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, October 25, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, we'll now begin. Our order of the day is the order of reference from the House of Commons of June 12, 2001, instructing the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to draft changes to the Standing Orders in order to improve procedures for the consideration of private members' business.

This is a continuation of our previous discussion.

I would welcome again Marie-Andrée Lajoie, who is the Deputy Clerk, House Proceedings. We are grateful to you for being here. But I would point out to all of you that she's not appearing as a witness in the sense of making a presentation but as a resource person, and I know we'll treat her with that in mind.

Since our last meeting we've all received a summary of two proposals, which Jamie did. One is the John Reynolds proposal and the other is the Derek Lee proposal. Does everyone have that

[Translation]

in both official languages?

[English]

Before suggesting how we might begin, I'd like to point out to you that the deadline in the House motion is November 1. We should bear that in mind. That's one of the reasons we dealt with this matter earlier and that we're dealing with it again.

I would mention to you also that Mr. Kingsley is confirmed, as we agreed, for our meeting next Tuesday. The main item is the referendum legislation, which is meshing the Referendum Act with the Canada Elections Act, both of which are the responsibility of this committee. A secondary item, if there's time, is the redistribution of ridings. So Mr. Kingsley will be here for that.

On Thursday we will return to the matter of privilege that has been referred to us. If it's okay with you, I'll discuss that at the very end of this meeting.

So next Tuesday is fixed and next Thursday is fixed.

The last time I began with the Alliance proposal. There was some objection, and I did notice that it was from both sides, which is a good sign. I want you to know that as chair I did that because it was the only concrete thing that we had from the parties. We had material before us from our researcher. I felt it was appropriate. I've looked at the timing and all that sort of stuff, and I do feel that I gave a fair hearing not only to the proposers of that suggestion but also to all parties and to all members.

So today as the chair—but I'm in your hands—I would suggest that we begin with the written material we have before us again, which is the summary of the two proposals—again, I'm in your hands and I know you'll go wherever you wish—and then with the sheet of issues that is associated with those. I don't mean that we would go through them one by one or anything like that, but I suggest we start there.

Who would like to begin? Garry Breitkreuz.

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Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you. I wanted to make a couple of minor adjustments to the Reynolds proposal.

In the first space below his name we could put in there, “all MPs are allowed a minimum of one item”, according to our proposal.

Then if you go down to “Time for debate”, we propose there could be “as little as one hour”. That's not included there. It could be as little as one hour.

Then also in the “Role of committee”, the one just beneath that one, the second to last one, we add “could decrease it to one hour”, “could debate up to four hours or decrease it to one hour”. That was part of what we suggested.

The Chair: Does everyone have that? I think it's quite straightforward?

Thank you. Anyone else? How would you like to proceed?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Are there any comments from research or our witnesses as to the workability of this? That seemed to be the main concern?

The Chair: I'd start with Jamie. Go ahead.

Mr. James A. Robertson (Committee Researcher): I think that, as Mr. Corbett said the other day, it's up to the committee to make the determination as to what system it wants and the necessary amendments to the Standing Orders could be devised.

In terms of the practicalities, the difficulty with any procedural change is that often when new rules are brought in there are unintended or unexpected consequences, and certainly with the 100-signature provision, whereby an item could be added to the order of precedence if 100 members signed a paper, there were some problems in the application of that provision. This was partly due perhaps to how it was drafted. It may also have been the fault of the original idea, or the fact that the original idea was not totally put in as originally anticipated by the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business but was modified slightly by a subsequent subcommittee.

I don't think there's anything procedurally impossible with either of these proposals.

The Chair: Garry.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: As far as time is concerned, can this be done by November 1, or would you need extra time to draft the Standing Orders, if that's in fact—

The Chair: Marie-Andrée, would you care to respond to that?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie (Deputy Clerk, House Proceedings): Absolutely.

Let's put it this way. If the main thrust is that all items become votable there are about five areas of the Standing Orders that have to be looked at.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Five areas?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: Five areas, if you want, but that's general and I'm not going into the specifics. For example, there's a notice provision in the Standing Orders for items of private members' business of two weeks. So if everything is votable you don't need that two-week notice. The committee doesn't need the time, for example, to consider what is votable and what is not. We would have to look at that.

There is in the proposal the idea that a member may decide that his or her item won't be votable. What the procedure is for a member to opt out of the votability would have to be looked at.

