SMEM Committee Meeting

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

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

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, March 14, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order.

I hope all of you have done your homework. Looking at the package you have in front of you, as you've probably been able to read, you'll see there has been a great deal of debate on making every bill votable. I've chaired this off and on since about 1995, and when I went away the same thing was debated again and the same things happened. Actually, the last survey they did was a better response than usual. They got about 82 respondents.

There's one thing I've never seen coordinated on the responses, Jamie. There's a question on most of the surveys that asks something like, “Have you ever submitted a private member's bill?” Then you get all the answers saying they should all be votable. If you could coordinate the ones that have actually put them in and had them made votable with those answers, I think it would be far more revealing.

Anyway, if you look at this first section, “Survey—Private Members' Business Votable Items”—and this one is dated May 12, 1998—you'll see it's a real smorgasbord of answers. It really doesn't solve our problem. It gives us a million answers to the same questions we've had all along.

I then went on to June 26, 1998. If you look at page 7, it asks, “Do you think that all items of Private Members' Business should be votable?” This is the one for which I think we had 82 respondents, with 48% saying “yes” and 50% saying “no”.

I respectfully submit that these are irrelevant statistics if you don't coordinate them with the number of people who actually participate in private members' business. I've never put a bill in, therefore my answer shouldn't count for anything there. I'm wondering if we could go back, reinvent the wheel, and check those stats against who actually gets involved.

On the next page, there is also a circle graph. It asks, “Do you think that more items of Private Members' Business should be votable?” Here you have a better indication, since 70% said “yes”. That's saying we should maybe increase it, from 10 out of 30, to 15 or 20 out of 30—maybe half. This might be a solution that we put on the survey that we're going to construct very shortly, if the committee agrees that we give it as one of the alternatives again.

I'm jumping, but this is a real mishmash of material.

So with the committee's direction, I think we're going to ask Jamie to construct the definitive survey. We're going to ask people—and we'll give them some alternatives—“Do you think we should move it up to 15 out of 30?” We're going to talk about how that affects time—and Jamie is prepared to speak to us briefly about what it's going to do, first of all, if we make them all votable and, maybe secondly, if we just increase it by 50%.

Mr. James R. Robertson (Committee Researcher): This is what I did. I took the number of possible private members' hours and the actual number used in the last Parliament. These are shown in the document that was circulated today, the one with the table and the chart.

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The chart indicates that, in the last Parliament, there were 208 possible private members' hours in the first session, and 104 in the second session, for a total of 312 hours. A certain number of those were cancelled either because a member requested an exchange and one could not be arranged, because the member got sick at the last minute, or because something happened. So of the 312, only 293 were used.

If we were to keep votable items at three hours each for every bill and motion, then we'd get through only 104 if we had 312 hours. That would assume that each of the ones put on the order of precedence actually had three hours of debate and came to a vote. The difficulty would be that it comes up for one hour of debate, goes to the bottom, and has to work its way up for the second hour, and then up to the third. That can all can take place over several months. Unless there's an exchange, it certainly can take a long time to get all three hours out of the way.

As well, in the case of private members' bills, if they receive second reading, they go to a committee. When they come back from the committee, there is then a need for report stage and third reading, which is a total of two or three hours. That would take time away from what would otherwise be available for private members' business. If we had kept everything at three hours, the maximum in the last Parliament would have been 104 items to be voted on, or 97 if we go with the actual number of hours used, the 293.

The proposal has been made by members and others that, instead of keeping three hours per item if everything were votable, we look at giving two hours for a bill and one hour for a motion. I guess the argument for distinguishing is that a bill takes more time and work to draft, and it is usually more complex. Also, because a bill will actually change the law, it may need more time for consideration.

If we were to have two hours for bills and one hour for motions, then the question becomes whether we stick with half and half, as at present, in which case you'd get far more motions through in the same time than you would bills. Or do we select, for instance, twice as many bills as we do motions?

The Chair: Let me interrupt you. It used to be half and half, but it's not any more.

Mr. James Robertson: No, for the selection of the draw it's still half and half. For the selection of votable items, we are no longer bound by half and half.

The Chair: Right, okay.

Mr. James Robertson: If we were to do half and half using the actual number of days used, 146 motions could be voted on at an hour each, along with 73 bills. The other way to do it would be to do twice as many motions and bills. We'd get about 97 bills and 97 motions through in the course of the 293 days.

The Chair: What are we doing now?

Mr. James Robertson: At present, we can't really look at it, because there are so few that are actually votable. Last session, 16 bills actually came to second reading debate, out of 95 days, whereas we would be getting probably triple that if everything were votable.

The Chair: That's in the same amount of time, with shortening of the hours.

Mr. James Robertson: We would get even more if we were shortening the hours.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): So that's based on a three-hour debate for a—

The Chair: No, a two-hour debate for a bill and one-hour for a motion.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Okay, but are the numbers there based on that two hours and one hour, Jamie?

