HAFF Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 4, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)): Colleagues, we're back discussing proposed amendments to the standing orders. If you look at your agendas, you will see we have three administrative or technical items. I'll bring them to your attention now and maybe we can consider them—either stand them aside or deal with them now.

On numbers one and two, because of a change in the membership of the committee, there is the arrival of Mr. Doyle from the Progress Conservative Party, whom we welcome to the committee. We need to alter two of the subcommittees, so I will receive a motion that Norman Doyle be appointed as member of the subcommittee on private members' business, replacing André Harvey.

An hon. member: I so move.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: There is a second motion that Norman Doyle be appointed as a member of the subcommittee on televising of committees, replacing André Harvey.

Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.): I so move.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Third, all of you will have received, prior to the meeting, a draft of an order to establish a subcommittee of this procedure and House affairs committee that would review the procedures for supply. This proposal is called either phase two or phase three of an initiative that began in the House a few years ago.

According to Mr. Blaikie, it began about 20 years ago, but its modern incarnation has the Treasury Board reconstructing and reviewing some of the technical details of financial reporting and the way we consume that in Parliament. They are now ready to proceed further, but they need direction from the House. It is the suggestion that this committee provide that direction.

The proposal is that a number of colleagues would constitute a subcommittee of this committee. The colleagues would be appointed generally because of their current expertise in either financial reporting or House procedures. They would be asked, in accordance with the mandate of this committee, to review the procedures and make recommendations that would allow Treasury Board to continue with their work over the next few months.

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So if there is a will to do that at this time, I will move it. Maybe I'll simply stand it down, in case there are any questions that can be asked informally.

Just for the record, the committee would be composed of one member from each of the opposition parties, for a total of four, two Liberals, and one chair. It is clear that because of the numbers, there would really have to be a consensus report that came back to this committee at the end, in order for it to have legs and continue.

You have a draft of such a motion in front of you. If it is the will of the committee to move it now and clear it out of the way, I will be pleased to receive a motion to that effect. If any one of us wants to stand it down for further consideration, we can do that.

Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Canadian Alliance): Certainly John Williams is prepared to sit on this committee from our party. They've had preliminary discussions. The only question I have is about the report backdate. That is fairly quick. I don't know if they can do it that quickly, but as far as the way it's put together here, that looks fine, and John Williams would be our representative on that committee. The only question I have is whether they are comfortable with how quick it is.

The Chair: I am advised that it is doable, and it is the intention of everyone involved to complete the work before the end of June. The June 12 date was selected as one that would likely come before the House adjourned for the summer. But if the committee needed another week and the House was still sitting, they could come back to us. I'm sure colleagues wouldn't have a problem with an extension.

Is someone prepared to move that now?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I so move.

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Strahl moves that the motion, as set out in the draft entitled “Order of Reference for the Sub-committee on Improved Reporting to Parliament Phase II (Treasury Board Initiative)”, be adopted.

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Yes, Mr. Strahl. Then we have Mr. Bergeron on a point of order.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Just briefly, Mr. Williams is not a member of this committee, and I'm not sure if he's even an associate member. Will it be necessary to make him an associate member?

The Chair: There will be a need to make a number of colleagues associate members of this subcommittee because we're doing a wholesale importing of members. The party whips will have to deal with that in the next couple of days, if that's okay.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay.

The Chair: Good.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Are we to give you right away the name of the representative from our party who will sit on this sub-committee?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Benoît Sauvageau.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Sauvageau's name was somehow already on our draft list. Good for him.

Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): I'm not able to say at this point who our member on the committee will be, but we'll come up with someone.

The Chair: That's fine. Consultations around the House will probably yield a high-calibre team for that subcommittee. Thank you.

There are three items that the clerk has passed on to me. They are more in the nature of future business and steering, but we have to select a date to invite the Speaker to appear on main estimates. Do we have a deadline?

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes, it's the end of May.

The Chair: Our deadline is the end of May. Could we ask the clerk to consult with the Speaker and select a date that would be mutually convenient for that?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Secondly, we need a date similarly for Chief Elections Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley on the main estimates. May we do the same thing and have the clerk consult on a mutually convenient date, prior to the end of May?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: It's the same thing.

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The Chair: Yes. Now, keep in mind it's not absolutely necessary for us to do this, but it's something we should be doing and we'll try to accommodate it.

You will recall we've set aside very briefly our work on the reference from the House on confidentiality of the work of legislative counsel. We have an opportunity to invite a witness who would be able to assist some of us on the committee, and I believe there has been some discussion around the table on that. If it's convenient, we can set aside Tuesday, May 16. If that is agreeable, we will ask the witness to appear at that time. Is that agreed—Tuesday, May 16?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): Can I tack something on?

The Chair: Yes, Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Just in terms of scheduling, I wonder if we could have a steering committee meeting—given all these other things we're doing—to talk about our agenda on changing the standing orders, how quickly people want to go, and how many meetings they want to have between now and the end of the year. Are we looking at kicking stuff over until September? Just what are people's views?

The Chair: Yes. This is an exercise that will certainly take us quite a while. We're just on phase one now, where we're trying to deal with issues that members believe we want to deal with quickly. But there is a whole list of suggestions from colleagues in the House that we have to deal with, and those will take quite a bit of organization. We've already done some work on it. A steering committee will perhaps allow us to sort that out consensually.

So is it agreed that we should schedule a steering committee reasonably soon?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Okay. That's agreed. The clerk will look for a suitable time.

Let's get back to the business we were dealing with at the previous meeting, and that would be consideration of a draft—well, let's call it a draft—of amendments. One deals with application of votes and the voting procedure and the other deals with time allocation procedure.

We have in front of us a confidential draft, which is probably not confidential. It's marked confidential. It's top secret, actually. We're continuing our discussion.

There were two or three issues that were being kicked around the table at the last meeting. We had consensus on most of the concepts. We may or may not have had agreement on details and the bells and whistles.

I'll begin recognizing colleagues on this.

First, Mr. Strahl, then Mr. Bergeron, then Mr. Hill.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. Thank you, and thanks to our witnesses for being back here again.

I had a couple of brief questions on this. I think we all understand what we're trying to accomplish here.

Perhaps the clerk could answer this for me. The way the standing order is written, the minister would stand up and comment briefly on the motion and the bill. I take it then, the way this is written, that would be part of whatever number of minutes we have allotted for this. The minister's statement would be part of that time. Is that right? In other words, if we say there are 30 minutes under this—where we have the blank spot there—part of that is also the minister's statement.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): Yes, sir.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. I have a little bit of concern about that, Mr. Chairman, in that I hope what we're trying to get to here is time for the opposition, basically, to ask questions of the minister. And I know the minister is supposed to comment briefly, but there is always a fear that a minister, once they have the floor, could speak for 10 or 15 minutes, and that would do away with the purpose of this, which is to allow a good amount of time for Q and A.

