should every bill and motion introduced by a private member be votable? This is a key question and I think it's something we should talk about. Further to this question, should we continue to have a lottery or a draw for items to be placed on the order of precedence?

If votable items continue to have three hours of debate and everything is votable, very few bills and motions will be considered by the House. The second question is this. Is this a reasonable trade-off? We would have to take a look at this. Maybe during the discussion we'll get some answers.

The third question is, if not all bills and motions are votable, how is a selection or choice to be made? We would have to think about this. We would have to canvass for ideas. Should we, for example, rule out unconstitutional bills, or not allow bills that are trivial or inconsequential? Who, then, would make those decisions? Just by way of background, our subcommittee does in fact have a list of criteria. There are 11 criteria. We judge each bill and motion on these, based on whether it's deemed to be votable. So we have a system in place now, but if we're talking about changing it we would have to have some answers to those questions.

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The fourth question is— more fundamentally, it's been suggested that we should eliminate private members' motions altogether and just have bills. Would this be reasonable? Should we do this, or perhaps have legislative proposals rather than formally drafted bills? Maybe this should be explored. Should we have a way for members to raise an issue without necessarily requiring it to be a vote?

I offer these as the beginning questions we should take a look at. Of course, there will be others. During this round table we will get to those.

I'm looking forward to a good discussion today. I think we'll have it. It will be an informal meeting lasting approximately two hours. Some of you have indicated you have to leave, and we'll try to get through it as quickly as possible.

I was hoping I could take those who aren't on the committee in order of their hands going up. Rick already has his hand up, so that's good. Mr. White does too. Perhaps you could summarize in two or three minutes the issues that are of concern to you and that you think we as a committee should hear. I think this would be appropriate.

I would first like to go through at least one round of every member who is not on the committee. Then perhaps we'll stop and we'll have the committee step in with the questions they want to ask or comments they want to make. Then, if it lends itself to this and makes sense for us to do so, we'll go to a second round.

With those kinds of ground rules, I'm hoping we can proceed. I would start with you, Mr. Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do apologize. One thing we find on the Hill is that your time is not your own. I have another committee meeting at 4 p.m. with Agriculture, so I thank you for allowing me to speak first.

First of all, I find it somewhat disconcerting going through the survey and recognizing there were a number of people—67%, actually—who suggested they did not want to appear before the subcommittee. I find this very strange, considering that the majority of people, at least 70%, said they did have the desire to have more bills debated in a votable fashion. Forty-eight percent said they want to have all bills, and I would rather have had many more people appear before the subcommittee to give their views. In fact, 67% want to, but they don't want to talk about it. I find this somewhat disconcerting.

I guess it falls into what's happening with respect to votable or non-votable motions. You have principles. You take a stand. Unfortunately, the way we now do business in the House doesn't allow us to put that position forward so that all members can put forward their views on the issue.

I guess I have two points, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I come forward as a rookie MP, and I think it's very important that this subcommittee recognize I have not been tainted by any particular process. I suppose I came here with the understanding that perhaps my views would be heard by the rest of the House, including the government of the day. Obviously, one way to do this is with issues that are very close and dear to my heart. When you file a motion, you expect other members of Parliament will give it a proper opportunity to be looked at.

Secondly, Mr. Chairman, I have appeared before the committee. I have put motions forward. Unfortunately, I did not get my motion as a votable motion. I'm sure everybody around here knows that when they're dealing with constituents or with lobby groups, every issue for that individual or that group is the most important issue of the day in the world. The same is true with me, Mr. Chairman. I felt my motion was very valuable. It was very topical. It was very timely and, quite frankly, very important not only to my constituents but to constituents throughout the country.

Much to my chagrin, the motion that was forwarded—Mr. Epp was part of the committee at that time—chose mine to be a non-votable motion. I was very disappointed because I felt my motion was as important as anybody else's motion.

So when I received your survey, I was, first of all, very thankful that the committee was prepared to sit down and logically look at changes to the system. I think it's very important that we as parliamentarians try to improve upon the systems before us and change the system where necessary. This is why I took the time, Mr. Chairman, to be one of the 82 to fill out the survey and hopefully put forward some positive views that may well lead to some positive changes.

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Mr. Chairman, I feel it should not be difficult for this Parliament to be able to deal with individual motions as votable items. Yes, there are some concerns. I do appreciate the fact that if they all had debatable time, perhaps less of them could be dealt with on the basis of sessions and sittings. That's probably one of the areas we have to bite the bullet on. We have to say that if we do have the opportunity to make all of these items votable, we have to identify the fact that more or less will not be able to be dealt with in one sitting, in one session. As parliamentarians, we have to take that as part of the downside to this, but the upside is that we all share the opportunity to get in a votable motion.

Another part of the system I've had the opportunity to appear before is the judgment calls that are made by the committee itself. I think the committee does it in the best interests of everyone. I know you have the criteria laid down, but it is still in fact a judgment call. Regardless of how you may feel about an individual or how you may feel about a position or a policy, that still comes into play no matter who you are. Whether it's myself or other members of Parliament, that will have a part to play, and I don't think it's fair that others should play that judgmental role on my motion because of something I may have said somewhere else about an individual or whatever. There are many issues that could come into play in making that decision. I believe it's subconscious; it may not happen in a way in which one is conscious about it, but I do believe you have that problem in any judgment.

Mr. Chairman, I also believe quite strongly that there should be motions. I don't believe all should go forward as private members' pieces of legislation. There's a wholly different process for private members' bills, and there are other procedural issues that fall into place with respect to them, as you're well aware.

I believe the motion has a very valuable part to play in this Parliament. It has a very valuable part to play in terms of how backbench members, non-government members or opposition members have an opportunity to put forward not only what their constituents may well want, but what they feel in their own minds and their own hearts is a very important issue to Canadians.

So first of all, Mr. Chairman, I have to say I'm very pleased that you're holding this round table. I'll try to be a part of it for as long as I can, because I think it's important. I believe you have a task ahead of you that you have to try to massage so that it works better for everybody, but it's never going to happen if you don't start somewhere.

So I congratulate you, I'm glad to be here, and I'd love to hear some of the comments of some of the other members around this particular round table. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Borotsik. We appreciate your comments. We, too, thought it was very important to have this forum for discussion. That's precisely why we're doing it.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Thank you.

In looking at the parliamentary process itself, it seems to me that private members' bills are pretty much the only way by which the voting public can have some direct input into the system between elections. If they organize, it gives them the chance, through their MPs, to actually initiate legislation or to try to influence the government in the way in which it's operating in the House. The closest our system comes to some sort of direct democracy is that private members' business, but it's not as good as citizen-initiated referenda—which just happen to be the subject of one of my bills that has been made non-votable—but at least it's a scrap of direct democracy that's thrown out for us to take hold of.

It seems to me, then, that votability is probably the most contentious aspect of this whole thing. Frankly, when a member of Parliament works hard with his constituents, who are coming in and indicating that there's a need for the government to move in some direction, in their opinion, or when he or she is working with some special-interest group—let's call them that in a kind manner—that wants to advance some sort of thing to the House, it's pretty insulting to the member who puts in a lot of work and a lot of research. I go back to my citizen-initiated referendum bill, which took me about two and a half years to put together following extensive legislative investigation in countries around the world. I studied the New Zealand example and the U.S. example, among others.

So a tremendous amount of work goes into these things, with a lot of people backing them from the outside. It's therefore disappointing to them, it's insulting to them, and they feel violated when it finally gets drawn and a small committee—one that is restricted by its ability to hand out a certain number of favours—makes it not votable. The immediate reaction from everyone around is to ask what right that committee has to determine that this is not an important issue. So this votability thing is really a key problem that we have to try to somehow get around.

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If we look at the report that was passed in the House last week, there are provisions in there that raise the minimum number to, I think, ten for votability. I'm thinking that if we can't make all the bills votable, maybe we can change the system of drawing the bills—and that sort of ties into the second question as well. Instead of drawing the names of members who then go forward to the subcommittee to argue votability, we could perhaps actually draw votability and non-votability by name, and perhaps in a specific order. The first one drawn is a non-votable bill, and it's yours, Mr. Smith. The second one is a votable bill, and you have it, Mr. White. It's then up to the individual member to select from his inventory of bills or motions, and to put one forward at that point. At least there's then some degree of choice for the individual member in terms of what's happening.

So if you really have to have a restricted number of bills being votable or non-votable in the House in order to move a certain number of things through in a particular session, I throw that out for consideration. I hope that contributes to the discussion.

The Chair: Thank you very much. You raise an interesting point.

I just want to clarify something you said about the ten bills. We do have ten now, five motions and five bills. What the 13th report effectively says is that we can now have a combination in terms of how we arrive at that ten. It could be six and four, or it could be nine and one.

Mr. Ted White: Oh, I see.

The Chair: So that's just a little correction there.

