HAFF Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Á

1110

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.))

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—James Bay—Nunavik, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Guy St-Julien

The Chair

Á

1115

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, CPC)

The Chair

The Chair

Hon. Elinor Caplan (Thornhill, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

Hon. Elinor Caplan

The Chair

Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, CPC)

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, CPC)

The Chair

Hon. Elinor Caplan

Á

1120

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Hon. Elinor Caplan

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

Hon. Elinor Caplan

Mr. Chuck Strahl

Hon. Elinor Caplan

Mr. Chuck Strahl

Á

1125

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Hon. Elinor Caplan

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher)

The Chair

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Á

1130

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Á

1135

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ)

The Chair

Hon. Lorne Nystrom

The Chair

Á

1140

Mrs. Judi Longfield

The Chair

Mrs. Judi Longfield

The Chair

Mr. James Robertson

The Chair

Mr. James Robertson

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

Mr. Chuck Strahl

The Chair

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

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NUMBER 002

l

3rd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Thursday, February 12, 2004

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Order.

    Our principal item of business is the report of the steering committee, which you have before you. I hope that everybody in fact has at least four pieces. We have the agenda, which is the long sheet. You have the report of the steering committee, which is future business, Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. You have a draft report on televising meetings, which is a two-page document, marked “confidential”. Then you also have a single sheet, which I will explain when we get to it, also marked “confidential”. It concerns Standing Order 92(4)(a). So you should have those four pieces.

    What I would propose to do is go through, if I can, the report of our steering committee and take it item by item. At the suggestion of the steering committee, we have them in an order in which there are things at the beginning that we hope we can just do now and expedite matters. As we proceed down the list we get to situations where there are recommendations from the steering committee that we know we have to discuss. For example, we might have to discuss the precedence that we give to certain topics in our work, or the amount of time we might give to different topics in our work.

    If we could begin with the first one, it is a motion to appoint our subcommittee on private members' business. That is the first item on the agenda sheet.

    Guy St-Julien.

[Translation]

    Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—James Bay—Nunavik, Lib.): I move the motion.

    The Chair: Moved by Mr. Guy St-Julien

[English]

    You have the motion before you on the establishment of the subcommittee on private members' business. You see the names that have been submitted. Is there any discussion of that motion? It's the first one on the agenda sheet.

    Guy.

[Translation]

    Mr. Guy St-Julien: I nominate Marcel Proulx as chairman.

    The Chair: Yes, it is included in the motion.

[English]

    Okay, colleagues, you've seen the motion. We'll wait a moment while our colleagues from the Bloc.... Il faut attendre une minute.

    We're on the first item of the report on future business. You go from there to the motion, which is the first motion on the agenda sheet, establishing a subcommittee on private members' business. It has been moved by Guy St-Julien.

    (Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Á  (1115)  

    The Chair: The second item is the appointment of a subcommittee on electoral boundaries readjustment. It's the second motion.

    Now, you should know all we're doing here is bringing together the same people who worked on the electoral boundaries. They conducted a post-mortem on the process. They're going to sort of refine the draft report that they did and present it to us.

    Would somebody move the second motion? Moved by Diane St-Jacques.

    Discussion?

    Yes, Dale, please.

    Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, CPC): In the second motion, Mr. Chairman, there's a blank there. I would like to insert the name Scott Reid.

    The Chair: Okay, Scott Reid.

    Colleagues, there's a blank because of course the number of parties has changed. So one of the two people who were on are now in the same party. Scott Reid is going to be the member.

    So, including Scott Reid, moved by Diane St-Jacques.

    (Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

    The Chair: The third item has to do with Garry Breitkreuz's motions. This is on the second page of the agenda, motions from Mr. Breitkreuz. There are in fact two motions there. I would sooner deal with them separately.

    The first one you'll see: that whenever the main estimates or supplementary estimates are tabled in the House and referred to the committee, the Speaker or Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, as the case may be, and the appropriate senior officials be invited to appear at a televised meeting of the committee.

    Now, I have to say to you, as chair, I draw your attention to the televised part. It could be that there could be technical problems involved there, although in theory, every committee meeting can nowadays be televised. I assume Garry means that we would meet in one of the two permanently equipped rooms. I would certainly undertake to do everything possible, and as a senior committee we do have some influence over those things.

    I want to draw it to your attention, because there may arise some circumstance when it might not be possible to call them for some time, simply because someone has been given priority in that room.

    Bearing that in mind, with regard to the first paragraph there, would someone care to move that? Moved by Dale Johnston.