Mr. James Robertson: I did it on the basis of the two. Let me just double-check.

If we look at the entire number of days in the last Parliament, we had 32 bills voted on at second reading. Under two hours and one hour, we would have gotten either 97 or 73, depending on whether we did the same number of motions or double the motions. So we're looking at at least double, if not a bit more than double, in terms of bills that would actually come to a vote.

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The Chair: That's in the same block of time in the House.

Mr. James Robertson: In the same period of time, yes.

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Have you considered the time needed for these votes? You haven't deducted that from the time?

Mr. James Robertson: No.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Okay.

Mr. James Robertson: The time taken for the vote is taken away in the sense that the last 15 minutes of debate is for the...but that's regardless of.... That would be taken away from the two hours given to the item.

The Chair: They're always deferred anyway, so the same with a block of votes.

Mr. James Robertson: Yes.

The Chair: They have to be voted on individually because they're private members', they're not whipped votes. That's just for the students' edification. In a lot of the votes in the House, you vote according to party, but for these you vote totally separately.

Mr. James Robertson: Now, that would not be as relevant with a two-hour debate on a bill, but it would be relevant with a one-hour debate on a motion. In the House of Commons only, a one-hour debate on a motion actually means 45 minutes of debate and a 15-minute bell. That might have to be reviewed.

The other possibility that has been suggested is that, instead of settling on two hours and one hour, if we wanted to make it the same for all bills and motions and avoid any subjectivity, we could look at something like that. But there could also be a committee or subcommittee like this that could decide if a particular issue needed more than the minimum amount of time. There are some bills that may require more time than two hours.

The Chair: You see, that's where I get into difficulties, because then it puts us right back into fighting—

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Exactly.

The Chair: —with everybody coming in and saying they need more time.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Yes. It defeats the purpose of our re-examination.

The Chair: Because we're then still giving more importance to some bills than to others.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: And we would be giving more importance to bills than to motions, whereas the tendency has been to see which is easiest.

Mr. James Robertson: If we did change the rules to provide for a two-hour debate for bills and a one-hour debate for motions, members would know that in advance and would govern themselves accordingly as to whether or not they felt a particular issue needed two hours and whether or not they were prepared to put the work into getting a bill drafted.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: In a sense, it would bring back the sense of difference between a bill and a motion, as it was before.

The Chair: A motion, even when it passes, doesn't obligate the House to do anything. It's just saying to the government to take notice that everybody in the House thinks this is a great idea. But a bill literally changes something on the spot.

Mr. James Robertson: Yes, and a bill involves much more work. It goes to committee, the committee must have meetings, bring in witnesses, and consider amendments. It's a lot more time-consuming for other members.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: And as we saw in the last meetings, a lot of members are satisfied with a motion rather than a bill.

The Chair: Okay. Given those statistics, I think we're going to design the best mousetrap the world has ever seen. There is a section in two of these surveys—in the one dated June 26, 1998, I think on page 3—that gives you the advantages and the disadvantages. When we design this survey, I think we're going to do a preface with these advantages and disadvantages, perhaps with some additions and subtractions from this committee. We're going to give them the schedules of how it's going to affect time, so they'll be making informed decisions.

I think we're going to separate the responses. There's no point going back and redoing the old ones, so we're going to precondition the responses in two ways. We're going to ask if they've ever had a bill made votable, and if they involve themselves in private members' bills and motions. They're entitled to an opinion, but it's a lesser opinion if they don't say yes to one of those first two. We're going to weight the answers, and we'll show how we've weighted them in the results.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Why should we do that, though? If we have a new procedure, maybe it would be more interesting for them.

The Chair: Well, when you're gathering the information, that category 3, which I certainly have a lot of interest in.... Even though I don't put the bills in, I want my responses looked at. But as for looking at how you're going to do the three hours, two hours, one hour, I think the responses from the gang that's putting them in should carry a bit more weight. It won't be doctored before we see it. We'll get all the data. We're just giving Jamie that one extra litmus test.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Okay.

The Chair: I personally think my opinion should count for more than anybody's.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: You're right.

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Mr. Rick Borotsik: If we're finding that there are fewer members who submit private members' motions and bills, perhaps we should understand why that is. Maybe it's because the process is so cumbersome. Maybe they feel that the process does not lend itself to having a private member's bill or motion go through to fruition, if you will.

The Chair: That would be another category of question, then, when you're putting your screening question.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: If 50% of our members are saying they never submit one, then the question has to be asked, why don't they? Maybe it's simply because they don't have the time or the inclination. Maybe some people just don't care and don't want to deal with private members' business. Some may simply say they don't do it because it's a useless process. Maybe if we change the process and tighten it up a little bit, it becomes less of a useless process and more of a tool that some members will use at that point.

It's just one more question, Jamie, but....

The Chair: Listen, we're doing the perfect survey.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Well, we never did perfect surveys before.