In terms of debating time, there's a proposal here. We'd have to see whether we'd keep the same kind of following down the list and so on and so forth.

On the question of the maximum number of items, or the minimum number of items, how do we work that in? Is there a cap for a member? I don't think there is in that proposal, but this is also a question if the issue is to give everybody a turn.

Finally, there is the question of the voting time. If you have four or five items of private members' business that could come to a vote every week, where do you, in the Standing Orders, slot that time? Do you vote every day, or do you find un créneau, a time in the week to vote on those?

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The Chair: Marie-Andrée, as part of the question, what was November 1? Again, you needn't—

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: I guess, as Jamie says, everything is doable. If it's just a question of removing the aspect of selection in the Standing Orders, it's doable.

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz, briefly, and then I'll go to Libby Davies and Joe Jordan.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: We only need to submit a report to the House. I don't think we need the Standing Orders by November 1.

We could, if this committee so desired, say the Standing Orders would come into effect at first sitting of the House in 2002. That could be an option, because all we really have to do today is submit our report.

I would like to suggest, if it is in order, we take these line by line and make a decision on each one. That might expedite what we do here today.

The Chair: I agree with your interpretation of what you said about November 1. I'll take that under advisement.

Libby Davies, then to Joe.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): I'm not usually a member on this committee or work with Mr. Godin, so I obviously haven't been part of the discussions you've had before. But just looking over the list, there are a couple of things that jump out at me I would like to ask a question about.

On the idea of private members' business, I strongly support that, and I think we all do in our caucus. But leaving aside for the moment what happened to the November 1 deadline and what can be put in, I'm more interested in the logistics or the impact of any changes. So the thing that sort of struck me was almost a time management issue.

As I understand it, we're looking at a minimum of 301 items in both proposals. Theoretically it could be more, because one of them says it would be a minimum. If theoretically they are all eligible to be voted on, then I guess I would ask whether there has been any sort of research or examination of what that would mean, relative to what time is spent now. How would we actually process that, from the point of view of the House, committees, or even from the members' point of view on voting time or debating time?

In some of these proposals, we're potentially looking at up to four hours, although the Alliance has now added that it could be decreased to one hour. But to look from the broadest component to the narrowest, I'm just interested to know whether or not anyone has looked at the logistics, in terms of a time management issue.

The Chair: Some of those things we've discussed.

Marie-Andrée, do you want to comment on that?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: Absolutely.

We haven't done any calculations, based on the proposal. But I can give you figures from the last Parliament, if you want.

In the first session of the 36th Parliament, which lasted two years, there were 243 sitting days, and there were 198 hours of private members' business over two years. In the second session of the 36th Parliament, which was a year, there were 95 hours of private members' business out of 133 sitting days. So you can see that you have about—

The Chair: The total is 133—

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: Sitting days. This is not a large sample, but you can see under the current system you have about 95 hours a year of private members' business.

Ms. Libby Davies: What would we be looking at here?

The Chair: Libby, as you said, you're new. We have actually been through some of these questions before. Is it very brief?

Ms. Libby Davies: Have you estimated what it would be under these proposals?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: No, we haven't.

Ms. Libby Davies: Is it possible to get that done, so we have an idea of what we're looking at, in terms of an increase? We all know what it is now, so we have a real feeling for that, in terms of what the demands are or what the opportunities are. So to get an idea of what it would be would be quite useful.

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: It depends on how long each item has to be debated. If you have under the current system a motion that is votable that has to be debated for three hours, we'll basically have three hours out of 95 hours in a year for one item. If we want to base all of this on a Parliament for four years at 90 hours per year, it's about 360 hours. We could do scenarios.

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The Chair: Paul Macklin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): I have a point of clarification on the issue we're dealing with right now. I'm confused. I'm looking at the first submission on each proposal and it says, “The right to submit private members' business”.

No one is assuming here that all private members' business will be dealt with. I believe Mr. Breitkreuz the other day clarified that he expected that at the end of a Parliament there will still be private members' business on the list that had not been reached.

I think the issue Ms. Davies is zeroing in on is maybe better placed by asking how many hours we wish to designate for private members' business. If that's what we're zeroing in on for each parliamentary week, at least that will give us some idea as to what we're trying to accomplish. Simply believing that everyone is going to have a bill or motion put forward, heard, and dealt with within a Parliament isn't what we're dealing with.

The Chair: Just a minute. I let you in because I thought it was going to be.... That's a longer thing. I'd sooner go back to the list, if I can. Let's move it along, so we can get back to Garry and debate these points.