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It seems to me that either the amount of time has to be very generous then, or we have to find a way where it's the question and comment period that is the specific time. Otherwise, you could get a minister commenting for 10, 15 minutes on a bill, and we only have 30 minutes allowed. You'd barely be able to ask even one question of each party. That's one caution I have on that.

The other one is on the discretion of the Speaker to allot the questions. I would think what we're looking at here is not the usual question and comment. It's like the question and comment period; however, what we want is some exciting give and take. We want questions like in question period, or one-minute questions. We don't want five-minute dissertations by the opposition ranting on something and then a five-minute response. The time's all gone and no one's gets out.

It does seem to me that we either have to write it in here... or is it possible, and perhaps the clerk could tell us again, to give direction to the Speaker, or advice—we can't correct him—that the intention of the committee is that we're trying to create a rapid question period-like atmosphere here? Does that have to be written in, or can we just give it as part of the report?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Mr. Chairman, the draft report before you has a series of commentary following recommendation 3 on the last page, which I think covers most of those issues. Once this report is concurred in, these would become directions to the chair on how to manage that period, including that no monopolizing of available time should be permitted—in the context of a minister who might decide to make a major speech. I think most of that is covered by those.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. This would not, however, prohibit say a supplementary question—these general comments? In other words, if it's been a good exchange over just even a couple of minutes, then a supplementary question... there's nothing in here to prohibit that. As a matter of fact, it may be part of what enlivens the debate. So that again doesn't have to be written in; it's just taken that the Speaker has that discretion?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes. I think the Speaker would do a first round of all parties. Then if no other members wished it to take place, a member could be recognized a second, third, or fourth time within that timeframe.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Again, we went through this a little bit last time, but I have no problem with all opposition parties being treated in an equitable manner. The way we've always done question period, without writing it in, is that we enter into a kind of negotiation as to how it's going to go. My assumption would be that it starts with the official opposition and goes to the third party and so on.

Is that your understanding, then? Would we be negotiating that with the Speaker or with one another? That's what we do at question period.

I realize this is the Speaker's discretion, but the reality is that we talk about it and come to an understanding with the Speaker, and then he says, if you guys are all okay with that, that's what we'll proceed with. So I assume that's what we'll be doing again with this.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I think it underlines in the standing order that the usual protocol for the rotation of parties would be respected by the chair. Question period is a little different in that it's acknowledged as being more opposition time than government time by practice, although not in the letter of the standing order. In this particular case, like in any other debate, if you like, the chair would do a first round and then go back and forth down the rotations, as is normally done.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Again, I don't disagree with that. My anticipation is that it's not quite like a regular debate in that it doesn't go opposition-government, opposition-government—that's a normal debate and a normal question and comment. My understanding is that this is primarily about the opposition parties questioning the minister. There may be, as you say, as in question period, the odd one that cycles back to the government, but the government has lots of access to ministers, whereas this is basically for the opposition.

I don't disagree with you. I do think the intention is to go through the normal rotation, but not as in a debate, where every other question comes from the government side. This is primarily for the opposition parties.

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Mr. Robert Marleau: When I say alternating sides, I assume that for every question the minister has a response.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Oh, I see. Okay, that's fine.

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): That's quite an assignment. That's not in here, is it?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I would hope that would be the... That may be ideal as well.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: It's not answer period.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Obviously. Obviously, the minister answers, but just as obviously the government members aren't the ones who ask every other question.

Mr. Robert Marleau: If you wish to specifically limit the questioning to the opposition side, I think you would have to say a member from each officially recognized party in opposition in the House... You'd have to make that more precise.

I would assume that normal practice for the Speaker, as it would evolve, would be to describe it the way you have just described it, and if there were a government backbencher who wished to ask a question, then the Speaker would try to fit him in toward the end, after the opposition has had its kick at the cat, if I can put it that way.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I may want to make that amendment later, but I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

We all understand there's the regular Q and A period that goes with the debate. I think Mr. Blaikie has described it accurately. What we're trying to accomplish here and what we're asking from the government, and what we expect from the government, is access to the minister in a special way that we think could be exciting both for the minister and for us.

But this is about the opposition; this is not really about the government, this whole exercise. So I think we do need to write that in. Again, it may be the intention and so on, but I just want to make sure that's what happens. If it does get into that, either in the standing order or in the advice to the Speaker, I think we have to be quite specific that this is primarily about access for the opposition parties to question the minister about the bill and what's going on.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: There may be differing views on the emphasis, but if there's a view on that I'm sure we'll hear it.

Mr. Bergeron, and then Mr. Hill.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, on the last point raised by my colleague, Mr. Strahl, I don't know whether the French and English versions match, but the second sentence of the fourth point of the guidelines on page 3, reads as follows:

Priority for questions and comments should be given to members representing parties opposed to the time allocation motion, provided that the minister or ministers be given sufficient time to respond.

I think that responds to the concern raised by our colleague, Mr. Strahl, to the extent that it states that the Speaker will have the discretion to try to give priority to those who are opposed to the time allocation motion. And if there are few or no interventions from the parties that oppose the motion and if members from the government would like to speak, the Speaker could give them the floor. However, this should not damage the ability to intervene of parties opposed to the time allocation motion.

Am I reading this sentence of the guidelines correctly, as it is drafted in French?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, and it is similar in English, in what would be the guidelines for the Speaker. However, it is not impossible that an opposition party might be in favour of time allocation.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In that case, it would be treated in the same way as the government side, according to the text we have here.

Mr. Robert Marleau: According to the text you have here, that party would have the floor after the parties that are opposed to the motion.

Mr. Stéphane Marleau: That are opposed to it.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, that are opposed to the time allocation motion.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: So they might not be given the floor as long as members representing parties opposed to the motion had something to say, but substantially more time would be given to parties opposed to the motion than to parties in favour of it.

Mr. Robert Marleau: That is correct.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I see. Perhaps that covers Mr. Strahl's concerns. Perhaps that would avoid our having to add something that might be an irritant for some of our committee colleagues.

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Point 2 of our draft states “the bells to call in the members shall be sounded for not more than 15 minutes”. I think we were far from reaching an agreement on this at our last meeting. In fact, I remember speaking at the very end of the meeting in support of Mr. Blaikie's position that we agree that the bells should ring for only 15 minutes, given that the debate is to last 45 minutes.