Mr. Ted White: It doesn't change the suggestion, but I thank you for that.

The Chair: No, the point you made after that wasn't affected by what you said. Thank you very much.

Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Ref.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to address this issue.

Addressing this issue really is fundamental to democracy and the way this place operates, and I appreciate that. It would enhance the view of Parliament and would really empower MPs to a great extent if we could change the votable aspects of private members' bills.

Since I arrived in Ottawa in 1993, I have had the opportunity to introduce nine private member's bills and 29 private member's motions. During that period, I've had three bills and two motions drawn, but not one of them has been declared votable, even though I really focused in on the 11 criteria and so on, and ensured that they all met those criteria when I presented them to the committee.

I very strongly believe we should rewrite the rules for private members' business so that all bills and motions that are drawn will be made votable and subject to a maximum of three hours' debate, and I'm going to propose something in regard to this when I get to the end of my remarks here.

I really see that there are only three alternatives when it comes to making them all votable. One option is to reduce the number of bills and motions that are drawn or selected. The second alternative would be to increase the number of hours available for private members' business. That's also an option we could consider. Or, thirdly, we could reduce the number of hours given to debating each private member's bill or motion drawn. We could go that way.

My own preference would be to keep the numbers of bills and motions on order of precedence the same, but to make them all votable. This is my proposal: rather than debate every votable item for three hours, this Subcommittee on Private Members' Business could allocate bills and motions that would receive one, two or three hours of debate—and I'll use my own example here.

I had a property rights bill that I put forward. I spent about three years preparing it, and I had a lot of legislative research done. That bill deserved three hours of debate before it should have been made votable. I also introduced a voluntary tax form so that Canadians could offer their suggestions to the government on how they want their money spent. It was a very simple concept, and the pros and cons could have been put forward in an hour. So I would like to see this as one of the things this committee might be able to do.

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Again, you have some subjectivity involved there, and I don't know how you'd get away from that. But that could be an alternative that the committee could consider: whether a bill would be debated for one, two, or three hours before it's voted upon. We may have to reduce the total number of bills, or we may have to increase the time, but that's a suggestion I would like to put forward for discussion.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Would it be up to the individual MPs to indicate which ones they would want to see in terms of the number of hours of debate, or would you leave that up to the committee?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I would leave that up to the committee, because I'm sure every member would come forward with a feeling that his or hers should get three hours.

The Chair: You didn't. You just said you thought one merited three and the other merited one.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Right, and you may have members coming forward who would make that suggestion. You'd probably have to have some criteria.

Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, Ref.): It could be a consideration, but not necessarily—

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Right.

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. John Bryden (Wentworth—Burlington, Lib.): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I'm anxious to take part in the debate that's occurring in the House of Commons right now on a point of order pertaining to Bill S-13. I wonder if I could ask the indulgence of my colleagues to speak ahead of Mr. Gouk, if he doesn't mind. I'm very anxious to get back to the House, but I'm also very anxious also to speak in this debate.

The Chair: Do I see unanimous consent?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Do you mind, Mr. Gouk?

Mr. Jim Gouk: No, I don't have a problem with that.

The Chair: Very good. Go ahead, Mr. Bryden.

Mr. John Bryden: I thank everyone for that.

I've never made a secret of the fact that I share many of the same aims of all my colleagues here in terms of advancing private members' business, and for precisely the reason Mr. Breitkreuz raised: it's very important that we enhance public confidence in this institution of Parliament. So long as the public, for whatever reason, sees MPs as not being able to affect policy in a constructive and substantial way and affect legislation, be those members in the opposition benches or in the government benches, people are going to lose confidence in their individual MPs and, consequently, in the system. I think we have to address that and bring this Parliament into the next century with far more confidence in it than exists now. Having said that, there are two issues I would like to raise with respect to private members' business.

I think it's essential that we, as backbench MPs, be able to advance legislation that is meaningful. It has to be legislation that actually affects the lives of Canadians and can make it all the way through the system. I point out to everyone that it's not enough just to get it through a second-reading debate. It also has to go through a third reading, and it has to survive the Senate. It has to be a bill that really will survive. In order for that to happen, the reality is that we have to persuade the government of the day, whatever that government of the day may be, that we are acting in a non-partisan way as private members, and that we are trying to advance legislation because we believe the legislation is for the good of the country.

In that context, my own feeling about the votability of bills is that they should always be votable so long as they do not involve a new government expenditure or, with reference to Bill S-13 that is before the House now, are not an actual tax bill. Now, the reason it must not impose new expenditures on the government is is twofold. One, the government's majority is what gives it the mandate to go before Parliament and pass a budget that authorizes it to spend. As backbenchers, whether we're on the government benches or the opposition benches, we do not have the mandate to spend money. That is the mandate of whatever party obtains the majority in the House.

That being said, the second problem is that the way to inflame public opinion in our debates in the House—and I'm sure opposition members here will appreciate this—is to raise issues that pertain to spending. The most vulnerable part of being in government, of being a minister, I presume, is to receive an attack from the opposition that pertains to spending that the opposition disagrees with. That's because you will always find some group of Canadians somewhere who will disagree with how the government is spending money. And if you say the government should spend money in this particular way, you will always find supporters.

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What this kind of debate leads to—and normally it's healthy—is partisanship in the House of Commons. Now, the House of Commons is driven by partisanship. The debate that occurs during Question Period is partisan, and it should be, and it's healthy and it's what we want. But if it's going to be private members' business when we want to advance real legislation, we have to avoid not only the partisanship but the appearance of partisanship.

So on the one hand, I don't think it is our mandate to actually spend money; I think that properly is with the government. But secondly, I think we should want to avoid expenditure bills because it divides us. The temptation is too strong, not only among opposition MPs but among government MPs, to put the leadership's feet to the fire on some spending issue regardless of the long-term merit of that issue or whether that bill will actually survive.

I feel the same way about motions. The problem with motions is that they do not and will not produce significant legislation through which any MP who advances that motion can go back to his riding and say “I've accomplished something”. I've watched the motions that have been put forward in private members' business over the last four or five years, and the temptation inevitably has been to turn them into opportunities for partisan debate. And that occurs in private members' hour.

What I would say to you is that if we want to advance private members' business, if we want to advance real legislation, then we have to avoid the temptation of being, shall we say, pushed by our whips or our House leaders to advance motions and private members' business that are divisive. Because motions actually do not lead to legislation in a real sense, there's only one purpose for advancing them, and that is to insert some divisiveness into the debate in the House of Commons, and if it occurs at private members' business, it diminishes our opportunity.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, if you eliminate motions from the equation—and motions are one of the things that we can deal with now—you have more opportunities to present meaningful legislation that can be pursued through the House. I will say, Mr. Chairman, that the opportunity to amend existing legislation in a constructive way, without having to wait the 10 years or so it takes before the bureaucracy comes back to a bill that has turned out to be flawed within six months, the opportunity on all sides of the House for members like us to get in there and make a fix that doesn't cost any money but may indeed save money— well, the opportunities are endless.

I think we would enhance the credibility of all backbench MPs if we created more opportunities along that line. But I really don't think it's going to happen as long as we don't take serious steps among ourselves to avoid partisan conflict in private members' hour.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: May I ask a question before he leaves?

The Chair: Yes, certainly.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I appreciate your idea about the money aspect of bills, that these should be avoided, not made votable. I have a hard time thinking of what bills or motions could come forward that wouldn't involve money. My property rights bill really doesn't have a dollar figure on it, but the government could say they won't vote on that because it may involve money in some way.

Mr. John Bryden: We debated that on our side, and the feeling very strongly—now, forget about the government—on your particular piece of legislation, because it required a significant change in attitude, taxation and all the rest of it, is that presumably it is going to have an impact on government revenues, that it's going to cost the government something to do.

Now, when you talk about expenditures, maybe you need to put out little corner around it. Maybe you want to limit it and say, well, if it's simply the cost of implementation of some program, perhaps you can try to do it that way. But it has to be very modest, very reasonable, because if you start getting into the hundreds of millions of dollars or the fifty millions of dollars like this S-13 before us, I couldn't support that in a million years. Yet I support in principle what the bill is saying. But what it's doing is taking away the ability of the government to raise taxes and spend money in a significant way.

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So, sure, if you want to put very narrow parameters around it, yes, but they have to be terribly narrow. Is the temptation in a significant expenditure bill to embarrass the government; to say, you, the government, aren't sufficiently wise to know this is a good way to spend the taxpayers' money? The temptation is huge.

As to the opportunities to do bills that aren't going to cost money, I can suggest to you—and I don't want to press a bill that I have before the House—that my access to information bill, with its 35 amendments, actually saves the government money. So when it comes before the committee, the committee will make its ruling, but my argument is going to be, here I have this big bill but it will actually save the government money. Yes, I think there are lots of opportunities to introduce private members' bills that cost the government nothing or actually save the government money.