    Is there any discussion of that?

    Yes, Elinor Caplan

    Hon. Elinor Caplan (Thornhill, Lib.): I agree completely there. I don't think there's any problem. If you just add “wherever possible”, that would give you some flexibility, because I'd hate to see the committee not be able to meet if it wasn't possible to book a committee room that was televised.

    I don't think anyone has any concerns, so if we could just add “where possible”, then that would give the chair some flexibility. If it were impossible, it wouldn't hold up the committee.

    The Chair: It's your motion, Dale.

    Mr. Dale Johnston: It's just a matter of scheduling, isn't it?

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: Where it says “televised”, that means we couldn't meet unless it was televised, if we pass this motion as is. So I think we all agree.

    The Chair: That's not what I was trying to explain. I can't imagine, but let's say there was a national inquiry going on in both TV rooms and it was there, booked for a month; we would not be able to meet. That's what I mean.

    Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): With this government, it's probably going to happen.

    The Chair: I'll use another example.

    Dale, it's up to you.

    Loyola.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, CPC): Just as one point, I'm sure there are times when, whether it's televised or not, we wouldn't be concerned, but what I would be concerned about is if there is a meeting that we think should be televised and we can fabricate some arrangement that would prevent that from happening. So I would think for any meeting that the group or members of the group feel should be televised, then arrangements would have to be made, whether it be postponed or whatever.

    The Chair: Loyola, you're in charge of these things. I have some sense that such a motion is being presented to every committee. If that's so, that in itself might in fact block the TV room, because it might be committed for some other committee.

    I'm not trying to be awkward, but....

    Chuck Strahl.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, CPC): You could do it either way. It becomes a negative option billing kind of thing. If you start off by saying “Let's televise it”, and you come back and say “I tried to get a room and there's no room available--does anybody mind having it here instead?”, then we can just say “Let's do it”. If we start off with the supposition that we'll try to televise it, if it can't be done, then by all means, come back.

    This way, it's the preferred method. If you can't get the room, then by all means just come back to the committee and we'll arrange it.

    The Chair: Elinor Caplan.

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: Then it would require an actual motion of the committee, and the committee would have to meet to decide that they were going to then decide to hold a meeting that was contrary to the motion, which is why I'm just suggesting “wherever possible” and that the chair is so directed.

    No one has any concerns about doing this; I just would hate to see the work of the committee held up so that we couldn't do our work because it would take all our time figuring out how to get by this motion.

    It would actually take a formal motion by the committee to override this if we pass it today without the words “if possible” or “wherever possible” attached to it. That's the only thing I'm pointing out.

Á  (1120)  

    Mr. Dale Johnston: I think the committee is, as we're heard so many times, the master of its destiny. We can pass any kind of motion as to another date to--

    The Chair: Let me say, now, with all this discussion on the record, I'm quite comfortable, as chair, for the moment, and we could always refer back to this discussion--as long as you understand my point, okay?

    Colleagues, in the light of that discussion, I'll call the question on Dale Johnston's motion with respect to the first paragraph.

    (Motion negatived) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

    The Chair: Would someone move Garry Breitkreuz's second motion?

    Mr. Dale Johnston: So moved.

    The Chair: This is the motion, colleagues, referring to the Auditor General's report. I was going to draw attention to the same point in it. I won't, because I've already done so.

    Is there any discussion?

    Elinor Caplan.

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: If we can amend it to say “wherever possible”, then it's absolutely supportable, but I would hate to see the work of this committee put in limbo because we couldn't meet the condition of “televised”.

    The Chair: Is there any further discussion?

    Dale Johnston.

    Mr. Dale Johnston: Are you telling me that there are only two possibilities for a televised meeting? There's no possibility of bringing in other cameras?

    The Chair: My understanding of the situation, Dale, is this. And I have done this. I can invite commercial media or suggest that they come to hearings of this committee. As long as they give me notice, under the next item we're going to deal with, they can come in here if they wish. But I can't tell them to come.

    My understanding is that the House only has the equipment for the two rooms. I can't go to them and say send a camera to this room. That's my understanding.

    Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.): But we can invite them to this room.

    The Chair: We can. By the way, they can come uninvited as long as they serve notice. They have to leave the cameras in place from gavel to gavel. There are rules, but it can be done. That was the point I was trying to make at the beginning. So we're essentially stuck with these two rooms.

    We changed this motion, as you know, so that it referred to this committee. I had assumed it was generic and that you were going to do it in the other committees. So it gets difficult. You understand the point.