If it were not for the 45 minutes of debate, we were rather be in favour of keeping a 30-minute bell, as is the case at the moment. I would like to repeat this clarification, Mr. Chairman: in order for the bells to ring for only 15 minutes, there must be 45 minutes of debate. Otherwise, if there is only 30 minutes of debate, the bells should ring for half an hour.

“b” of Standing Order 78(3), in point 2 of our report states “the length of that debate shall be deemed to be one sitting day”. I made a comment about this to the clerk at the last meeting. He said I was right, and yet we have the original wording again. Perhaps it is simply because I was wrong, or because the clerk misunderstood my comment.

My point was that the passage should read “the length of that debate shall be deemed to be at least one sitting day”, because we cannot assume that the government House Leader would necessarily want to limit time allocation to a single sitting day.

I repeat the question I asked the clerk at the last meeting: would it not be preferable to say “at least one sitting day” rather than "one sitting day"?

Mr. Robert Marleau: It would be more precise to add “at least one sitting day”, but parliamentary precedents, dating back to Speaker Lamoureux, clearly show that one sitting day is the minimum.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: So we should in fact say “at least one sitting day”.

Mr. Robert Marleau: If you want to add that, it would be clearer, but according to the precedents dating back to 1969, the Speaker would not allow less than one sitting day.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: I indicated I would recognize Mr. Hill, but in an effort to keep all the parties represented, I could go to Mr. Blaikie, then come back to Mr. Hill. Is that okay, Mr. Hill?

Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, Canadian Alliance): Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I just wanted to reinforce the point I made when I initially stuck my hand up, when Mr. Marleau said it wasn't like question period. I think it is a lot like question period in the sense that one would want the rotation to be like question period. You go to the opposition parties first.

If there were a government member who wanted to get in and criticize the time allocation motion, that would fine and welcome. It also might be a time for a government member to ask a question about the bill, because it's not just about time allocation; it's also about the substance of the bill. Presumably, that's what government members would have more on their minds than criticizing the time allocation or asking a question about that. Of course, they could ask leading questions about the time allocation.

I wanted to make the point that I think it is opposition oriented. That's the quid pro quo here. We solve the report stage thing and we have something that's opposition oriented.

That's the only point I wanted to make, Mr. Chair.

On the other thing, I hope we could have some flexibility on both sides with respect to how long the period would be. I don't think there needs to be... As you know, I argued for 45 minutes on the basis that not so long ago we started a two-hour debate on time allocation, whenever the government moved it, up until 1991, I believe. I guess that's getting to be a long time ago.

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Anyway, to go to 45 minutes, I still think that would be reasonable. But my impression is the government members are fixed on 30 minutes or not permitted to go beyond 30 minutes, however we want to describe it. So I don't think we should let that get in the way. We've spent an awful lot of time on this, and I think we should try to come to some kind of agreement today.

We have the makings of an amendment to the standing order before us, and I would hope that either by consensus or... I would hope we wouldn't necessarily divide on this. I think we should try to find something we can agree on here. So I would urge colleagues on both sides to find the thing we can agree on. If it's a 30-minute question period and a 30-minute bell, if that's what the Bloc wants—that's what would be required in any event—I would hope nobody would want to make a big deal out of that. Let's see if we can get this thing done, or are we going to have endless meetings on this one standing order?

Mr. Gar Knutson: No.

The Chair: Mr. Blaikie has brought our attention to the context that we're dealing with here, the challenge of trying to reduce the horse trading and trying to reach a consensus. We'd have to be very lucky—and we may be lucky—since this is something that often doesn't happen around the table on the record. I pointed that out before, but we'll continue because we're obviously making some progress.

Mr. Hill.

Mr. Jay Hill: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We're all very lucky, because we're above ground. That's my opinion.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: We have been so far today anyway.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Why doesn't it feel like it?

Mr. Jay Hill: Depending on how it proceeds. I just want to—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Would you say that if Mr. Doyle were here?

A voice: Oh!

Mr. Jay Hill: I want to come back to a number of points, Mr. Chairman. The first is that there is no specific mention in the guidelines to the Speaker, and I'd just feel a bit more comfortable, I guess, if there were. I wrote something down here. I guess we could debate this endlessly for hours, wordsmithing the exact wording, but to me it's the intent that matters. I just wrote down “Whenever possible, to facilitate a lively debate, the chair will recognize a member for a succinct supplemental question”. I think that gets to what Mr. Blaikie and Mr. Strahl, and Stéphane too, for that matter, were alluding to.

It should be like question period. It should be an opposition time, primarily, to try to hold the minister accountable and the government accountable for enacting time allocation, and since there is no mention in the guidelines, I'd feel a bit more comfortable if there were some mention of the possibility of supplemental questions, recognizing that it's at the discretion of the Speaker.

It would probably depend on how many people jumped to their feet. If there were a whole bunch of people interested on that particular day, probably he or she would make the decision that there wouldn't be time for supplemental questions, in order to be fair to all the parties and all the members who obviously wanted to participate. I throw this out as a possibility.

I certainly agree with where I think Mr. Blaikie and Stéphane were going with the whole idea of the time, and Chuck mentioned it as well. The minister would use some of that 30 minutes, if that were the agreed upon time, to make his or her opening statement. I would suggest that if we're to shorten the bell... To me, it seems the way it's proposed is the way it's going here, a 30-minute statement and a 15-minute bell—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: There might be an opening answer. There won't be an opening statement.

Mr. Jay Hill: Oh.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: You just go to questions and comments from the opposition.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: No, the minister comments briefly on the motion. The minister starts with a comment. That's what it says under the standing order.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: That wasn't—

Mr. Jay Hill: Exactly!

...and of the Minister who has proposed the motion pursuant to this section of this Standing Order, and to comment briefly on the motion and the bill to which the motion pertains,—

Then it says “and to allow responses thereto”.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Then you have the 30-minute question period.

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Mr. Jay Hill: Yes.

I guess my point would be that if we were to agree that because... I mean, for there to be time allocation there has to be notice, so it's not like a totally unscheduled vote. The opposition has had some notice that time allocation is likely going to be brought forward.

Then if we were to concede that we only have a 15-minute bell versus the 30-minute bell, my suggestion would be that you put in the time limit as 45 minutes, recognizing that the minister is going to use some of that time for his or her opening statement. Then you're still going to have at least 30 minutes, or maybe 35, or whatever, depending on how—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Just don't take an hour.