The Chair: On this point, Mr. Harvey—

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): In my opinion, the government has always had the mathematical privilege of preserving, if I may call it that, the financial security of a country. If a bill provides for absolutely astronomical spending, the government can apply its majority to preserve what it feels to be the State's fiscal health. But if we were to exclude any money bills whatsoever, even bills calling for modest spending, we would be eliminating most of the private members' bills. Mr. Chairman, this is not very acceptable because the government has the privilege of applying its majority in order to defeat a bill that it considers to be fiscally bad. There may be some private members' bills that call for spending on the order of 200, 300 or $400 million that would have an impact on all Canadians, and which could be very beneficial. In my opinion, this must not be an absolute criterion.

As for the constitutional issue, this is an absolute criterion. If a bill goes completely against the Constitution, there's a problem. However, I do not feel that it is acceptable to refuse to consider bills because of the spending issue.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Solomon, on the point as well.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Yes. I want to make three points if I can, Mr. Chair.

Number one, I agree that legislation has to be meaningful. I think members of Parliament who introduce motions and private members' bills probably wouldn't do it if they didn't believe it was meaningful in some definition that they have or their party has.

On the second issue with respect to motions and bills that cost money, Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure on page 491 says it's unconstitutional for private members to introduce private bills or motions that will in particular levy a tax but in essence spend money. So I think we have some guidance in there in terms of the law.

With respect to the number of MPs who have votable motions, we're looking at 20 MPs out of the 82 who responded who, according to the survey, in the last Parliament had something that was votable.

The final point I want to raise pertains to Mr. Bryden's reference to partisanship. Who defines partisanship? I'm probably one of the more political people in the House of Commons, but that's in my definition and other people's definition. The honourable parliamentary secretary to the House leader thinks that I'm really an average member of Parliament when it comes to partisanship. But the example I use—and you would know this, John—is Yvon Godin's motion, which was a votable motion, in the fall to label toxic toys. You actually spoke against it. At that time you said it was partisan. Now the government has embraced the motion and gone one step farther and taken the toys off the shelves. So I think partisanship is really tough to incorporate into any of these considerations with respect to private members' bills.

The other example is Chris Axworthy, who was the mover of the motion in 1989 or thereabouts to eliminate poverty by the year 2000 in Canada. It was unanimous in the House of Commons, with the vast majority of MPs present voting for it. Is that partisan? Is it a tax expenditure? Everybody agreed with it. In your view, it's partisan. Talk to the people who are poor. They'll say it's about time government takes some action—

Mr. John Bryden: You're making partisan remarks right now.

Mr. John Solomon: I wanted to raise those points because they do have some relevance to Mr. Bryden's comments.

The Chair: We're not going to get into a debate here.

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Mr. John Bryden: No, I don't want a debate, but may I reply?

The Chair: Briefly.

Mr. John Bryden: First of all, in terms of your remarks, I simply wanted to say that I spoke as an MP, not as a member of the government. I wasn't partisan there. I spoke on the merits of the motion. I did research on it and I reacted to it. What the government did subsequently about it has nothing to do with it.

I don't know whether your motion had an effect on the government. I'd be surprised. But, nevertheless, you wanted me to define partisanship, and what I would love to see as an ideal is that every backbench MP who comes to the House of Commons in private members' hour votes freely, votes his conscience; it's a free vote. You will never have a free vote in the House of Commons as long as the government and the opposition leadership believe there's an opportunity for people to take advantage of private members' hours for partisan reasons. So however you do it, in the final analysis, I want to be able to come into the House of Commons, slam another member's bill if it deserves slamming, but I want to vote in the end on its merit or its demerits. That's what I want to see. And unless we build that into what we're doing here, it's not going to happen.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. John Solomon: Perhaps I may add one final note.

The Chair: Mr. Solomon, we really did have a round going here.

Mr. John Solomon: With respect, there is one phrase I'd like to use, if I might. The phrase I'd use if we're looking at defining partisanship— maybe we should look at the definition of politics. One definition of politics is the art of the possible.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. John Bryden: Thank you to my colleagues. I appreciate it very much.

The Chair: You've been very patient, Mr. Gouk. It really was your turn. We want to hear from you now.

Mr. Jim Gouk: That's fine. I won't get to address John, but perhaps some of this might get back to him. On what he said, I think there has to be some accessibility to deal with things that may involve money, because, as has been pointed out by others, everything, one way or another, can in most cases be tied to that. John argued that the government has a mandate to do certain things by virtue of their majority. I think “mandate” is one of the most overused words in politics. You have a mandate to do those things you stated you would do at the time you were asking to be elected. Anything that comes up after that you do not have a mandate for if you didn't specifically address it. So I think that could be a criterion to be looked at.

To get to the points I wanted to touch on, first of all, there's one caveat I wanted to have. You said there's going to be opportunity for people who aren't here today to have input. I think that's good. But what we say and what we ultimately end up with, hopefully by the end of this session, is some form of consensus based on reaction to what each of us has said. People who put in their own ideas late won't have the benefit of that mixture of talk, so I think the weight should be adjusted accordingly.

I personally think things should be votable. Again, it's been pointed out by some and I'm sure it will be by others.

An hon. member: Everything?

Mr. Jim Gouk: Everything. If it's not worthy of being votable, it shouldn't be in, pure and simple. There are other vehicles. I frankly will state that I have put at least one. I have six in at the moment. One of those I don't even want drawn. I responded as you do when you put a petition in from a group of petitioners in your riding who want something that you maybe don't happen to agree with, but it is their right to have you as their member of Parliament present the petition on their behalf. I have done that in the case of one of the six private member's bills I have in right now in response to a wish of a very large segment of my riding. I don't happen to agree with it. I know it would never pass in the House. I have done my duty. So in that sense, if it's not worth bringing forward, we don't have to worry about this votability if you do that.

Now we have basically three options. We have the committee making the decision in terms of time, as Garry said. We have setting the number of hours. And if we want to keep the number of bills up, and I think we do, then we either have to reduce the time, say to a flat two hours— Keep in mind that this is a maximum, just as all legislative bills that come forward have a maximum number of hours under certain types of debate in various readings. Often they collapse because what's needed to be said has been said and people are prepared to let them go ahead. So two hours may be a consideration.

One other suggestion I heard is that you collect support, showing the level of support something has, and if it gets a high enough level of support then you get your three hours. The only thing I've thought since I've heard this is the idea that if you have lots of support, then you probably don't need hours of debate. It's almost a counterproductive thing to do that.

• 1620

There's one other way we could maybe cut down on the overall legislative time in the House. I noticed last night the third bill we voted on was a private member's bill that required a standing vote. But we started off with legislative bills, and obviously we had to have a standing vote to start with in order to establish the roll call. So where you absolutely have to have a roll-call vote, you always do the private member's bills first. Then with any subsequent ones, it would at least be possible to have agreement on doing it according to the roll call that was already established, with Liberals voting this way and Reform and so on. So I think that's something we should consider.

Another thing we should do is if everything is going to be votable, we will still have to maintain the lottery in terms of the draw. I want to eliminate subjectivity in every way possible, but the straight draw is fine for drawing up the bills in the first place. A caveat you could put on that is anybody drawn would be eliminated automatically from the next two draws. If your bill were drawn, it would simply be put back and you would continue drawing so we would have some rotation. It wouldn't necessarily be that 300 other MPs had to get theirs drawn first before you could come back, but there has to be some opportunity for others or you could have people with a whole pile and others who are waiting a long time. I have six in this time. I forget how many I did last time. I've never had one drawn. We all have our little concerns.

So I think they should be votable for sure. There should be no fewer private members' bills and motions than we have now. We should remove, to the greatest extent possible, the subjectivity of this, because notwithstanding the things that have been said, partisanship is here to stay. If Reform, for example, brings forward a bill, it isn't necessarily designed to embarrass government. I have some in that I just happen to think are very important, but the very fact that they didn't come from them may be an embarrassment to government; they came from someone else and they take the credit. There are always those problems there. I think you just have to accept that that's the fact of life here in Parliament.

I think we're on the right track, because we are examining the votability. Maybe we have to come up with some alternatives for people who want to be able to make a statement in the House other than a one-minute Standing Order 31. At some point you may want to establish an alternative late-show type of thing, where you get ten minutes for your side and somebody gets to speak ten minutes for an opposing point of view. It's just done like a member's statement, with two countering points of view where a vote isn't required.

I hope we arrive at some decision on this. I think the point has been made very clearly that this is important, not just for those of us who put these private members' bills in, but for our constituents, who are ultimately driving the things we bring to this Parliament.

The Chair: I couldn't agree with you more. I think that was well said. I take your point about the quick survey to other members who aren't here today. We'll do it as a courtesy, if nothing else. There is of course great weight attached to this round table and what we're doing here right now.

Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): I too am pleased to be participating in this round table. I have read the document and I was somewhat surprised that 7% of the respondents didn't want their motion to be votable. It really surprised me. I wonder what motivates a person to put so much effort into presenting a bill that they don't want to be votable.

That's why I feel that, when someone tables a bill, they should indicate whether or not they want it to be votable. Otherwise, we could decide that all bills should be votable and some members would simply not table certain bills.

What really bothers me the most is all of the work put into these bills by the legal staff in terms of research and drafting when, in many cases, these bills, if they are votable, are debated only for one hour or, at times, three hours. Very often, we don't even hear about a bill and it remains in limbo in the hands of the committee or the House, which has prorogued.

During the 35th Parliament, I personally went through the experience of tabling the same bill three times, amending it in order to respect the Standing Orders. I was lucky that it was drawn three times. The first time, it was debated for one hour; the second time, it was voted on and almost passed; the third time, it was decided that the bill wouldn't be selected as a votable item. It was still the same bill, on the same subject. The only difference was that minor amendments had been made so that it would be in compliance with the Standing Orders.

• 1625

I faced a different committee chair every time. Some of the committee members were different as well. I determined that it could not merely be the subjectivity or the desire of the government to oppose the bill, because the second time it came up, it was selected as a votable item and nearly passed. The bill dealt with Louis Riel.

It's a bit unfortunate that our colleague has left. Although the Bloc Québécois was accused of being partisan and of wanting to get some political mileage with this bill, in reality, we got a lot more mileage as a result of the decision not to make this bill votable than we would have had the House voted on it and if it had been defeated or even adopted. As far as we were concerned, it was much more interesting to be able to point out that English Canada refused to acknowledge a French Canadian hero.

The fate of my bill on Louis Riel may be resolved in another manner because, as you know, I tabled a bill again at the start of this 36th Parliament and it has since been withdraw and replaced by a bill tabled by the five parties.

Personally, I find it very frustrating to see the number of people who have worked very hard on bills that they have tabled and who don't have an opportunity of having their bill debated or voted on by the House.

We have a responsibility towards the people we represent. People often ask us for things that could become part of our election campaign. It would be better than promising things that don't make any sense. We can tell these people that their proposal would be of interest to our region. In many cases, issues that are important for our regions are also important for other regions in Canada.

In my opinion, this would be a very democratic move and we would be advancing Canadian democracy by ensuring that all bills are votable. It is extremely important that we be able to state our position with respect to these bills. I can understand that it would not be appropriate for the opposition to be able to introduce a new tax or tremendous spending. However, as far as partisanship is concerned, it would be extremely difficult to draw the line.

Let's say that a member tables a project on euthanasia in Canada. This issue cannot help but provoke debates that are quite partisan and ideological and which challenge our values. The same thing holds true for almost any subject you care to think about. We are bound either by the political culture in the region we are from, or by the values that have been passed on to us and to which we totally subscribe. Thinking that we can set aside partisanship in our debates in the House is wishful thinking and very idealistic.

There is a difference between partisanship in the first sense of the word—after all, having an opinion on something is positive—and what we would call playing politics, resorting to demagogy, and all that.

Unquestionably, there is a risk involved in making every bill votable. We will no doubt have to set up some parameters and determine what constitutes an acceptable bill, what advances legislation and what advances society.

• 1630

We have a lot of interesting comments. Needless to say, if a member were to table a votable bill aimed at expelling, from the House of Commons, candidates in favour of secession, we would deem the bill to be quite unacceptable. This won't come as a big surprise to anyone.

Obviously, there are some risks, but I feel that democracy compels us to give serious thought to, first of all, the amount of money we spend in preparing bills that don't get very far. In my opinion, should you decide not to make all bills votable, you will have to take steps to limit the production of useless bills, like some of the ones I have read over the past five years. Drafting and printing all of these bills when you only pretend to discuss them for an hour is a shameful waste of public money. It doesn't make sense. For the sake of the country's health, we should give serious thought to this matter.

As for coming up with other formulas enabling members to express their opinions, I think that it would be very interesting to consider changing the adjournment debate, because right now it's rather meaningless. Someone asks a question in the House, and is not satisfied with the answer. The person rises again, for four minutes, and tries to express his point of view. Someone then rises, on behalf of the government, and gives a four-minute response which gives no consideration to the question raised and absolutely no thought to the latest four-minute intervention. We have to listen to a well-worn record again, we find out absolutely nothing and, in my opinion, this demonstrates a lack of respect for Canadians. When I have asked questions and obtained no answer, ministers have often told me: "Suzanne, don't get upset; it's called question period, not question and answer period." This time slot is really described as "question period". Apparently it is normal not to get an answer, but this is frustrating from a democratic viewpoint.

Early in my career as a parliamentarian, I participated in several adjournment debates, but I quickly learned this was a waste of time. We waste an hour that could be better spent examining private members' bills. This simulated four-minute exchange, where we're given answers that don't make sense, answers that are written ahead of time and that a parliamentary secretary reads off to us so meaninglessly, is fruitless. When the parliamentary secretary knows how to read, it's not too bad, but when he doesn't know how to read, it's really hard to listen to.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms. Tremblay.

[English]

Mr. Solomon, I'll get to you in a minute. Do you have a time commitment?

Mr. John Solomon: I have another meeting at 4.30 p.m.

The Chair: I did want to hear from Mr. Anders and Monsieur Laurin.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Ref.): I'm just here for the fun.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presence. Go ahead then, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Just to share with you, as a private member for five years I've introduced a number of private bills and motions into the House. Some have been for partisan reasons—that's obvious—others have been for more substantive reasons, such as saving the government or taxpayers some money, solving a problem, or trying to modernize some of the older traditions and rules in the country.

In spite of all that, I think we need to have more bills and motions votable. I don't agree with having everything votable. I believe we should have more motions votable than bills because motions are more current and more easily drafted to deal with problems that are more immediate, whereas bills take some time and there's always a bit of a problem in terms of legalese. So I want to put that on the record.

I also want to reiterate what I said earlier about partisanship and how we decide what's votable and what's not. I think we have to look at such guiding principles as flexibility, whether or not it's doable or possible with as little cost as possible, and whether it will modernize something or improve something in our government and our country. Those are some of the principles I would suggest. There are others, obviously.

• 1635

Finally, I want to comment on private members' business in general. Our role in opposition is not just to critique. Our more substantive and important role is to provide alternatives, another way, a better way or a different way that may enhance the current proposals in our country. That's where bills and motions come in and become very important. They give the government a sense of what is important to us as private members in our constituencies, in our caucuses, and in other parts of the country.

That's why I think, if we're looking at having more votable items and we have ten motions and five bills votable at the same time, they should be drawn at random. I like the lottery system; I think it's important. We may want to improve the lottery system whereby if you've been drawn in one particular Parliament, or at least a session, you go to the bottom of the list until others have been drawn, because some are drawn more than once.

I'll leave that with you. I appreciate you listening and I hope we can make some changes cooperatively and collectively.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Ted White: May I ask a question?

The Chair: Is it on the point, Mr. White?

Mr. Ted White: Yes.

The Chair: Then proceed.

Mr. Ted White: I'm just curious, when you say you don't support the idea of all bills or motions being made votable, as to reasons why not. Maybe you hadn't come into the room when I suggested the lottery draw should be for votable or non-votable by name. That would allow the individual to choose from his inventory of things whether or not he wanted it to be votable.

Mr. John Solomon: I like the idea of having two separate lotteries, one for votable and one for non-votable. Then you would have to go through a process of looking at not just one motion that's been drawn, but 6,000 motions from all the MPs.

Mr. Ted White: No, you've misunderstood me. You'd still make a draw, but maybe the first one would be for a votable item, the second for a non-votable item, and the third for a votable item. Whoever's name comes out of the pot would get to select from their inventory of things which ones they wanted to be votable and which ones they didn't.

Mr. John Solomon: It's an interesting concept here.

Mr. Ted White: I'm still curious as to why you wouldn't want all the bills and motions to be non-votable.

Mr. John Solomon: I have introduced motions and bills in the past that were clearly for political purposes. I believed they were important. My constituents believed they were important. They were clearly political and they may not have enhanced anything, but they made a political statement.

Although we may not agree with this, I think all of us have done that without having participated in private members' business. There are situations where if you have some reputation or track record of doing things that are always honourable and aimed at improving your country and so on—although we all think we do, it's not the case—then perhaps in a perfect world that would work, Mr. White. I just think everything that's votable becomes a problem.

Mr. Ted White: So you would be happy to have someone else decide that you put forward a partisan item and it shouldn't be made votable.

Mr. John Solomon: No, I would be very unhappy if people said it wasn't votable.

An hon. member: How would the choice be made then?

Mr. John Solomon: That's because I believe the system is not as flexible or doesn't use the guideline of being possible, because some of the things that are partisan actually are possible and there's some flexibility built into the system. I haven't given much thought to your proposal, Mr. Chair, Mr. White, and I would like to pursue that a little more.