I am concerned that if we pick one of these proposals, we won't be able to judge it until draft Standing Orders have been written. We can do these little calculations, or maybe people can go away and quickly do some more detailed calculations, but I really believe that, Garry. I think it's very important for us not to make the mistake of saying something looks like a perfect thing, until we've seen it with the draft Standing Orders on the other side. That's a personal comment.

Joe Jordan and then Carolyn Parrish.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm getting a little uncomfortable. I don't mind us using these proposals to generate a discussion, but I am miles from being in any position to say that one of these is acceptable. This was an ad hoc process, so there are other proposals we may want to look at. After the last meeting, I felt we were heading down a track where to do this right we needed more time. I don't think we want to rush or force a decision on this, because we're getting into some interesting areas.

There are some aspects of the Reynolds proposal that are interesting. The thing that struck me was the trouble he went through to differentiate bills and motions—I thought that was an important distinction. There is also the process, in terms of whether it goes to committee before or after second reading, and this whole notion of agreeing in principle.

The dynamic that unfortunately will play out, regardless of who's in opposition or who's in government, is if it goes too far, we'll lose the free vote aspect of it and the process will be defeated. We have to try to protect that.

Regardless of what people say, the record shows we've had more free votes on private members' business in the last little while than in previous years. I think we have something worth protecting and preserving. I'm concerned about the costs, but I think we can sort them out.

I'm mainly concerned about three things. First are the unintended consequences. If every MP gets a votable bill, we are going to generate a lobby external to this Parliament. Every group that wants to have something voted on in Parliament will be lobbying MPs. We went through this with the Armenian genocide, in a very small way. Libbie, you might want to talk to Bill Blaikie to find out what a nightmare that was. The whole thing came off the rails.

So I think we have to slow down. It may look good on paper, but in practice we have habitual issues that are always being put forth by lobby groups. That will intensify, and members will have to figure out how they want to deal with that.

There's also the issue of additional resources. If we're going to increase the number of potential private members' items, we have to stick in a filter. The criteria is one thing, but before we tie up legislative drafters to put this thing in a proper form, we have to have some vetting of the concept. Otherwise the resources they're going to need to turn all these things into bills in the proper form to be tabled in the House are going to be substantial. I don't know if we have those resources at our disposal, or if we'll have to commit to getting them. I don't know whether that's the proper use of their time.

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As I say, I haven't had a great deal of time to go through this, but the thing that strikes me—and I'll use a Liberal bill as an example: Charles Caccia's bill on genetically modified organisms was a substantial bill. It was a bill that in all regards would have been identical to a bill the government—had it been going in that direction—would have come up with. What I'm assuming from the opposition's position is that they feel the private members' process is an acceptable way to introduce and put in place legislation in this country. We can debate that, but let's assume for a minute that's correct.

Right now, we have first reading and then the draw process. That's what we're really trying to work on. It then gets second reading, and if it's votable, three hours of debate—we're hearing it might be two, or one, or four. There's a vote. If it's successful it goes to committee. The committee has 60 sitting days to report back to the House. We combine report stage and third reading. There are two hours in most cases—it can be three—and then a vote.

I'd say if people are comfortable with that, then these rules should apply to government bills too. I don't think we need a parallel system where we can have a surrogate government operating and introducing substantial pieces of legislation that historically were not supposed to come out of the private members' process, but have through evolution. If we're going to move in that direction to say “Yes, they're going to be votable; we're going to have these time limits on it”, and we're going to end up with laws, then I think this should apply to all bills.

That's a thought I have. I'm in no position to go back to the House and recommend one or the other. There are a lot of things we have to consider here. I think it's an interesting discussion, but at the end of the day I think we have to either ask for an extension or say we can't do it. I don't think we're in a position to move on either of these, because it involves a lot of other issues that aren't reflected on this paper, and our experiences—I go back to the 100-signature rule—have not been great in being able to predict what these consequences might be.

I just wanted to say it's a nice document and it guides discussion, but I'm a long way from thinking that either of these are workable. I guess it comes down to how you define “workable”. We'd have probably one definition for everybody in the room, so I think we have to be a little cautious.

The Chair: Carolyn, and then Garry Breitkreuz.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I made up my mind I was going to be very quiet today, but things seem to be moving too quickly for me to handle.