Mr. Jay Hill: Yes.

So rather than what I hear being suggested, or what I understand being suggested, I suggest you set the time at 30 minutes and a 15-minute bell. If it's going to be a 15-minute bell, I think it should be at least 45 minutes, which would include the minister's statement. That's my second point.

The third point—

The Chair: I have to interrupt, because my reading of the section as drafted does not allow for an opening brief statement by the minister. It is written very clearly, and it says that the period involved is to allow an opportunity for members to ask questions and to comment briefly. The intervening words set out who the questions are directed to.

Just so we can keep focused, then, there is no ministerial statement that commences—

Mr. Jay Hill: Is that your understanding, Mr. Marleau?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, that's the way I read it as well. Maybe I misled the committee, in answering Mr. Strahl's question, about the minister's “statement”, which I think is the word you used. I would assume that the minister's statement comes in his first response to the first question.

Mr. Jay Hill: Oh, okay.

Mr. Robert Marleau: The initiative lies with opposing party members to launch the question and comment period, and I would assume that the minister states his case in his first response, again under the management of the Speaker to keep it brief and balanced.

Mr. Jay Hill: I appreciate that being cleared up.

My last point, then, is that where it says “or any Minister acting on behalf of that Minister”, would that include a parliamentary secretary, the way it's written?

Mr. Robert Marleau: No, sir. The way it's written, no, because it clearly uses the word “Minister”.

Mr. Jay Hill: Okay.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have a couple of issues. On the issue of the bell, I think it's important that people understand that if it's a longer bell it cuts into the debating time. I could be wrong on this, and I defer to people with more experience, but my understanding is that the longer bell doesn't cost the government anything, per se. It may cost people who value debating time in the House, but 15 minutes, a half-hour...

I don't want to say the royal “we” here, but I would be prepared to vote for a 30-minute bell. That's not a problem. There may be reasons why the opposition would want to think about a 15-minute bell. Mr. Bergeron is not... Oh, he is here.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, I'm here. I was listening.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Sorry.

In terms of the draft report that's in front of us, recommended paragraphs 78(3)(b) and (c) are fine. I'd like to propose some alternative wording to paragraph 78(3)(a). The gist of it would be that we would have the minister who's responsible for the conduct of the bill in the House. It would be our intent that from time to time it would be a secretary of state who would answer, not a parliamentary secretary. We wouldn't... but we need some flexibility on what ministers are available, and we find the language of acting wording too constrictive.

I just throw that out there.

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As well, I have a motion here, but I'm waiting for the French translation, which I expected by now. I don't want to pass out an English-only version.

In closing, I agree with Mr. Blaikie that it would be really good if we could get some opposition government agreement on this. I would prefer that it be done today. If that's not possible, then maybe we do need another meeting. But it would be really, really good if we could get close to consensus. I don't know that consensus or unanimity is possible, but perhaps we could get as close as possible.

Perhaps I can ask people to just respond to what I have said.

The Chair: I have indications from Mr. Strahl, Mr. Mahoney, and Mr. Blaikie, in that order.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I agree with Mr. Blaikie; I hope we don't try to fine-tune this thing so much that we've pushed it off to another day. I hope that whatever motion Mr. Knutson has prepared we can come in and deal with.

I do think, though, we've already devolved from the minister responsible, which is kind of the point of the thing, to the acting minister. Again, I don't think that's onerous, because you have to have an acting minister anyway.

You have two things here. One, the government picks its moment when this is going to happen. It's not a surprise to anyone. It's not like it's dropped on you. It's not going to come up and bite you in the rear end, because the government has to give notice of this.

So it's at the government's discretion when this is going to happen. They already know when it's going to happen. If the minister can't be there, well... You know, understandably, as we talked about the other day, that does happen from time to time.

But if the government can choose when this is going to happen, totally—they get the choice of when to bring the bill in and give notice of time allocation and so on, and they get to choose an acting minister to cover if the current minister isn't there—it seems to me the government has all the necessary discretion it needs with that.

I don't know the wording exactly, but the problem will be, as we work down the food chain, that it's not the minister any more. That's not good, but, oh, well, we understand. Then it's the acting minister. That's less good, but not so bad. But then it's the minister in charge of shepherding it through the House? We're now so far removed from where we want to be, I don't find it acceptable.

It seems to me that because of all the timing discretion that still lies with the government, there are still lots of ways that... You know, you don't even have to bring the bill in, as a rule. You don't have to bring it in during any given week, even. You can say, well, we're not going to bring in the bill this week but we're going to bring it in next Monday, give notice of time allocation, and have the minister here for Tuesday.

The government has the power to do that, and to say that it's just the minister in charge of shepherding it through the House is... You know, we've already gone to the acting minister thing, and I think that's far enough, if you want my opinion on it.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well, I do.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Otherwise, I think we should go with it, just give it its best guess, best efforts, and we can debate whether it's a 30-minute bell or not. I don't even care one way or the other. Make it 30 minutes and the whips could shorten it, if they want. Maybe leave it with the whips for discretion. But it does seem to me that it's good enough other than I don't want that part changed on the acting minister.

The Chair: Mr. Mahoney.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: On behalf of many of my colleagues who, on a clear day, can see the Speaker, I'm just a little concerned that I heard the suggestion from Mr. Strahl that there might be an amendment to make this only for opposition parties, and yet I think Mr. Blaikie said it should run the same way as question period, where the odd time a member of the government, or a member supporting the government, which is the technical definition—

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I won't make that amendment. I'm happy with the explanations following the third recommendation.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Great. Okay.

The Chair: Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I would hope, Mr. Chairman, given that we agree on the timing bell stuff, we could pass as is. I don't want to repeat the speech I made last week, but I will if I have to.

We started out with the idea that it would just be the minister. Then the government side says, well, maybe we should have the government House leader as well, because there might be questions about time allocation per se and not about the substance of the bill. We said okay.

Then at the next meeting you say, well, you know, the minister might not be here; we need some flexibility. So we work on that, and we say, well, we'll have the acting minister, or the minister acting for the minister. Okay. Everything's cool.

• 1155

Now there's more. I mean, what is this, some kind of a Chinese parliamentary water torture or something—drip, drip, drip—from Knutson there? Every time he comes back he has one more concession to ask from the opposition on this. No. It's only going to last until the end of December, and if this carries on we won't even pass it by the end of December, because every meeting we come back to, he's going to have another concession that we have to have written into another draft.