I apologize for being late. I had to be in the House for points of order and so on, as whip of the caucus.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll reflect further on all the points made today.

Mr. John Solomon: Thank you very much.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Laurin, do you have any comments?

Mr. René Laurin (Joliette, BQ): Yes. Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to apologize for not ensuring that my name is on the interveners' list. I'm sorry that I did not do this, although I am here today.

After reading the comments made by the other participants in the survey, it seems to me that the most absolute and most objective criterion, which would resolve many of the bill selecting problems, pertains to the preliminary approval by our colleagues elected to the House of Commons.

Some objectivity is already provided for in private members' bills since members can always vote freely on such bills and are not bound to follow the party line. We have, therefore, already acknowledged a criterion of non-partisanship.

• 1640

Before a member is able to table a bill, I think that they should obtain support from 20 percent of the House members, namely, 60 members from the different parties. If the sponsor of a bill succeeds in convincing 60 other members that his bill is justified, makes sense, is not frivolous and deals with a subject worthy of debate in the House, before he even tables it, his bill should be presented in the House and be votable, unless the sponsor deems that a vote is not required.

Mr. Chairman, in this manner, we would be avoiding all of the subjective aspects of a committee review. Our colleagues would determine whether or not a bill was worthy. The legislative issues would no longer be left up to chance. This idea of leaving things up to chance has always been somewhat repugnant to me. When I was elected by my fellow citizens, I told them that I would be defending their interests in Ottawa. I didn't tell them that I was going to participate in a lottery and that I would only defend their interests if my name happened to be drawn. My electors told me to go and defend their interests.

Consequently, I would suggest that we first of all convince 20 percent of our colleagues that our bill is serious and clearly presents some interest. My colleagues would be the first ones to vote on the matter. As a member, it would be up to me to go to the trouble of finding 20 percent of my colleagues to support my initiative. You are doubtless already aware of how much money such an approach would enable us to save. In addition, such an approach would enable us to avoid party subjectivity or frivolous initiatives.

I would be surprised if 60 members were ever to support a frivolous initiative. I have a lot more confidence in democracy and in the seriousness of the representatives elected by the people.

If we were to require this initial vote with our colleagues and 60 signatures from members in favour of an initiative, we could then have the initiative put on a list. Each item would be listed according to the date it was tabled. Accordingly, we would review an initiative presented in January before looking at one tabled in February.

I don't like the current lottery system because we can play around with results. Several members may decide to present a bill on the same subject, therefore increasing their chances of having such a bill selected. Consequently, chance is on their side and there is no room for rational decisions. It would be preferable to have intelligence prevail and require our colleagues to hold preliminary discussions in order to explain their bill and obtain 60 signatures. If a member managed to get the attention of 60 colleagues for a few minutes and then obtain their signature, this would prove that there is clearly an interest in presenting the initiative.

I think that we should retain this criterion whereby colleagues do the preselection or preapproval. As Mr. Harvey mentioned, we don't have to worry about silly initiatives being adopted. We also have to remember that the government can apply its majority. If a member were to table a bill that some people felt was unconstitutional and this person managed to get support from 60 members, would that mean that the bill did not make sense? A member may want to present a bill requiring an amendment to the Constitution. Would it be deemed unconstitutional because of that?

• 1645

I would think that, should that occur, the government, with its majority, could always impose a veto. Right now I would find it very difficult to come up with 66 signatures in support of an unconstitutional bill. I wouldn't find very much support from the Liberals, or from the Reformers, and probably not from the Conservatives either. The Bloc Québécois doesn't even have 60 members.

I'm saying this to tell you that the government, because of its parliamentary majority, can safely vote against any bill which would appear to run contrary to its program or to the proposed budget for its program. Accordingly, the government is not running any risks.

However, this would do a lot to improve the duties of the members of Parliament. No member could correctly say that he wasn't able to present a bill because, unfortunately, it was not drawn. However, my taxpayers would be entitled to tell you that their initiative made sense and that I did not have the eloquence, the capacity or the determination required to convince at least 20% of my colleagues that my bill should be presented. This would be something that could be used against the member by the people in his own riding. You have to go to some trouble when you want to defend a valid cause.

I see many advantages with this formula which would simplify things tremendously and avoid any subjectivity. That's what I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much. Merci, Monsieur Laurin.

I have just a quick question. Would the 20% of the MPs be required to be from different parties?

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Yes.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Tremblay.

Mr. René Laurin: No. I'm saying 20% of 300. I would hesitate to say that it must come from different parties. What about an independent member? Where would he find support? How would he be able to obtain 20% of the votes or the approval from some of his colleagues? He has no party. He would have to convince others. At any rate, this is clearly debatable. The committee will discuss this in greater depth.

I would also like to remove any partisanship from this proposal. You could say that it would be very easy for a Liberal member to find 20 Liberal members to support his bill. If he finds 60 people, they can't all be crazy. A bill presented by a Liberal member, even if he is partisan, would still be presented. If you want to put in any restrictions on this, you could add that this 20% has to include members from the opposition parties. This is a measure that could be added to what I have already added myself.

In particular, I want to underscore the fact that the bill has to obtain the approval of elected colleagues and that this is an attempt to come up with the best way to avoid partisanship with respect to such bills.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. Do you have any questions for Mr. Laurin?

[English]

Mr. Gouk and then Madame Dalphond-Guiral.

Just to remind everyone, we're going to go through the first round and then committee members will have questions.

Mr. Jim Gouk: I'm sure Mr. Laurin put in a great deal of thought and feels very sincere about this. However, I looked at it and I thought, okay, 20%, that's 60 people you have to get to sign on. I have six private member's bills in there. That means I have to go and talk—and I realize some of them might be the same persons again—to 360 people, assuming that each and every one of them buys in. In fact, if I have to talk to two to get one signature, now I'm talking about 720 people. And I don't think six bills is a high number of have in.

On the other side of that, you see how busy people are tonight, coming late and having to leave early. If 100 people put in five bills on average and the others don't, that's 500 times that I potentially am going to be approached and asked to listen to somebody's debate. We're going to have a debate about whether or not there should be a debate.

• 1650

So with all due respect, I understand where he's coming from, but I addressed the whole concept of getting other support. The more support you get, the less need there is for greater time, certainly, and in theory, at least, the more likely the committee would be to select it in the first place. I just think that in the grand scheme of being a member of Parliament, with our workload, that would be totally unworkable.

One other point he raised is the concept of first come, first served. With the number of bills that are in now, that means private members' bills are closed for the rest of this Parliament because we'll never get through what's there already. Also, when the next election comes and as soon as Parliament is reconvened, past members who had bills in would immediately take those off the shelf and reintroduce them and new members of Parliament would not get anything in that particular Parliament. They could draft them and be ready to put them in for the next Parliament in hopes that they were fast enough.

So that one wouldn't work either. There has to be a much different method of rotation.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

On the point, Madame Dalphond-Guiral.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): I would like to ask a question. When a member decides to present a bill, he usually has an idea. Generally speaking, private members business can be summarized in one sentence. Is it the idea or the bill as such that prompts you to try and get the support of 20% of the members? We have talked at great length about the time and research that goes into the bill before it is even printed. So, is it the idea of the bill or the bill itself that has to receive such support?

Mr. René Laurin: It's the idea behind the bill, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, I wouldn't want to have 200, 300 or 400 bills prepared, with all of the legislative aspects involved, that may not garner the support of at least 20% of the members. Nevertheless, a member could submit, in writing, a quite detailed description of the main idea and purpose of his bill and of its effects and consequences. This is what needs to be approved by 20% of his colleagues.

In response to the question raised earlier by my colleague, 82 members filled out the survey-questionnaire. Out of these 82 members, 78% had already presented a bill. I would imagine that those that did not reply were not interested and that many of them had never presented bills. So, if we round off the figures, 80% of 80, that means 68 people would have already presented a bill. During the course of the year, that would not lead to many visits from people coming to see me in order to get their bill approved. And that doesn't mean that all 68 of them would come to see me personally.

Usually, we are familiar with our colleagues' philosophy. We know more or less who shares our opinions and on what topic. If I had a bill to present on reintroducing capital punishment, there would be no need for me to go and see some of my colleagues because I already know their opinion on the matter. I would go to see those who are likely to support me.

Meeting people likely to support an initiative does not involve a great deal of work. And even if it did involve some work, since we are here for four years, if we manage to present a bill in the interest of our taxpayers during this four-year period, if we were to spend 50 hours garnering support from our colleagues, that would result in no more than one hour per week. There's always a way to organize your time.

Making the process a bit difficult or demanding for the member would demonstrate how serious this is. There would probably be far fewer bills presented. Frivolous matters would fall to the wayside and bills without any real interest would not find support. Members wouldn't be interested and they would not be prepared to spend 50 or 60 hours discussing an initiative which, essentially, is not worth the trouble.