I think it's very clear to everybody here, based on my five years' experience with private members' business, that I don't agree with making them all votable, on the one hand, because I think it diminishes the importance of them. I also understand from talking to Bill Blaikie and others who have been on the committee with me that there are probably only one or two parties in the House right now that fundamentally believe all bills should be votable.

I agree with the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. I am not in any way prepared to let this thing go ahead in a great rush. As I think I've demonstrated in the past, I can be flexible and I can change my mind. We've changed the rules three times since I've chaired that committee. If we come up with a plan that looks fantastic, then I'm quite willing to entertain it, but at this point, with two very rough plans in front of me, there's no way I can support the concept and say “Okay, November 1 we're going to tell them yes, we're doing it”, and then work on the details later.

What it does is fundamentally change the parliamentary system of this country. It makes it more like the United States, where all bills are generated as private members' bills. There is no government legislation that goes through as such. This is a quantum change to the way we do business in this country, and it will absolutely take over the committee system. You don't make a decision like that—excuse me, we're going to do it by November 1 and we'll worry about the details later. That's an outrage.

I'm going to stay quiet as long as this thing goes along in an organized fashion. But if we're going to suddenly—on two cockamamie plans thrown at me—make a decision for November 1, then I absolutely cannot support it.

The Chair: Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: There have been a lot of things thrown out here. Let me try to deal with them.

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Carolyn said only one or two parties want it votable. That's not true. We did the survey, and it did not break down by parties. All parties supported this to approximately the same level, almost two-thirds. So that's not true. And that's not part of our discussion. We've been mandated to come up with some kind of presentation to Parliament on how to make all of these things votable, so I think it's out of order to go back and beat this whole thing to death.

The Chair: You're perfectly entitled to say what it is, but the committee is operating on the assumption that we're going to report to the House by November 1, okay?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Right.

Let me discuss what Mr. Jordan had to say. He mentioned that as members of Parliament we are going to be inundated with people coming to talk to us. That's precisely why we're here in Parliament—to carry out the wishes of Canadians. What we do here should be meaningful. That's the reason we're going to go to making all motions votable. People have been frustrated that there's a lot of hot air generated, it's dropped off the order paper, and nothing is ever decided on it. Canadians have a dim view of Parliament for just that reason. That's precisely why we should move in this direction and make things meaningful.

A lot of what was said we already dealt with at the last meeting. For example, how this will be managed in the House. The House leaders would manage this very much like they manage all the other business that comes before the House. So that to me is not some great insurmountable problem that we can't overcome. I would say our concern is not with the management of this thing, necessarily.

This is private members' business. It comes up, and the draws take place as they are now. We wouldn't have more items before the House. Somebody had suggested it would make it completely unmanageable, but we'd still have the same number of items coming before Parliament. You'd still have to go through the draw. It's just that all things would now become votable. We'd have to manage that within the House, and that's where the House leaders come in, to do that.

Somebody mentioned legislative drafters—I think it was Joe. It would have no impact on the drafters. They'd still be doing everything we ask them to do now. This fundamentally is not going to be that great a change.

I think bogeymen are being raised here that are not of great consequence, and I think they can be worked through. So I come back to my suggestion, to take these one at a time, carefully consider them, and decide on that basis.

There were other things raised, but at this point...if I can't respond to them immediately, I think everybody forgets about them.

The Chair: I have Marlene, Libby, and Dick, but before that, could I go back then, because of what you said to Joe on this question of...I've forgotten how you put it, but it had to do with the drafting. If these eventually all became very substantial bills, how much time would be taken up?

What is the thought? The thought is they would be presented as a concept, not as a bill, and that somehow the filter would be there. I think, Garry, you were making—

Mr. Joe Jordan: I think the way this breaks down is that unless we have unlimited time, you have to somehow take the demands and make some choices, unless you're going to allow them all.

The Reynolds proposal is saying, okay, we're going to use the draw—it may not be perfect, but at least you can argue it's fair. We're going to use the draw. So we no longer would have criteria that are judged. You get something in that bin, and it's drawn—

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: That's not what we're saying, that there wouldn't be any criteria.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Well, I don't see it there.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I think Derek Lee addressed that.

The Chair: Okay. I just wanted for my own sake.... Jamie's drawn my attention to the list of selected components and elements, types of items, and he points out to me that it is there—a motion to instruct a committee to bring in a bill, or a motion to refer a subject to a committee, and so on. That's what you're talking about. I just wanted to clarify that.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay, I'll do it in one sentence. How many bills are in the draw now that haven't been drawn yet, sitting in the queue?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: I think there are over 600 items, but I don't know the breakdown between bills.