Let's give this a try. As Mr. Strahl said, it's not like the government doesn't have any control over when this happens. If they can't produce a minister or an acting minister in a context they themselves plan, things are pretty sad around here. It's starting to look like you're trying to protect the ministers; like you don't want the ministers to be subjected to this; and you want to put some poor second stringer in there to get beat up. That's just not acceptable. Let's give this a try. It expires on December 31, for heaven's sake.

Mr. Jay Hill: How many times are you going to use time allocation before December?

An hon. member: Oh, quite a few.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have a couple of points. I don't think the view of my esteemed colleague from the NDP that somehow we agree on one day and then when we come back to the meeting the next day we change the agreement is quite fair.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Well, put it all on the table to begin with then.

Mr. Gar Knutson: With this report—to put it all on the table—I've prepared the language, and I think it would be an offence to parliamentary procedure to distribute an English copy when I don't have a French copy. I take full responsibility for that and I apologize for that. But it was drafted in response to a report that I think was e-mailed to us late last evening. I apologize for not being able to put it all out on the table. But I feel I've indicated right from the beginning that we wanted flexibility—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: And we've given it to you.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Hold on. We wanted flexibility on which ministers would be there. The opposition doesn't have the right to address their questions to a particular minister in question period. They don't have the right to demand that the minister of HRDC stand up to answer a particular question. Sometimes she does, sometimes the Prime Minister stands up, sometimes it's—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Question period isn't about a particular bill. This will be about a particular bill.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Some questions are about a particular issue in regard to a particular minister and could be about a particular bill, but the government still gets the opportunity to decide who answers on behalf of the government.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: But you have the House leader in there for that.

Mr. Gar Knutson: We're trying to meet the opposition halfway, in terms of what they've said. They don't want it to be another late show. Fine. So we're excluding parliamentary secretaries from the operation. It's not our intent to send in the B team, but the secretary of state for finance may appear for the Minister of Finance because time allocation may have nothing to do with the issue of the bill. It may have to do with bills that have to come up later. This whole business that we have so much control—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Then you have the House leader.

Mr. Gar Knutson: —over the agenda is certainly not the view from this side. Last night there was a bill that I thought was going to be passed on division, and the opposition put a legitimate motion—I'm not knocking what they did—to adjourn for the day. We don't know when those things are going to come up.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: You know when time allocation is going to come up.

Mr. Gar Knutson: We know when time allocation is going to come up—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: That's the one thing you can decide, and that's what this is about.

Mr. Gar Knutson: —but we don't know what circumstances are going to arise that will force us, from our point of view, into time allocation. The opposition tactics or behaviour often force us to feel we need to bring in time allocation, and we don't have control over that. So this whole business that we can somehow put this out over a grand plan, that we can precisely say when the bill is going to move through, that we're going to have time allocation precisely at this moment, and therefore we can make the minister available, I don't think is realistic.

• 1200

I'll say for emphasis what I said earlier. We don't want this to break down on party lines. We don't want all the Liberals voting one way and all the opposition members voting another. If the only issue left is the sort of wording around what minister is going to come, I think we should try to work that out between now and Tuesday, rather than spend a lot of time here.

The Chair: We're going to need a material degree of bipartisan support to make any of this stuff fly.

I'll just recap where we are, so we can all take note of it. We have an A part, or a number 1 part, to this draft that revises the way we vote in the House of Commons, with a view to shrinking the amount of time we spend voting. That is proposed on a trial basis. It would benefit all members. There's a perception that it would benefit the government members because beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. I think it might be fair to say it would benefit all members in economizing the time we spend voting.

The second part of this is to change the existing procedure used in time allocation. We will all recall that currently, to move a time allocation, the minister is only required to give notice and to move the motion, which is non-debatable. It's essentially a half-hour bell ringing before the vote takes place. So that's a pretty simple procedure. It's the one we have; we've had it for several years, and it's a pretty expeditious procedure.

At this stage, the government members are allowing that it might be useful to have a period of questions and answers that preceded a vote on time allocation. I would have assumed that the principal issue in that period would have been why we were time allocating; not necessarily the issues in the bill itself, but why the government must time-allocate. What's the rush? What's the need?

Keep in mind that after the time allocation vote, if it passes, there is time for debate, but it's strictly limited. The wording of the proposed motion here would ensure that each of the recognized parties would have a window to debate, a speaking time slot, following the adoption of a time allocation.

The government members don't want to make this any more complicated than it has to be, nor do the opposition members. Keep in mind that it's a trial. Whatever we put in place, I think it's agreed that it would only be put in place until the end of the year.

With what we've done here, we've started to make it a little bit complicated, and I wish we could go back to square one and try to keep it simple.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Let's not go back to square one.

The Chair: I wish we could, but now we have these complexities.

Let's continue our discussion, recognizing Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Maybe we could clear up one thing, if I could ask the clerk about this. Where it says “the minister... or any minister acting on behalf of that minister”, can that be a secretary of state? Can a secretary of state be a minister acting on behalf of the minister, according to this writing?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Secretaries of state, since they were introduced in 1993, have been treated equally as ministers. They can move motions; they can second them. They have been recognized by the chairs as operating on behalf of the minister. So the answer is yes.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. So under this current wording it's already there; the government has the discretion. If Mr. Peterson is the go-to guy, because the bill is on financial institutions, they can already put him in.

Mr. Gar Knutson: He made reference to a list that defines acting minister a little more narrowly than just whomever the government decides to put up.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Yes, but we don't want whoever the minister is going to put up. We want the acting—

• 1205

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Not all ministers have secretaries of state. Those who don't have secretaries of state would have designated acting ministers if they were out of town.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: It gives you lots of room.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Maybe the clerk could explain that to us. What is this going to mean, then? Does it mean, like Bill says, for the ones who have secretaries of state, that is their fall-to or go-to person?

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Are the secretaries of state automatically the acting minister?

Mr. Robert Marleau: That's outside my realm of expertise.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I see.

Mr. Robert Marleau: The government may indeed have an acting minister where there is a secretary of state relationship, for its own reasons. It's up to the Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office to establish the acting list, and for whatever reason. I assume it's entirely in the Prime Minister's capacity to appoint a more senior acting minister in a portfolio that has a secretary of state.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: It would be discretionary, then. Again, the government can choose. They may want to put up Mr. Peterson, for example, because it's financial institutions, or they may say they would just as soon put Mr. Collenette up because they think he has more experience in handling the media. But it would be up to them totally to make that list, as you described; the PMO makes up the list for whatever brilliant reasons they have.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I have no idea how they craft that list. From time to time it is published; it is sent out for administrative reasons. That's up to the government, really.