• 1655

I think that we have to think about this, Mr. Chairman. We will save both time and money because the legal drafters will be required to examine far fewer bills. The process will have much more credibility and, more important, the members will be taken far more seriously. A lottery will no longer decide whether or not I get to present my bill. It will be up to me to make the decision and to take the initiative to garner support for my cause.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Laurin.

[English]

Now, I'm conscious of the time and I know we've set aside until 5.30 p.m., and I want to take all the comments. Mr. Epp, I wanted to hear from you because I know you have a dual role today. You're here in interest in terms of the topic, but you're also here to—

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Ref.): Well, I'm here more to listen.

The Chair: Okay. Do you have a few comments now?

Mr. Ken Epp: I have a couple of questions.

We sit roughly 135 days a year, and if you think of one hour of debate every time, then if we have three hours for each bill we'd have room for 40 bills a year, roughly. That's quite a few. I think that to actually have 40 bills up, with 40 votes on issues about what's important to our constituents out there, would be a huge improvement over what we're doing now.

I'm just really interested in what you're saying about having to get the approval of other members. Really, that's not necessary. Again, if we take this number of 40 a year, that means it would take five years to do 200 members. My observation is that there are at least 100 members— So if you take out cabinet ministers and those who aren't interested in private members' bills, we'd probably have only 200 members who would actually submit bills. So in every Parliament everybody would have a chance for at least one, and maybe that's the best we can achieve.

What do you think about that?

The Chair: Madame Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I'd like to ask you two questions. First of all, do you know how many bills have been tabled? Do you have any figures?

[English]

The Chair: Yes, I do.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have some. There have been 454 since the beginning of the current Parliament, which would represent, if we spent three hours on each of them, 1,362 hours.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Four hundred and fifty-four! Do we know which parties they came from? Do they all come from the same members?

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: No.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: This gentleman has six.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I don't know about that.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We don't know.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I don't know, but I have the number.

Mr. René Laurin: Would that be 454 in the course of the year?

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Four hundred and fifty-four since June 1, 1997.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Since June 1, 1997.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I was wondering whether—

[English]

The Chair: Madame Tremblay, I want to be very clear here. I'm just getting some advice from the clerk. In the 36th Parliament, we have 254 bills. We started at number 200 and we're now at 454, so actually it's 254.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: It starts at C-200. There are 254 and he has six of them. All right.

I was thinking about something else, along the lines of what Mr. Epp and Mr. Laurin were saying. Would it be practical to have a system like we do for opposition days, whereby a certain number of bills would be allocated to each party on the basis of the number of members it has in the House? There would obviously be a discussion, to begin with, in caucus, to decide which bills would be tabled. I do not know if such a system would be possible.

We see that 254 bills have been submitted since June 2, 1997, in fact, since September 1997. If we assume that 40 get through every year, that number could be divided up on the basis of the number of members and some would be reserved automatically for backbenchers of the party in office.

• 1700

This would be negotiated, like other things, among the leaders in the House, at the beginning and as things move along.

However, I do not believe that we will find an ideal solution. We will have to take a position somewhere between the way things stand now and what we feel would be ideal. We may have to try an experiment that would represent a half-way point between what we have at present and what the situation could be. Change happens gradually, not all at once.

I think that it would be very frustrating for members of Parliament and for democracy if decisions were taken by a select committee of a few parliamentarians, some of whom represent the majority and have surely received mandates.

We need to eliminate as much as possible the arbitrariness that would exist if things were left in our hands. It seems to me that it would less frustrating if my party were to tell me that my bill was not at all appropriate at present and that that the party wanted to target other, more pressing issues. I would rather have the decision come from my party than be told that there was really no reason not to present a votable bill, but that decision was being taken anyway.

[English]

The Chair: Madam Tremblay, it might be a problem, though. I don't mean to intervene from the chair, but I just want to point out that there might be a perception problem that now the party has more influence than the private individual member of Parliament. I just raise that as a concern that's certainly coming to my mind.

We have two questions. Mr. Breitkreuz first, and then Mr. Epp.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You've actually made my point.

I think one of the strong positive aspects of private members' business is that it is private members' business and not tied to a political party. Members are free to go and consult whomever they wish, and if they wish to consult other members in their party, they may do so. But I think to start tying it to that would really defeat the purpose, and I would not agree it should somehow be tied to political parties. I think the essence of private members' business should remain private members' business.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Here's another idea. After an election, could we put everybody's name into a hat? At the beginning, we draw 20 names, and those are the people who would have the right to bring forward a votable private members' bill. If they choose not to, they can give it to anybody they wish.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: No. We draw their names.

Mr. Ken Epp: Either that, I guess, or the other way, saying if they decline we draw more. That would be the other way of doing it. Then, and only then, would they begin asking for the legislative part of the work. You know, we have a tremendous load on our legislative staff to draft all of these bills, many of which go directly into the garbage—they never go anywhere. This way, if my name were drawn and if I now had two weeks to say, okay, now I can go, I already have— You know, everyone will come here with ideas on which bills and motions they would like— but then they can get the legislative staff involved, and get that thing— and away they go. It's that simple. Then as the numbers are decreased, we have more random draws. In fact, it could be done very easily if as soon as a bill is disposed of, you draw one to replace him and he or she is the next one.

That would be totally random. The rule is that in any Parliament, your name doesn't go back into the pot until everybody's name has been chosen, and the names in the pot include everybody except cabinet ministers.

The Chair: Okay. Something you said spurred a lot of debate, and I'm going to take them in order. Mr. Laurin, Mr. Breitkreuz, and Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Mr. René Laurin: I would like to respond to the last comments that were made. Mr. Chairman, to ensure that all members had an equal right to submit bills, I would give each member the privilege of presenting one bill. There would be no draw. I would not want luck to determine whether I get to submit a bill. I would like to have the privilege, since the people in my riding have given me a responsibility by electing me.

I would like to be able to say to the people in my riding that, by coming here, I have the privilege of submitting one bill each year. If I do not take that opportunity, I am free to give my privilege away to a colleague who may need to present two bills.

• 1705

If a member introduced as many as six bills, I would say that something was not working. Things must be going pretty badly in his riding if he needs to introduce six bills a year.

If a member has the right to present one bill a year, he or she will work consciously to design and draft the bill before submitting it to colleagues. This demanding process would ensure that there are not 350 or 400 bills submitted each year. Those that are introduced would be the ones deemed to be much more serious and each would be given its own period of consideration.

If all 300 members were given the privilege of introducing one bill a year, I believe that not even half of them would take the trouble to gather 60 signatures. Moreover, there may not be as many bills. At present, members feel that the more bills they submit, the better the chances are that one of them will be chosen. That is why 250 bills were submitted. There is even one member who has submitted six bills. Why would one member have the right to submit six bills and I get only one? It would be much fairer if everyone had only one bill. Everyone could use his or her privilege.

If I foresee that I will not be taking advantage of this privilege one year, I could assign it to a colleague dealing with more important problems. But I believe that everyone should have the same basic privilege. There would no longer be a draw to decide if a bill is to be votable; a committee would no longer determine whether my bill is acceptable or not. It would be 20% of the members who would decide that my bill is acceptable and deserves to be supported.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. I'm going to go in order of seeing the hands.

Mr. Ken Epp: Can I ask a question, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: Yes, very quickly, Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Probably Jamie knows this, and I should know it, I've been on this committee, but if you do as one of the NDP members, who has about 30 bills in right now— Is his chance not five times as high as—

The Chair: No, one name.

Mr. Ken Epp: So regardless of how many bills, your name only goes in once?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Ken Epp: And then you can pick. If you have more than one, let's say—

The Chair: Then you select which one of the 30 you have in you want. The name is only in once.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay. I didn't know that. I thought the bills themselves, the numbers, went in.

The Chair: No.

Mr. Jamie Robertson (Committee Researcher): They did that originally. The problem with that is some members realized they could increase their chances of being selected if they had 20 bills. So that's why it's done by the name.

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: It's becoming more of a round table, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Yes, now it is.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I really don't like the idea that Mr. Epp put forward of having 20 members being selected at the beginning of a Parliament, and so on. So I would like to amend that idea. I think it would be much better to allot every MP one hour of debate for that Parliament. And if they wish to get together with two or three MPs and have three hours of debate on one particular bill, it would work much better. But to have only 20 members have a bill put forward right at the beginning of Parliament wouldn't work. You'd be better off to designate one hour of debate per member, and then they can allocate it to somebody else. People could get together if they agreed on a certain idea or bill.

Mr. Ken Epp: We only have 120 hours of debate per year on private members' business.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: You said per Parliament.