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Mr. Joe Jordan: Six hundred. Each one of those things has had legislative expertise, in some cases from the House, and sometimes these bills are made up by groups outside the House. I'm concerned that we don't increase that.

The Chair: Okay, I got that. I'm out of order myself here, Joe. I appreciate....

Marlene Catterall, Libby Davies, and Dick Harris.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I think Mr. Breitkreuz made a very important point: this is private members' business. I for one am not anxious to see this become a matter of management by the House leaders or the whips or anything else. I think if we're going to look at any change at all, it should very much remain a matter that's with the members of Parliament and not with the House leadership of any or all of the parties together. That would be one of my first principles.

Secondly, though, I think Mr. Breitkreuz made the point that he thinks we should consider every element of the proposal—and we may have others coming forward—carefully. I agree with that because we've seen before the implications of moving too quickly and not thinking through the consequences. I wouldn't want us to get into the position, for instance, where private members' business becomes, as it has become to a significant extent in the United Kingdom, a question of people getting lobbied to put forward bills on behalf of lobby groups. In some cases they even get paid to do so. I think there are problems here, and I think it deserves careful consideration. I don't see how we can give it that careful consideration before next week.

Thank you.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But they whip them in Britain, too.

The Chair: Okay, Joe, that's fine.

Libby Davies.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That's right, they do, and be thankful I don't have to do that here.

Ms. Libby Davies: Looking at both these proposals, I would assume that everyone would agree that they would potentially open things up and allow for more private members' business than we have now.

I think if Carolyn is right, that it would change the culture around here in terms of what kinds of issues are generated, then I don't think it's unfair to assume that every member would take advantage of the right to submit at least one item of private members' business, right? We have to assume that the potential exists. It may not happen right away, but there would be pressure to do that, and we are looking at a potential 301 items for any particular Parliament.

Again, my concern is that you can't look at this in isolation from other business in the House—and not just government business, but even as to how committees operate. In the committees I've participated in, we do try to work in a way so committees can independently look at issues they're concerned about, right through studying issues and so on. It's always a struggle to balance what you have to do, namely work that comes from the House vis-à-vis what the committee, as a committee that may generate some goodwill around an issue, wants to look at.

I still do have a question before we vote on this line by line or issue by issue in terms of what the impact will be, say, on committees. Let's just take one committee, the justice committee, as an example, where a lot of items could come up that potentially have to do with changes to the Criminal Code. A lot of private members' business has to do with that. If these items get referred to committees for further debate, what would be the impact on that committee and can we actually look at that before we make a decision?

I know that our House leader, Bill Blaikie, stood up and made it very clear that, yes, we're very interested in looking at providing good opportunities for private members' business. But I think it has to be in a way where it actually does generate really good debate, right? To even narrow it down to one hour for a bill, for example...sometimes you do need three hours to actually convince people during a debate. This may sound contradictory, but if it's open so wide, if everything gets a certain minimal attention, and if everything becomes votable, then we have created a very different kind of system. Perhaps you won't have the opportunity to get into private members' business in a more in-depth way, which is sometimes required to get something through.

These are some of the questions I have before this is actually voted on.

The Chair: Dick Harris.

Mr. Richard Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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As I see it, it's not as if the House does not have some experience on private members' bills all being votable. It's my understanding that prior to 1984, when there was a report—I think the McGrath report—all private members' bills were votable, so we do have some experience. There was a system in place that handled it.

The Chair: We'll check. I understand the point.

Mr. Richard Harris: What I'm saying is, there is some experience we could draw on where we could probably deal with some of the concerns that have been expressed to try to make this as doable as possible.

With respect to that other thing about MPs being lobbied by different special interest groups, this isn't anything new. We have lobbyists on the Hill every day, lobbying the government to promote their special interests in some sort of legislation, so we shouldn't be afraid of that. It happens on a daily basis.

I think the reason we're even talking about this is that many members of Parliament maybe feel they're guilty of a lack of accomplishment on behalf of their constituents. Sometimes there are issues that have overwhelming support in their ridings, and they find out they're not really alone because other members are saying they're getting the same thing expressed in their ridings, so they want to do something about it. Without a mechanism whereby there can at least be a vote, it may be nice to talk something out, but it's even nicer to get something done about it. You feel a little more personally rewarded, and so do your constituents, the people who are looking for changes that are important to them.