The Chair: I'm going to intervene here to get some clarity.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I need some clarity as well.

The Chair: The status of acting minister is a formal designation by the Privy Council. Is that correct, Mr. Clerk?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, that's my understanding, for the Prime Minister.

The Chair: Once that designation is made, the person who is the acting minister would act, for all government purposes, on behalf of the minister for whom he or she was acting and designated? Is that correct?

Mr. Robert Marleau: That's my understanding.

The Chair: So it's a fairly substantial appointment. It cuts across all of government. I don't know and you may not know—you can tell me—how significant that type of appointment is and what impacts it has across government or in the House.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I wouldn't risk an opinion on it.

The Chair: No. Well, it might not be the kind of thing you do just on the spur of the moment in the way we replace members here routinely at committees, with a piece of paper. The concept of designating an acting minister may in fact be more substantial and more significant than we've acknowledged here.

So I'll leave that issue unaddressed, and I'll recognize Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I don't think we're trying to make this onerous. If acting minister for the purposes of this motion is different from the PMO list, I don't even care about that. It's just that a guy should know, going in, who he's going to be questioning.

As you say, I don't know what powers are given to acting ministers out of the Prime Minister's office. All we're trying to do is make sure we know who we're going to deal with when we're dealing with the bill. That's all. We're not trying to be fussy here, but we want to know that it's not just that somebody gets tapped on the shoulder in the lobby and told, they're going to ask some questions, so why doesn't somebody go in there and answer them? All we want is to know that we're going to get a minister—

Mr. Gar Knutson: And you are.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: —who has been designated by the government as the acting minister, who can answer for the bill.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Okay, we're prepared to do that. We have to find some wording.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson has offered a draft, which we have now in front of us, and members have had a chance to read it.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Mr. Chair, in terms of what Mr. Strahl just said, we're agreeing to do that. It's not our intent to look bad in this ad hoc question period. It's going to be televised, so it's not our intent to put up somebody who doesn't know anything about the bill or about the issues that are going to be addressed. That would embarrass the government. However, we didn't want to be confined to a legal or technical definition of what an acting minister is. I think we're close to an agreement in concept and it's just a matter of finding wording.

• 1210

I'm proposing as an amendment... and if the opposition wants to stick with a 30-minute bell, even though the way this is written it's for a 15-minute bell, I'll change that.

Do you want me to read this in?

The Chair: It's probably too long to read.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'm proposing this as an amendment to the report, and I would point out to my colleagues that there's a fair bit here in the report that we're not changing.

We're not changing paragraphs 78(3)(b) or 78(3)(c), or anything on page 3.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: You're just saying the minister is responsible.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes, the minister is.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: It could be whom?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well, it would likely be the House leader and one minister who can answer the questions, the substantive issues on the bill, on that day.

If, for example, the current fisheries minister is tied up in delicate negotiations on the Marshall case or the Atlantic fishery with native groups, then we may send in a previous fisheries minister to answer for him. We're saying we wouldn't send in his parliamentary secretary, so we'd have to find somebody who would answer intelligently to deal with the issues that are going to be raised on that specific day. We're asking for some flexibility in case the minister is unavailable.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: It says “ministers responsible for the conduct of the bill in the House”.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: So who would they be? It doesn't say “any minister”; it says “ministers responsible for the conduct of the bill in the House”.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson, I'm assuming you've chosen your words carefully.

Mr. Marleau, would there be any other references in our standing orders that would be similar to that phrase, “ministers responsible for the conduct of the bill in the House”? Does that capture a concept already existing in the standing orders anywhere, or is it something relatively new?

Mr. Robert Marleau: I'm spinning my hard disk drive here, sir, but I don't recall any such phrase in the standing orders. This would be a new concept.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Heretofore, any minister can act on behalf of the government.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Exactly, like question period, then.

The Chair: Yes, so “a minister” would involve a minister or ministers put forward by the government for the purposes of the conduct of this bill in the House and held forth as that when this question period came up.

Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: That's one thing. I think this turns it into the discretion being so broad that, again, it will be like question period. It will be the discretion of somebody to pick the minister, any minister, the minister du jour, and I don't think that's what we have in mind here.

There are two other things in this—and this is obviously a brief read-over. But to comment briefly on the motion, it needs to say “or the bill”. We're not just going to be talking about the motion. We may say, this is the DEVCO bill, and blow our stack as to why we think it has been rushed through and what we were concerned about in the bill, or whatever.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If you look at the original report, on the first line, the motion to which it's referring is a time allocation motion.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Right. But it says we can ask questions and comment briefly on the motion, in other words, just on the time allocation, whereas this other one on which we've spent the last couple of meetings says, “to comment briefly on the motion and the bill to which the motion pertains”. So if we could put that back in, “the motion and the bill to which the motion pertains”, that's one thing.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Sure.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: The other thing is, it is a shorter motion, and perhaps there's some value in that, but it does take out—probably because, from the government's point of view, they want it out of there—any ideas about the infringement on the rights of the minority or anything like that, and it doesn't give any specificity to the discretion of the Speaker, again, which is part and parcel of what we've been talking about for the last couple of days.

The purpose of the whole thing in getting the Speaker involved, at least from my point of view when I put the proposal forward, is to say, let's get the Speaker into the mix on time allocation. If the Speaker is not convinced that this is in the best interest of the House, or whatever, then he can say, “Well, no, I'm not ready for time allocation today. I've seen 75 people standing in their place, and no one has been able to speak on it. I think we should wait another day or half-day before we entertain this motion.” It gives the Speaker some discretion. That's the whole purpose of the last half of the original paragraph (a).

• 1215

Mr. Gar Knutson: Right, and that's a big change—

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Agreed.

Mr. Gar Knutson: —that we're not prepared to agree to. And on the issue of language regarding the rights of the minority, the minority could be one member.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Well, you'll have to trust the judgment of the Speaker.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: But, again, the purpose of getting the Speaker involved... I don't claim to be a procedural expert at all, but it does seem to me that if your Speaker is your neutral arbiter for all things in the place, especially on points of order and procedure, and he comes forward and makes a ruling...

What we're trying to get on this is... we're saying, listen, what we're going to give up on the opposition side is the ability to really foul up the government. You're talking about fouling it up, and we've had two examples this spring of what we can do with the report stage amendments and all the voting and so on. So we're willing to give that up. That's something that's been... we could argue about how effective it has been, but it has scared the ginger out of the government a couple of times, and they've been unhappy with it. And that's what this whole thing is about, right? That's what they want to get rid of.