Mr. Ken Epp: No, I said per year you have only 120 hours.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. I think there's actually—

Mr. Ken Epp: So if you give everybody one hour, you're talking 260 hours.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: This highlights another problem. I don't think we allocate enough time to private members' business. I think we need to allocate more time, for example have Mondays and Fridays for private members' business, or something like that. Anyway, it has to be—

The Chair: We're getting into interesting territory here, and we're getting into a variety of ideas, all of which are valid.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't particularly like the idea of having this draw at the beginning of Parliament either. Issues change throughout the Parliament. Don't you want to create bills to address situations that develop? Having a draw, most people agree, is kind of random, so it's fairer, in a way, because everybody has a reasonable chance of getting drawn.

But for the benefit of Mr. Laurin, I actually have nine bills in the system. I hope I have at least nine serious ideas in my head—it's not so much that there's a whole bunch of problems in my riding.

We're exploring all of these very creative ideas that may be practical or not. Something Mr. Solomon said earlier, when we were chatting, made me think again about the suggestion I'd made earlier. One of the problems with the idea I suggested of actually drawing the bills as votable and non-votable is that we still need to qualify the bills in some way to make sure they meet the requirements in terms of not being a tax bill and not being anti-constitutional.

• 1710

So maybe a variation on that idea is that members could pre-submit their bills to the draw for pre-qualification so you could put it in a votable draw. I have no idea how much administration this would require.

There are all sorts of ways you could apply this idea. You could say, okay, if you pre-submit your bill and get it approved or pre-qualified, it goes in a votable draw. And all the other ones are in a non-votable draw. That's a way of handling the situations where many of us have these bills that we are doing for constituency reasons. We don't necessarily want them to be votable.

The other way is post-qualification. You get your name drawn, and Mr. White has a votable bill. Now, he has to take that bill from his inventory to the subcommittee and make sure it qualifies.

So there are variations of that idea I put in there. I hope these would go partway to keeping everybody happy.

The Chair: If I might interject with respect to the qualification, I think the point is a good one, though. There would still have to be some sort of vetting system—

Mr. Ted White: Yes.

The Chair: —so that the criteria would be met, in whatever form they take. I think that's a given, but I take the point.

Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: As I listen to the debate, a few thoughts come to mind. It seems clear to me that the committee must give priority to eliminating the arbitrary fashion in which our colleagues decide, as the feeling strikes them, whether a bill will be votable or not. Your decision is very important.

Personally, I do not like the lottery system. We need to try to find another way of doing things. Members should not submit bills if they do not want them to be voted on. I would tend to agree with Mr. Solomon, who said that, in a pinch, we could always debate a motion in the House, in order to satisfy someone in our riding, even though we did not want the motion to be voted on.

There is another aspect that I feel is very important: we must stop presenting misleading information to the public and giving false impressions. Some people think that Denis Paradis' bill was passed by Parliament and has become law. He spoke on radio and television everywhere and went across Canada to talk about his bill, but his bill was never drawn! However, many people are convinced that that bill was passed. Many people have talked to me about it.

If we start giving our bill out to everyone as soon as it is introduced in first reading in the House, we may be giving misleading information. In my opinion, we have to find a way to keep this from happening. It makes no sense to give people the impression that a bill like that will one day become law.

I remember that in the case of the Louis Riel bill, we had to tell people not to get excited and that the bill was far from being adopted, since it had not yet been drawn. Many people thought that the Louis Riel issue had been settled a long time back because the approach had changed. But that bill is still in the hat; it has not been drawn.

I am very concerned about the fact that we make people believe that a bill will eventually be passed on a given issue. You will probably tell me that the government often finds itself in the same situation: it introduces many bills that die on the Order Paper if the House is prorogued, if elections are held, etc. The government, however, can generate more publicity. Personally, it bothers me that we draw so many bills without allowing them to go forward.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): I just have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair. Are we at the point now where the members can—

The Chair: Now, it's time that we—

Mr. Joe Jordan: It's been an extremely interesting discussion, and I'll disqualify my remarks by saying that I've only been on this committee for two rounds of selection and judgment.

One thing that troubles me a little is the sort of generally accepted belief that— It's been my experience that when we rank something as votable or non-votable, these have not been subjective exercises. We have criteria, and they're in camera sessions. But if somebody wants to— And the Liberals don't have a majority on this committee. These are done by consensus.

• 1715

One situation we need to address is that in the first round we had ten. There were probably four or five that met the criteria, and we had to narrow it down to three. I think that's where we may get into a problem. And we rank and talk about them.

At the next round we had ten, and only one met the criteria. I don't know, but maybe we should debrief better when people's things don't meet the criteria. But the criteria are pretty straightforward, and I would say that the process we go through is very objective. I don't know what happened before I got here, so maybe there are other problems that need solving there. I don't know.

I forget which member mentioned it, but I think you have to get the criteria test earlier in the process, because you raise expectation levels as it moves along. I can fully understand that when somebody's been drawn, they've come and made their case, and to find out at the end of a two-year process that it doesn't meet criteria— In some cases the reason it doesn't meet criteria could easily have been fixed.

In the case of one bill it was the title of the bill. Clearly it didn't meet the criteria because of the partisan title of the bill. My God, that could have been fixed very early in the process, and it would not have derailed the person's efforts.

So I totally endorse the notion of having some sort of prejudgment. Then if it's an issue that can be fixed, fix it and come back. I think that would prevent the raised expectation.

I think the signatures issue was part of the subcommittee's recommendations.

Mr. Ken Epp: Or one at a time.

Mr. Joe Jordan: For collecting so many signatures and that way you bypass the lottery?

Mr. Ken Epp: It was 100, but only one bill at a time could be under that.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Well, I think that—

Mr. Ken Epp: It can be expanded.

Mr. Joe Jordan: —process has merit, as well, and I think it can address— Mr. White talks about the fact that issues come up, and if the process is too long, it's like Jeopardy: you hit the buzzer before you know the answer and just hope you do. That way, if something major comes up and is shared by x number of members, then it could end up on the floor as private members' bill business in shorter order than it does in the process now. So that's something we have to look at.

On that, rather than encouraging partisanship, the fact that they have to be from all parties ensures that it isn't a partisan effort. So I think if you have to get ten or five from each party and your number, whatever that number is, if it's 100 or 60— That's a way of making sure the issue is not a partisan issue.

I find another thing, and this is more of a personal observation. I don't particularly like the idea of voting on private members' bills being grouped with voting on government bills, because that creates some partisanship, as well. If private members votes are held separately, then they're going to be less partisan. People can decide whether they go or not. If they can answer the constituents on why they were there or weren't there—

I guess this is for the House leaders: when you tack it on with government votes when we have such a slim plurality, and we're being whipped to be there— You know, they don't want to get up and leave. Sometimes that causes the front bench to try to exert a little influence. I think it needs to be separated, because it's supposed to be separated.

So I don't know if it causes headaches for the House leaders to figure that out, but I think they should separate the vote.

Those are pretty much my comments. I've written a lot of interesting things, but I've not taken as many pages of notes as my dear colleague here. I think this has been a very good process.

Also, the fact is that we don't have a lot of people here. We're not dealing with a big constituency within MPs that want to do these kinds of things. So when we crunch the numbers, sure, 260 might do it. I think we can be comfortable with the fact that 260 won't do it. There seems to be a group of MPs that put a lot of work into this process. We have to set up a mechanism that allows their work to be rewarded.

Everybody's busy, but I think it's manageable. We may have to look at increasing the hours. You could start an hour earlier on Monday, and if people are that interested, I think they'll show up.

• 1720

So I appreciate the comments, and certainly I've taken them down and hopefully we can move this thing forward.

The only comment I'll leave you with is— and I don't even know; when we talk about the merits in votable and non-votable, that's in camera?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. I've been very impressed with how those particular processes work and the fact that it is non-partisan. It isn't where the government has a majority at all, and at the end of the day we agree by consensus. I won't say it's unanimous, because sometimes people may have feelings, but it's by consensus. Everything is going to have problems, but it's your peers who make those decisions.

Maybe the criteria need to be looked at, because we hold ourselves to those points. So I think we could look at that. But as to making everything votable, I don't think that's on. You have to have some filter there.

The Chair: I certainly take your points. Thank you very much.

Madame Dalphond-Guiral.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: After listening to Mr. Jordan, I would like to ask the chairman something. I have been on this subcommittee since the beginning of the present session and, to my mind, all the bills and all the motions submitted to us met the criteria.

Let us say that there are three slots and that we need to choose among the many bills and motions. In deciding whether a given bill is likely to give rise to the most interesting debate, the main yardstick is our values. That is the reality. If there were ten slots, there would be no problem. There would be ten bills and we would take all ten. But when there are only two or three openings, our values come into play, of course.

I remember a case in which one of the committee members was unable to support a bill that everyone felt dealt with an issue that was important to discuss, since the bill went totally against his deeply held values.