    Chuck Strahl.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: I don't care either way. I'm not hung up on the “whenever possible”. It doesn't seem to make any difference. One is you're going to try your best. The other one is you're going to try your best, and if it's not possible, you'll get back to us.

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: It means you can't meet unless it's televised, the way I read it.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: The point is that it's not going to hold up anything that I can see, Elinor, because it's going to say it's a senior committee of Parliament, and you're going to try to get a room. If there's nothing happening of importance, we'll get the room elsewhere.

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: Then what's the objection to an amendment that says “if at all possible” or “wherever possible”?

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: What does that mean? Impossible is in the eye of the beholder. A guy says “I forgot to book the room.” Another guy says “I thought I'd do it. It seemed like a good idea when I got up this morning.” Another says “We should do it.” If it's not possible, just come back to the committee and say “I couldn't do it, guys, because there's an inquiry going on for a month.” Then I think we would respond, “Well, that's understandable. Then let's invite the media or not or whatever and deal with it.”

    The object is to try to get it televised, because people like to see that part of the proceedings, and then to move ahead with it if possible. If it doesn't work out, come back and tell us why. We're not going to be cranky about it. We're trying to make it the norm rather than the exception.

Á  (1125)  

    The Chair: I don't want to engage in the debate. I said my piece at the beginning, and I did include the fact that we have a better chance of getting the TV room than other committees. If I were chair of another committee, I couldn't say that. But I hear you.

    I'm going to call the motion. Those in favour of the second of Gary Breitkreuz's motions, which was moved by Dale Johnston, please show.

    Dale, go ahead.

    Mr. Dale Johnston: We'll amend this second motion to say “wherever possible”. We will watch very carefully to see what “wherever possible” means.

    The Chair: Very good.

    Elinor Caplan, are you okay with that?

    Hon. Elinor Caplan: Yes.

    (Motion as amended agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

    The Chair: Item number 4 of the future business report is the broadcasting of committee proceedings. This is the one I was just referring to. You'll see that it says there, “Steering committee recommends report to House recommending extension to end of current session”. You have the draft report before you. The situation here, colleagues, is that the rules I described for televising committees are provisional. At the present time they will lapse. Jamie says they've already lapsed. I was explaining something to you that no longer exists. We've had some experience with this. We've had commercial media in here as a result of this. But there has been relatively little activity where this committee did advertising. We went out to the media very proactively and encouraged them to participate in committee meetings. There has been very little response. My interpretation of the steering committee's view is that we extend this provisional thing, this experiment as it were, to the end of the session.

    Mr. Dale Johnston: I so move.

    (Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

    The Chair: Number 5 is on the other sheet of paper you have. The steering committee has seen this. You have not. It's a separate confidential report referring to Standing Order 92(4)(a). This is an attempt to adjust the Standing Orders to the new number of parties in the House of Commons with regard to private members' business. The underlined words, “a majority of the recognized”, replace....

    Jamie, read it.

    Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): It replaces “...five other Members of the House representing at least four of the parties in the House...”.

    The Chair: So the existing rule refers to a five-party situation. This is an attempt to accommodate the new four-party situation.

    By the way, would somebody move this?

    Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): I so move.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Thank you very much, colleagues.

    We now move to item number 7, which has various parts to it and is one of the priority items that have been referred to the committee. This is the action plan on democratic reform. If you could just run your eyes over it, if you have not already done so, you'll see there are these various parts. We suggest—and colleagues on the steering committee, I know you'll interrupt me if I'm interpreting it wrongly—that we begin by inviting Jacques Saada to come to discuss this plan. It is in his name. We'd bring him here. He would present it to us, and that would encourage us to think about the subsets of it.

    Chuck Strahl.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: Are you on the question of privilege?

    The Chair: I'm sorry, I missed number 6, but I will go back to number 6. I apologize. I'm on number 7.

    Is that reasonable?

    Then below you will see there are various other recommendations, but my thought is we would come back to those following the discussion with Jacques Saada. You see under paragraph (a), for example, it says “Steering committee recommends inviting the appropriate officials” and so on and so on, to bring us up to date on it. Paragraph (b) says “Steering committee recommends meeting with members of the Government Operations and Estimates Committee.” In paragraph (c), at Chuck Strahl's suggestion, there is a recommendation for a round table with members. Paragraph (d): “Steering committee recommends the Chair write to the chairs of other committees to obtain their views”, and so on. The time to move on those things is when the whole committee has had a briefing on the report.

    We don't need a motion on this. Are you comfortable with that? I will proceed on that basis and schedule the meetings as is appropriate.