Mr. Gar Knutson: You'll still have the right... Instead of bringing in 500 amendments, you'd have to bring in 5,000, if you wanted to force us into four nights of voting—

Mr. Chuck Strahl: But it's a practical restriction on what's happened. And I don't disagree that the House should deal with that. I don't say they're doing the wrong thing here. All I'm saying is, if we're going to give that up—and that's what we're going to do here, we're going to give that up—we want some modification on the time allocation.

One is access to the minister. The other is for the Speaker to be involved—not on behalf of the opposition, but on behalf of the House—as the neutral person we have all elected to rule on House process, to have him into the mix, just as part of the mix. He's not going to bring a motion to time-allocate himself, but he's part of the mix now that says “We've had one speaker from each party and that's not enough”. The Speaker might say “I think we should have at least one more, so I'm not prepared to entertain this motion until this afternoon”, or until an hour from now, or whatever.

That's absolutely what it's about. The Speaker is not going to be cavalier about this, but he at least then would say, “Based on what I have seen”... If the House is jammed, if the nation's seized of it, if it's a bunch of things, he might say “I'm going to give this another four hours of debate, because I'm just not convinced we've listened to this enough”.

I realize the government wouldn't totally control it, but that was the whole idea of having the Speaker involved. The Speaker then becomes part of it, and routinely would say, I would think, “The motion is in order. I'm convinced there are no problems. Let the vote continue.” We would get a little crack at the minister as to what is going on, but it would proceed as usual.

But on rare occasions when the Speaker is not satisfied it's been done properly, because it's an infringement on the rights of the minority, or however you want to phrase it, he will be part of that decision-making process. I realize the government gives up something there, but it's not like it's going to be Foreversville. It's just something that, I think, would gain the Speaker some more respect and more of the role as that arbiter, which we could use from time to time.

The Chair: Yes. Just for the consumption of all colleagues—I'm sure Mr. Strahl has noticed it, and he may have even mentioned it—there is a reference in Mr. Knutson's draft, a proviso stating:

if the Speaker is satisfied that the motion is not an abuse of the rules of the House

It's not correct that there is nothing there for the Speaker to note. I accept it's materially different from the procedure.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Can I ask one question of the clerk, just to clarify?

The Chair: Yes. Mr. Kilger wants to get a word in. I'll recognize Mr. Kilger first.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh, Lib.): Mr. Chair, following along on the intervention of Mr. Strahl, I'd like to ask a question to the clerk.

I'm of the view that to a great extent at least, the Speaker already has in his responsibilities, in his duties as a House officer, the protection of the rights of the minority, or one member in this case, an independent member or otherwise, any member of any party, government or opposition. That is built into or is inherent in his duties as the Speaker of the House.

• 1220

Mr. Robert Marleau: My answer last week was that it was intrinsic to the Speaker's role to tend to the tyranny of either side when it does occur. And we have some practise in Canada to that effect.

However, in the context of time allocation, since it was introduced in 1968, speakers have ruled that when the hoops that are defined in the standing orders have been gone through, the Speaker has no role in rejecting the timing of such a motion coming forward, and is also steered away from commenting on the quality of or defining “consultations”, because each part of that standing order—78.(1),78.(2), and 78.(3)—says “after consultation”.

So yes, intrinsically, I suppose, if a government, on every bill, after debate was begun that prior day, moved notice of time allocation on every single piece of legislation coming before the House, an audacious Speaker might step in some day. But in the context of time allocation, we have lots of jurisprudence that says that if these elements, as reflected in the existing standards, have been met, the Speaker has no role.

Mr. Bob Kilger: I'm not yet convinced that putting the Speaker in that situation would serve the best interests of the House. From the government's perspective, the idea that the Speaker could somehow defer his decision to the next day, I can assure you... We have difficulty now, in terms of planning things around the availability of individuals and the collectivity of people, so if somehow or other the time allocation decision were to be deferred to another day, it would be totally unacceptable. I don't want to beat around the bush with that one. Certainly that's a non-starter.

The Chair: I'd like to ask the clerk—Mr. Strahl wanted to comment as well—whether, in his view, the insertion now in Mr. Knutson's draft of the proviso requiring the Speaker to be satisfied that there is not an abuse of the practices changes in any way the role of the Speaker.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I confess, sir, I don't know what it means, because we have no practice related to this motion in this context. I suppose over time there might be built a certain amount of practice or jurisprudence, where the Speaker can look to those words and interpret them as having to take some sort of action.

I would assume that if the motion received prior notice, if the original bill... if the motion upon which the bill is based was debated at a prior sitting and this occurred, at the end of which the Speaker put the question, it would be difficult for the Speaker to see any such initiative as being an abuse of a practice.

Again, you're laying down the hoops. The Speaker would say, “No, you skipped this hoop. You didn't give notice; therefore, you're out of order”; or “You didn't begin debate at a prior sitting, so you can't give notice today”; or “You're allotting less than a sitting day; therefore, you're out of order”. Whatever hoops you set down the Speaker will look at as being the practice. If you abuse one of those, he'll intervene. But he does that now.

So that statement is one that would have to stand the test of time, in terms of what it truly means. And you have only until December 31, under this context.

The Chair: Okay. So this causes the Speaker to advert to the possibility of an abuse, and it would be up to members to point out or allege an abuse of whatever nature. The Speaker would then fly with what he or she thought was fair.

• 1225

Would you agree that this draft puts more there than exists now, as a preliminary consideration to a time allocation procedure? Is that a fair statement?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Yes, it puts more there, and there are more words the Speaker would look at, particularly the word “abuse”, which is not a concept that the Speaker has had to deal with in time allocation heretofore.

The Chair: Okay. Back to Mr.—

Mr. Gar Knutson: Can I respond?

The Chair: There are two things happening here, folks. The bell is ringing in the House—we're not sure why. They must be getting along well in the House. Secondly, we're coming up close to 12:30 p.m., and we've agreed to try to stick to the 12:30 adjournment time, but I'm seeing indications from Mr. Strahl, Mr. Knutson, and Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'll defer to them.

The Chair: I really have Mr. Knutson first—I had his name down—and then I would add, in order... I'm not sure whether it's Mr.—

Mr. Gar Knutson: You can take my name off the list.

The Chair: Okay. Then I'll go to Mr. Bergeron, then Mr. Strahl.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I understand from what Mr. Knutson says that he changed his proposed amendment himself to say that the bells would ring for not more than 30 minutes.