That is the difficulty. In any case, I must say that these two hours have gone quickly. I have found it interesting. I have seen that there are some interesting ideas. We will certainly manage to improve the process, especially to meet the concerns of those on the subcommittee, whose work is not always very easy.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

[English]

We'll hear from Mr. Epp and then Madame Tremblay, and then I think we'll finish off. I have a few concluding comments and maybe a point in terms of where we go from here. So maybe we could do that, given the time.

Mr. Epp, briefly.

Mr. Ken Epp: I will be quite brief.

First of all, I sat on the subcommittee for several years, and my experience is just the opposite. Maybe you have a chairman now who says that consensus is defined as majority, or one or two dissenters, whereas in our committee, consensus meant everybody agreed without dissension. That made it very difficult; it really did. Maybe that's why it's working better. I don't know. It's in camera, so we can't really tell.

I found the criteria extremely frustrating. The criteria include things like, is this constitutional; is it already before the House?

I had a rating scale on those 11 criteria. I gave each one 10 points, and they were either 10 or zero. If they were zero, they were disqualified on one of those. The bill or the motion could have 100 points on my scheme, but if one of those was a zero because, for example, it's already before the House, then that was the end of it. So, in my view, that method of evaluating the votability was totally unacceptable. Furthermore, if a bill is acceptable, every one of them had 110 points because they were acceptable.

Then what I did, over the chagrin of some of the other members of the committee, is I introduced some of my own criteria. They wouldn't go along with it, so I used my own. I included things like, does this have widespread support among our parliamentary colleagues; does it have widespread support in your riding; does it have widespread support throughout all of Canada? These were other questions I asked.

• 1725

Then when we were interviewing the people when they were bringing their things forward, I would ask them for those answers. On at least part of my scale there was a continuum, where some had eight and some had six and some had nine. Then all I did was touch the button on my computer to sort them, and the one with the most points was the one I would support the most. Invariably, that was the one that the other members of the committee had right at the bottom, and then we had these impasses, and I walked out of those meetings as frustrated as I could be.

I have to say, this has been an extremely enjoyable two hours, because my other experiences in this subcommittee have not been fun at all—just the opposite.

I'd like to say something else about the choice of which bills come forward. One of the things that I think frustrates Canadians—and I've had some real heart-to-heart talks with some people in my riding on this—is that they go to work and they do a petition. Sometimes those petitions have 8,000 or 10,000 names. We've had some petitions that have come across the country with over 100,000 names, and those concerns are roundly ignored and disregarded by Parliament.

I think what we should do is if a member comes forward with a bill or a motion that is a direct result of or is supported by a substantial number of petitions, then perhaps that should be given a greater priority as something this Parliament should give some attention to. That way, we would be empowering the actual people out there, who feel that Parliament is irrelevant to their aspirations.

I don't know exactly how that could happen, but I'm really interested in this idea of increasing the number of hours. Yes, we could begin earlier on Monday. We could use more of Friday. I have only one real concern with that. That is, already private members' hours are being relegated to the most undesirable hours of debate in every day, and if we now said, okay, let's use three hours on Friday for private members' business in order to increase the hours, then everybody would say, oh, goody, I can go home, it's just private members' business, and the members would be absent and it still would be considered irrelevant.

I really would like to have the members of Parliament present to hear the debate and the argument on these private members' bills. Maybe what we should do is just say that your salary every month is payable as a proportion of how many hours of private members' debate you actually attended physically in the House, with a sign-in sheet.

The Chair: Are you proposing that as a private member's bill?

Mr. Ken Epp: I might, but I don't think it would ever meet any criteria to come to a vote.

That's really wild, but somehow I wish members would give some real seriousness to the issues that come before us, because in my observations, the things that have been brought forward by private members invariably touch at the heartstrings of what concerns people out there, whereas a lot of the government stuff really doesn't.

I mean, how many wharves are there in Nova Scotia? We have a bill to increase the number of wharves. Well, sure, that's a very important issue for them, but in terms of what's really important to Canadians generally right across the country, private members' business really does hit those heartstrings.

We're going to have to give quite a bit more thought to this. In view of the number of hours we have, we're probably going to be limited to some sort of a random pick. I don't know how else we can do this. Maybe what we should do is say, well, every member who has bills ready can put their name into the draw, and we always keep drawing. Every time there's one bill disposed of, we bring one up again so that the system keeps on working. Maybe only 150 members would put their names in and we could get on once every two years with a private member's bill, which, as I said before, would be a lot better than what it is now.

Okay, that's the end.

The Chair: Very good. Mr. Epp, for the record, we do have fun at our subcommittee meeting.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I told you he took a lot of notes.

The Chair: We try to enjoy ourselves, in addition to doing good work.

Mr. Ken Epp: We tried to when I was here.

The Chair: Madame Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I think that we should be realistic. People are very subjective about these things. One can forget about objectivity. That does not exist. People are only subjectively objective. That is what they claim to be.

• 1730

There is nothing worse than doing the evaluation the way you do. Of course, it is not easy. It all depends on the time of day, your values or the way you look at it. You take the ten bills that you have looked at, you put them in a different order, you give them to each committee member and you probably give them the same rating. Research shows that there is nothing more difficult than doing an evaluation.

In the work that you do, there is one thing that I find disconcerting, in a way. I heard Mr. Jordan say that in one group of ten, there were three that met the criteria and that in another group of ten there was one that met the criteria. I think that there is either a problem with the criteria or the lawyers do not know how to do their work. If the bills being drafted do not meet the committee's criteria, you need to give those criteria to the members of Parliament and the lawyers right away so that they can draft bills that do meet the criteria, or else you need to change your criteria. There is a problem there.

I have seen a school where 45% of the children were considered to have school problems. The problems lay much more with the person doing the testing than with the children. That kind of thing happens continually when there is a kind of pseudo-objectivity on the table.

I would like to come back to the example that Madeleine gave us of someone who was incapable of supporting everyone else's assessment of a given bill. In the case of my own bill, there were three different verdicts, depending on the person chairing the committee. I take that to mean that you're doing your best, but that you are doing it very subjectively. That is what should change, in my opinion. I feel it is very important to find a way for the process to be as non-subjective as possible.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Madam Tremblay.

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I didn't want to leave you with the impression that I thought the criteria were perfect. What I was saying was, given that that was what we were supposed to evaluate on, I thought the process was pretty good.

One of the criteria is that the issue is not something—I'm paraphrasing—that has been dealt with by the House. That's something the lawyers drafting the legislation wouldn't be able to anticipate, so it's not as if when they draft these things, they're making sure they meet all that criteria. Things can change. I'm only basing my observations on two meetings, so they have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I think maybe we need to look at the criteria. If the criteria are too restrictive, then let's look at them. But I'm saying given that this is what we had to do— Picking three was something that was imposed on us. We didn't just decide there were only three. But that's one thing we've got to look at, because if you do force, say, only three of ten, then absolutely we're going to have to make a value judgment. And if that's something you want to address—

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: That's subjective.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Yes. Then I guess if ten of the ten are good—and we don't sit around and talk about the content of the bill—what you're saying is okay, take them all, but you don't draw any more until they're done with. I don't know how you get around that. I think you've got to either increase the hours for debate, increase the amount of debate per bill, or something like that. I think that's what we've got to take a look at.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I wanted to comment too, just very briefly. Number 6, for example, in the criteria is a very broad kind of point with respect to whether or not it has been discussed recently. Well, what does “recently” mean? Does it mean within the last Parliament, or within the last three? So there is some subjectivity. But Mr. Jordan is also right in the sense that we try to meet the criteria as they've been established.

I also want to point out that tabled before Procedure and House Affairs in May of this year was another set of criteria, which was reduced from eleven down to five. Now we don't know the status of that yet; we're still waiting. But I certainly take the point, and I think I'm hearing it broadly based, that we need to review that whole area of criteria again. And of course there was a whole host of other things that came up today.

I want to echo all of you who said this was a very informative meeting. I think we learned a lot. There was a great exchange and ideas came forward, all of which we've taken a lot of notes on. What we're now going to do is compile and collate what we heard today. We're going to request other members of Parliament, who were not here today, to provide a quick response on whether or not they have anything to add. We're going to ask that they do it by this coming Wednesday. At that point we'll be in a better position to pull it all together in a way that's meaningful.

• 1735

Early in the new year—this is intended as much for the members present as it is for the subcommittee members—we as a subcommittee will meet and take a look at what our researcher has put together and what has come out of this meeting, and the key question there is where we go from here. That then will focus in and filter through the subcommittee. With your agreement, that's exactly where I propose to leave it.

But I want to thank each and every one of you for being here. I think it was very useful. I of course want to thank Ms. Diotte for organizing and making sure everything was done in a manner that made a lot of sense and was useful and productive, and Mr. Robertson, in terms of his background and the kind of expertise he brings to bear.

With that, I would like to conclude.

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Could we not just give them all one votable bill for showing up?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.