A voice: This one will be.

The Chair: This one's going to be perfect, absolutely.

So we're going to give them a bit of a preamble on pros and cons, if you look at these and none of them jump out at you as being incorrect.

Secondly, we're going to give them Jamie's breakdown of how the time in the House can accommodate it. You might also want to put the suggestion that we make all day Friday private members' business and see how that affects it. It has been brought up before. We might as well deal with it and see how that affects the hours for legislation in the House.

We'll put your suggestion in, giving people an opportunity to check off three boxes as to why they don't do private members' business. Mine would be because I'm not interested. Somebody else's would be because it's very frustrating. Somebody else's would be because none have passed in seven years, and then we can phone them and give them the list.

Mr. Proulx.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: If we're going to talk about the possibility of Fridays, can we talk about the possibility of evenings rather than Fridays?

The Chair: Yes, we're going to talk about every possibility.

The other thing I'd like to bring to your attention is a report in here, the thirteenth report, which gives the rules under which we're operating right now. But before we even look at that, let me talk to you for a minute.

I guess I can't say this off the record. One of the things that's going on in the House of Commons right now is that Mr. Boudria is putting together a committee with House leaders to look at a full-fledged debate on all the rules under contention in the House. So I don't think there's a snowball's chance in August that, if we say that we recommend all bills be votable, it will be done outside of that review. You understand that. We're at that point where, if they're going to review everything, this recommendation may become part of that review, but it won't be brought into effect.

The other problem is that we had two problems given to us from procedures. One was to look at the 100-signature rule. I would like to take the opportunity on this survey to give an alternative or a clarification to the 100-signature rule and see if we can get people to support that. We have a 60- or 90-day window to get an answer to that, and if we don't take it, it's gone. This is a rule we brought in one or two parliaments ago. A lot of people don't like the idea of the lottery. Some people's names have been in there for seven years and never been drawn.

So we said if you get a 100 seconders from three parties, then you can be pulled into this committee and be considered for votability. You're not automatically votable. But it sidetracks that process.

We ran into a bit of a problem with it last year because it got adulterated. So with your permission—and I'll circulate this before we put it out—I'm going to give a couple of alternatives to that 100-signature rule and see if we can get people to look at that as well. If we can say yes quickly on that, if we can come up with a solution to that one, then they'll have to start doing it again, because this other process could take a year, and we'll lose our 60 days, which is probably what certain people would love to have happen.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I still remember the motion where it said if there hasn't been a report back from this committee within the 90 days, it reverts back to the way it used to be, which included the 100 signatures. You're saying that if that happens, then—-

The Chair: Then I would suggest the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs would move a motion to say cancel it.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: That's what you're saying. That may well be, but whether that happens or not remains to be seen, whether everybody supports that. I do believe there was some—

The Chair: Do you have any problems with our refining that and giving a couple of alternatives, as long as you see them before they go out?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Not at all.

The Chair: Mr. Guimond, Marcel, that's okay?

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So if we do that as well, as an addendum to the survey, the last order of business is that once this is all in draft stage, it will be circulated to all members of the committee, and if we need a meeting, we'll come back here and hassle it out a little bit for half an hour.

Each person who sits on this committee can be the contact person for the surveys in their caucus—Mr. Guimond for the Bloc and you for the Tories.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: If I can make one other suggestion, 82 out of 301 members is not a terribly good response rate. It is if you're a doing a newspaper survey, but it's not a terribly good response rate for 301 members. Can we, at the very least, get back a non-response? How do we do that?

When we give our members and our caucus our questionnaire, if they don't wish to bring it back, can we simply make sure they sign it and say, “I don't wish to respond to this survey”? There are always excuses why people don't do surveys—for instance, “I put it on the pile on my desk and never did it”. At least then you know they've seen it and noted it, and you didn't have an answer back from them.

The Chair: It's easy for you to do, Mr. Borotsik, because of your numbers.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Oh, I understand that.

The Chair: It's very hard for us to do in the Liberal Party. But we will do it. I've enlisted Gar Knutson to help me, because he's working on this as well.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Would you not agree that 82 out of 301 is a really terrible response rate?

The Chair: Yes. I also agree that people have the right not to respond.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I appreciate that, and that's fair ball: “I do not wish to respond, thank you, and here's my signature”. You're off the list.

The Chair: But if Mr. Guimond goes to a member and they say, “I don't want you to write down my name that I didn't respond, it's my private duty not to respond”, then you won't do it. It's up to us to deal with our own colleagues.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Then they'll never get a votable item, will they?

The Chair: No, they won't.

Are there any other questions at this point?

So Jamie has all the work. We just get to have the fun.

We'll come up with a couple of alternatives or maybe three options on the 100-signature rule, one of which is get to rid of it; second, how it was designed when we did it; and the third will be something else we'll come up with to give them a choice.

Okay?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Fair ball.

The Chair: Thank you very much for attending.

The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.