I agree that when we make a proposal, we should have...and, Mr. Chairman, I think you pointed out that it would be nice to have—

The Chair: Changes to the Standing Orders to get a sense of the ripples of it.

Mr. Richard Harris: Right. With those, of course, we would get a report on some of the possible points of concern that would come up as a result of the ripples.

Anyway, I just wanted to respond to Ms. Parrish and Mr. Jordan with respect to their concerns about the lobbyists and the massive amount of activity that could be generated by all members' bills being votable. We've been there and done that. Surely, there's some experience we can draw on.

The Chair: I have Joe Jordan and then Garry Breitkreuz, but if I may, I'll comment, Dick. Again, I don't like to intervene in these things, but most of these do envisage the possibility of non-votable items. From my own experience—my only experience—when I was drawn for private members' business, it was a non-votable item. I was not only satisfied, it was my preference. I got the satisfaction you described simply from the debate, because that was the appropriate level. There is still the possibility of members submitting non-votable items, as I said, from the two that are before us.

Mr. Richard Harris: We have the option.

The Chair: Yes.

Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Just to respond, I wasn't in any way saying that I was afraid of talking to Canadians about legislation. All I'm saying is that you're going to introduce a dynamic that isn't there now, because it's one thing to lobby an MP to participate in the existing process, but it's another to walk into an MP's office and say, here's a bill we want you to put out.

I'll go back to the Armenian genocide example, Dick. In that whole process, there were individual MPs who were singled out, who were named in publications, and who were unfairly vilified. There was a tremendous expectation out there about something that wasn't necessarily happening. I'm not saying that this can't be managed, but I'm just saying that this, like the 100 signatures, may not have the effect we want it to have. All I'm arguing is that we need to go back to the House for an extension. I'm not saying this isn't possible.

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Prior to 1984 everything was votable. As I said in the last meeting, there were three bills that became law through private members, from Confederation to 1984, because the government had absolute complete control of it.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: That's not true. That's not how we operated after Confederation. It was all private members' business to begin with. The government always has the majority. Even with this, we still have a vote in Parliament. There are things being raised here that are totally incorrect. It's not that you, as a government, will lose all control.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'm saying that if you want the government to take control of private members' bills and whip us all, fine. I'm trying to preserve an aspect of this process that I think is worth preserving.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'm just saying the numbers speak for themselves. The government could just let things drop. In the McGrath commission it came into effect—

The Chair: Could I comment?

Mr. Joe Jordan: Because of the rules, it was a terrible system prior to—

The Chair: In theory they were votable, but in fact they were generally talked out. That's the way it worked because that's how the government side came in—just so you know.

Again, I heard the call for a point of order, but I think we need to have some serious discussion on this.

Have you finished, Joe?

Mr. Joe Jordan: No.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Joe Jordan: If you're advocating a return to pre-1994, that's not going to solve anything. The McGrath commission was a response to the frustration people had that nothing ever made it through that quagmire. Even though they were all votable, the government could control how they got to that point, and then what happened after. People didn't have to vote on these things; they were procedurally killed en masse, to the point where it was such a useless exercise that the House, the members, decided they'd better look at it. That is how we've evolved to where we are now.

Maybe we need to front-end this by asking what the purpose is of private members' business, because I think that's going to dictate some of the subsequent decisions. I come back to the point I made. If we decide that the purpose of private members' business is to allow for a parallel track for legislation in this country, then the time constraints we put on private members have to apply to government bills as well. We can't have two separate tracks.

Historically, private members' business has not dealt with expenditure of money. At one time they had 11 criteria, but that was reduced to five. I think we need to have discussions about those kinds of things. What's the purpose of private members' business? That'll dictate the direction of the discussion. It's an interesting topic to discuss, but before we make decisions we have to nail down some of these things.

Again, there are some very interesting aspects to these, but I'm not in a position right now, with a November 1 deadline, to pick one. I think we have to ask for an extension and then, as Garry argued last time, put in some time lines and processes and identify what needs to be done.

I'm not saying just push it aside. We need to look at it, because this is about the third time I've dealt with this in four years. So it's a big issue and we need to look at it, but it must be done right. There are interests independent of the fact that we're trying to be non-partisan. There are interests here too that are going to influence how this goes.