    I apologize for missing number 6. Can we go back to number 6, please?

Á  (1130)  

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: We had some discussion about this in the subcommittee, the steering committee, but in essence the efforts of this will be to allow Mr. Saada to kick off the discussion. He's tabled a plan. Our party has tabled a plan and others have tabled them, but he starts it off because he has the latest and it's the government plan. These other points (a) through (e) are to make sure that other parliamentarians get to put their two bits in on this as well. At the end, it won't be just the government's plan, because this is going to affect all parliamentarians. Others will have chances to add to the debate and hopefully to the final package.

    The Chair: By the way, that's absolutely right. It's just that we—the steering committee and now us—have already given some thought to how we would deal with it. If you have read the report, we have some ideas of how we'd proceed with it. But—and I think I was interpreting it right—it would be useful to get Saada here. That's exactly what it means, exactly so.

    I will proceed on that basis.

    Can we go back to number 6 then, the question of privilege? This is the question of privilege involving John Manley and Paul Martin and the courts. There has been activity in the courts and rulings in the courts since the committee last met and discussed this topic. The steering committee's suggestion—and again, by the way, when I say this, I know the members of the steering committee will interrupt me if I'm wrong—recommends one meeting with the clerk and the law clerk. The idea is at that meeting they would begin by taking us through the current situation and where we stand with the courts. Then again, at the end of that meeting or at a later meeting the committee would decide what it's going to do.

    Chuck Strahl.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: It sounds good.

    If the committee wanted to invite Mr. Manley and Mr. Martin to come to testify about their opinions on the privilege thing, we would do that after the first meeting?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: We would have the first meeting, and that doesn't preclude any course of action.

    The Chair: Quite the reverse. My sense of it is, again, it gives the committee a sense of where it's at. We could move on all of these things right now if we wished, but it seemed to me the steering committee thought it was better.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: Thank you. I'm just fussing it over.

    The Chair: I know now why you brought all that staff.

    Colleagues, if you're comfortable with that, I will proceed on that basis.

    Moving on to number eight, this is Eugène Bellemare's bill. For those of you who are new, the committee has dealt with it in the past. The suggestion is that we will circulate some summary material to bring all of the current committee up to date on it. The Bloc has asked...and we may well have received a list of witnesses already from the Bloc. Have we had some? No? Okay.

    The Bloc has asked to be able to submit possible witnesses. We would urge all parties to submit witnesses. So when this material comes, there will be a note in it that asks for suggested witnesses so that we can get some views on this.

    Just so you know, on this question of oaths or solemn affirmations, we have information on other jurisdictions, overseas and in Canada, and things like that. That's what we're going to get. Okay?

    Number nine deals with private members' business, and a review of the provisional standing orders.

    I don't know, Michel, if you want to speak to this.

    The point is that we're operating at the moment with new private members' business, that they're all votable and so on. Those standing orders are provisional, and we think there might be confusion, if the House dissolves and we come back to a new Parliament, about whether private members' business is under the provisional rules or the old rules.

    By the way, one suggestion on this has been that we as a committee extend the provisional rules so that they go into, let's say, 60 days, or something like that, of the new Parliament.

    I think, Michel, it was you who said, because you go to the meetings, that the House leaders have been discussing this. If they could decide on that, it's something the committee would not need to deal with. Would you care to comment on that?

Á  (1135)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Yes, that's right. At the leaders' meeting the government House leader even attempted to obtain a consensus to confirm this permanently and amend our Standing Orders in light of the new rules. Apparently, it was estimated that there were potentially 166 colleagues who could be heard. If you eliminate party leaders, ministers, the Prime Minister, the leaders, and parliamentary secretaries, there are 160 colleagues who could introduce private members' business. Currently, 80 would have been heard under the new rules. So the government leader asked us whether we considered that the pilot projet warranted implementation and a permanent change to our Standing Orders.

    I had told you that all of the leaders viewed this in a favourable light, but I must amend that comment, because our NDP colleague did express some reservations. Conservative Party and Liberal Party colleagues, as well as members of our party, were in agreement, but our colleagues Yvon Godin and Libby Davies did express reservations.

    So in order to be able to come to a decision on the matter, I would like to hear what the NDP thinks about this suggestion. For my part, I consider your idea interesting. We could extend the period to 60 days after the beginning of the 38th Parliament and then decide later whether we want to... The pool of 160 members of Parliament will not necessarily be made up of the same people. Some of the players will change.

    The Chair: Thank you, Michel. That was very useful.

