PROC Committee Report
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Supplementary Opinion —
The New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party has brought forth recommendations that give the Speaker the tools needed to bring order and control to the House of Commons. The solution takes the cooperation of parties to give the Speaker more power. The New Democratic Party has been a vocal supporter of keeping decorum in the House of Commons. The NDP strongly believes that the Speaker should be given further powers to deal with disruptive members.
The Speaker is the servant of the House, and must reflect the collective will of the Chamber. Whips and House Leaders have a responsibility to give the Speaker further authority to discipline Members or groups of Members when they disrupt the order of the House of Commons. These issues have been persistent and have to be dealt with as soon as possible. We cannot have teachers reluctant to bring their students to Parliament because they are embarrassed by the bad behaviour of their federal elected representatives. This is unacceptable.
This pattern of misbehaving needs to stop. Therefore, for that reason the NDP strongly recommends the following procedures:
Recommendations
That the Standing Orders be amended to give the Speaker clear authority to expel a disruptive Member from the Chamber and from accessing the Parliamentary Precincts for a prescribed period of time, and that the party Whips give their support to the Speaker in such rulings. This can be done by adding to Standing Order 11, notwithstanding Standing Order 15, in order to give the Speaker the authority to take away the privilege of not only removing a Member from the House of Commons for a day but to not allow the Member to attend committees and or have the use of his/her parliamentary office for the period of time prescribed by the Speaker. This will not apply if there is a vote of confidence. A Whip of a party shall be allowed to call upon the member to attend a vote of confidence during that time. The Member will be allowed to come into the House an hour before the vote and leave immediately after the vote is taken.
The New Democratic Party recommends that Whips give their collective authority to allow the Speaker to remove questions from the prescribed rotation of questions during question period when a Member or Members of their party are not cooperative with the rules of decorum and cause significant delays in procedures in the House of Commons particularly during Question Period.