Second, I quite agree with the arguments made by my colleagues, Mr. Blaikie and Mr. Strahl, to the effect that it would be difficult for opposition members to accept less than what we had agreed upon at the last meeting, or, at least, less than what we thought we had agreed upon at the last meeting, that is "acting ministers" or "ministers acting on behalf of" from what I understand from the new version.

The same is true of the role of the Speaker which the report introduced in a rather original way in section 1(a), and which has been deleted from Mr. Knutson's proposed amendment.

Third, both the French and English versions of the first sentence seem quite incomprehensible to me, and I'm sure you can explain to me, first why the government is amending it, and what it means. What I'm getting at is this. Should this sentence read as follows:

The motion shall not be subject to debate or amendment except, after a Minister has proposed a motion pursuant to this section of this Standing Order.

Or should it read as follows:

Unless a Minister has proposed a motion pursuant to this section of this Standing Order, a period of time shall be made available, if required, to permit members, including a member of each officially recognized party...

It is not clear what the word “except” is linked to. Is it linked to the first part of the sentence or to the second part of the sentence? After reading the English version, I think both the French and English versions are equally incomprehensible.

I am not sure of whom I should ask the question, but if someone can answer it...

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: The word “except” is on which line?

The Chair: The first line.

Mr. Gar Knutson: “The motion shall not be subject to debate or amendment except”—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If you like, Mr. Chairman, I could perhaps ask the question again, because some colleagues seem a little confused.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: No, I understand. It replaces the word “however” in the original. So we can take it out; take out the word “except”.

The Chair: Replace “except” with “however”.

Mr. Gar Knutson: No, just take the word out: “The motion shall not be subject”.

• 1230

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Removing it makes it even worse.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: Maybe we should start a new sentence.

The Chair: I think we have to have a linkage, a proviso, to the statement that the motion shall not be subject to debate or amendment, and the proviso or exception is that there will be a question period.

The clerk has some good advice for us here.

Mr. Robert Marleau: This is a suggestion. I think you could simply start the paragraph by saying, “The motion shall not be subject to debate or amendment”, period. New sentence: “However, after a minister has proposed a motion pursuant to this section of the Standing Order, a period of time shall be made available”.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: So the "except" applied to the second part of the sentence, not to the first part of the sentence.

Mr. Robert Marleau: "Except" is a poor choice of words.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If we agree on the structure of the sentence, I will repeat my question. What leads the government to make this amendment? What is the government trying to achieve by changing the original wording?

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: Can I respond?

The Chair: Please.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If we're going to mess with time allocation beyond making a half-hour available for the opposition to ask questions, and if we're going to give grounds to the opposition as to when a time allocation may be ruled out of order, which is my impression of what Mr. Strahl's original intent was, that opens up a huge can of worms.

It's our view that the time allocation power not only allows us to get our agenda through, but it does other things. It protects the parliamentary calendar. We know when we come to work every day that the day is going to end at 6:30 p.m. We know we're going to have a certain number of break weeks. We know we have so many weeks off during the summer. If we enable the Speaker to rule time allocation motions out of order, there would be a number of things that might be consequential to that, from our point of view. One is eliminating the parliamentary calendar, the preset times for adjournment, and the times for breaks—and we're not prepared to accept the possibility that this might happen.

I don't think we're going to be able to finish today, but I'll just say this. If the opposition believes they're giving us a great concession in terms of the whipped votes, it's not our view that they are, but if they do believe they're giving us a great concession, then it would be logical in my mind that they were looking for something fairly major in return, and I think Mr. Strahl's motion is fairly major.

It's the government's perspective that we're not getting a great concession, that the opposition can still find ways to force us through all-night voting if they generally want to do that. My own view is that eventually it won't be newsworthy and so it won't be worth doing, but that's just my own personal view. But because we don't feel we're getting this great concession, we're not prepared to give the opposition a great concession, and we think giving the Speaker some powers to rule time allocation motions out of order would be a significant concession. That's the gist of why the bulk of the remainder of what we've taken out, we've taken out.

On issues of how long the bell rings, we can work that out. I think we're close to wording on flexibility in terms of allowing the government to put forward what minister, but on this other thing, I generally believe we're back to square one, and that may not be a bad thing.

The Chair: Okay.

The Knutson draft is a simpler provision, but it is a continuing basis for discussion. There may be modifications that could be made to it that would address any concerns that some members have. The glove may not fit, we may not reach agreement, but at least there are now two separate drafts available to us.

Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Chairman, it may not be that it's a big deal to the government. I don't know. I do know that when they brought in motion number 10 it was just about a catastrophe around here, and that dealt with the same subject matter, which was the ability of the government to do what point one is on this whole thing. It was a big deal at the time. Parliament was just about seized with it, as you know, and they questioned the Speaker. It was a big deal.

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Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: So I think it is a big deal for the government. I don't buy the argument that the government... somebody in the government wants this badly. I got that six ways from Sunday from a lot of folks of substance, which could be anybody on the government side, who have been telling me that. I don't buy that. I think it is important.

As an example, I refer you to the very first bill of the Parliament, Bill C-2, which was a huge bill on the future of the Canada Pension Plan. We had two hours of debate on that in total, and they brought in closure or time allocation. That to me is an example. It doesn't happen every time. Sometimes I say the government has to do what it has to do, and we all say I wish they wouldn't bring in closure, but we understand it's gone on for a couple of days and there's been a dilatory motion brought forward, so they do what they have to do. We all wish they didn't, but that's the government's job.

Bill C-2 is an example. There's no amendment on the books, no indication that it's going to go for weeks. It was two hours of debate and then the government brought in the time allocation and it was over—on arguably one of the biggest bills of Parliament.

If I could find one example of saying... I would think in that case, under the original ruling the Speaker would wisely say, listen, there are no amendments, there is no indication that there's a filibuster going on, there's nothing else that I can see happening. What's going on after two hours? What's going on? What it was, of course, was a complete abdication of democracy by the government on that bill. They just said they didn't want anybody to talk about the bill.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I think it was the December 31 deadline, if I remember correctly.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Two hours? Anyway the point is that's why we had that in there. There may be better wording.

Mr. Chairman, we have these two versions in front of us. Perhaps we can do some negotiations and talk between now and the next meeting. I don't mind trying that. But the idea that this isn't important to the government I find a little puzzling, since it was, as I say, a big enchilada here just a short while ago.

I don't think we're going to solve it today by the look of it. Maybe we should adjourn.

The Chair: Yes, we're close. Just give me a moment to speak with the clerk.

Colleagues, we may have a chance to talk to each other in the meantime, but it's agreed we'll come back and continue this next Tuesday at 11 a.m.

Thank you. We're adjourned.