[English]

    I think the steering committee's view was that we must do something about this before the session ends. My suggestion is that I write to the House leaders and ask for clarification. If we get a response quickly, we will act on whatever they say. But if we don't, I think the steering committee wants us to act in the way that you just described. Doubtless there will be some debate in this committee on how we proceed, but my sense of the steering committee was that we should do something about this so that there is no confusion, when the new House comes back, about private members' business. Right?

    So my suggestion is that I write to the House leaders, ask for clarification and give a deadline, and then the committee could return to it.

    Lorne Nystrom.

    Hon. Lorne Nystrom: I certainly agree with that. Write to the House leaders and see what response we get.

    Also, I think the position that Yvon Godin took, which I certainly support, was that these rules are provisional and that at the end of a provisional period they would be reviewed to see if they'd worked or not. Sixty days into the 38th Parliament and then a review after that would seem to be okay with me.

    The Chair: We will take note of that too. That's the sort of thing that this committee could certainly recommend, if we have to, to extend the provisional orders in the way we described. Okay, thank you very much. That's on the record now.

    That's number 9. Number 10 is quite straightforward. The steering committee agreed and we've been discussing it a little bit.

    This committee has always done this. When the estimates come down, when the reports on plans and priorities of the House of Commons and Elections Canada come, we will invite the Speaker, the Chief Electoral Officer, and so on, at the earliest possible opportunity--right?

Á  (1140)  

    Mrs. Judi Longfield: We'll attempt to have them televised.

    The Chair: Presumably, at the moment, they will be on TV, but we're working on that.

    On parliamentary security, again, for new colleagues, I want to say that the committee has considered parliamentary security for a long time. Almost all our meetings on the topic have been in camera. We have had a formal joint meeting with the Senate. We've had informal meetings with the Senate. We have produced a very bland draft report. I would say on your behalf that we are frustrated at the pace, or lack of pace, of these discussions.

    The steering committee recommends, in order that we can re-engage with that, that there be an in camera meeting and that we invite our Speaker, not the Speaker from the Senate as well, but just our Speaker. That will get us involved with this matter again.

    Are you comfortable with that?

    Mrs. Judi Longfield: So that's the full committee, not just the steering committee.

    The Chair: It's the full committee, in camera. It's very important that it be the full committee this time.

    Number 12 is Bill C-3. It's our assumption that it's going to be referred to the committee, probably quite soon.

    Mr. James Robertson: It's formerly Bill C-51.

    The Chair: That's right.

    This is Figueroa and the change in the size, the number of candidates you have to have to be an official party in an election.

    As chair, I would say to you, if and when that is referred to us, it will be given first priority. We are required to do that, and we will deal with it immediately.

    I've one more item, which I'd skipped over and I want to mention.

    Jamie, would you talk about Benoît Sauvageau thing? It comes under number 7, but it's something we might be able to do something about now, which I think would save us some time. It's the very last item under number 7. It's number 7(e).

    Mr. James Robertson: At the meeting last Thursday, Mr. Sauvageau indicated that one area he thought the committee could move on was the issue of procedure for dealing with unanimous committee reports. There seemed to be some support in principle for that at the steering committee meeting on Tuesday of this week.

    So rather than wait for that to come up under number 7, I would suggest that we put together a short briefing note setting out some options for things that could be done in that regard, what other jurisdictions do, and we'll circulate that to members of the committee relatively soon so that if in fact there is some consensus about how to approach that issue, we can perhaps get a report to the House fairly quickly.

    The Chair: It's essentially an options paper.

    Chuck Strahl.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: I think that's wise.

    I'm not sure; does Mr. Sauvageau have some specific suggestions as well?

    The Chair: He, by the way, discussed it at some length, but they weren't....

    I should be careful of what I say. It wasn't very specific, as I heard it.

    Mr. Chuck Strahl: Perhaps we should invite him to, if he has some specific suggestions, as well as other references from around the world. But maybe anyone else on the committee who would like to, if they do have some thoughts on this, they could give them to you, Jamie, and then it could be included, at least as a suggestion, which doesn't commit anybody or anything, but at least get it into the report initially.

    The Chair: And in consultation with the committee, and in particular with Benoît Sauvageau, an options paper.

    I just thought I should say that.

    Colleagues, is there any other business? What I would propose, then, is that our next meeting be on Tuesday. My guess is that it will be either Bill C-3 or our item 7. Are you agreed?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    The Chair: The meeting is adjourned until Tuesday, at 11 o'clock, in the same place.