The Chair: Garry.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: A lot of issues have been raised again. On the last one, this is an apples and oranges issue. Private members' business is not the same as government business. We don't have all the powers of government and all the different avenues and tracks you can do things in. We can't just introduce things whenever we wish and have them dealt with expeditiously, and so on. This is still private members' business, and to try to portray it as a parallel track to government is an apples and oranges issue.

What is the purpose of private members' business? It's to ensure that private members have a meaningful role in Parliament. That's why I brought this whole issue forward. Now I get the sense we're trying to sweep it under the rug a bit, and I'm very uncomfortable with that.

Ms. Catterall raised the issue that House leaders don't need more to do. House leaders manage stuff in the House right now, so why can't we have a group that manages private members' business? That's what I'm suggesting. I'm not trying to dump more work onto the House leaders.

Ms. Davies asked why we need private members' business. Not all good ideas come from the government. I think there are many backbenchers who could suggest amendments to the Criminal Code. You were saying we'd get all these Criminal Code amendments. There are many suggestions private members can come up with that are very good amendments to the Criminal Code. Why should we not want to spend time in committees dealing with these? I think that is a positive, not a negative. So I would disagree with that.

• 1150

There is also a complaint that we have two proposals here. Well, bring forth another proposal. I think we should go line by line. That was my suggestion at the beginning of this, and all these fears that are being raised can be dealt with. We should go line by line and see where the problems lie with these proposals.

I don't think we're going to do anything here that can't be undone in three or four years. Everybody has raised fears that I don't think are substantial. If they turn out to be true, we can visit this again at the end of this Parliament. We can see if we can make this work, and if we can, it could really reinvigorate Parliament in a way that hasn't happened in a long time.

We have to keep our focus on why we're here and why we're trying to enhance our roles as private members. I suggest, with all due respect, we go line by line and see where the problems are.

The Chair: Do you mean go through the table and do it this way?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. You have two proposals. There isn't any other proposal before us, so let's go through it.

The Chair: That's okay. We have the issues list that meshes with that, if you look at it. I'm quite willing to consider that.

Before I go to Paul Macklin, I want to say that as your chair I first of all don't see any great consensus developing here. Second, I don't think it's feasible for us to report a practicable system by November 1, so at some point there will have to be a delay.

Organizationally, my sense is that we will need at least one more meeting of this type with the results of this discussion we will likely have now; some other suggestions that have been made today, such as this pre-drafting suggestion; and some other things that would fit alongside here. We need to look at that before we can even direct our staff to establish the scenarios of how it would affect the Standing Orders and the time of the House, as I said.

I don't know if you all agree with that, but that's where I think we are at the moment.

I'll go to Paul Macklin. It's now about 12 noon, so if we can go quite quickly to the individual items it will be useful, at the very least, for when we direct staff to do something.

Paul Macklin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: From all of this discussion, I'm still trying to distil what we're trying to achieve. If I go back to the motion from the House to us, it says we are to try to improve the procedures.

I'm still confused. There is a cloud hanging here that suggests we're trying to increase substantially the amount of private members' business. I'm not sure that's what this suggests; it says to “improve”. With everything we look at here, we have to decide whether it is better than what we're doing now, otherwise just leave things the way they are, including a workable proposal to make all items votable.

From my simple perspective, we could make all things votable with the stroke of a pen. We could just simply change that. That's not major. The question, ultimately, is whether that would be an improvement. We don't seem to be zeroing in on the issue. When we look at these various items today, let's establish whether they are going to be improvements.

The other point that follows is whether the draft amendments themselves will turn out to be improvements.

There are two steps. First is to go through the suggestions and see whether they constitute improvements. If so, we can put them on the list for consideration. Then we need the draft proposals, to see again whether they continue this line of advancing and improving the process.

The Chair: You saw Garry nodding. He agreed with what you said. He said it's improving, not increasing.

If we can do this fairly briskly—

Mr. Joe Jordan: It'll identify the issues.

• 1155

The Chair: That's right. The way we could look at the table, if you would, is those of you who have already made suggestions on where they fit, as it were, in the next column, or somewhere along...I think that would be very useful to our staff.

By the way, if you think there should be another row—that would have been the way to put it—then say so.

Garry, do you want to begin by considering the first row, which is “Right to submit Private Members' Business”? We have your additional note. Everyone can see that it says—

[Translation]

Yesterday that section was changed,

[English]

and it says all MPs have a minimum of one item.

[Translation]

Yes, that is right.

[English]

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Essentially, I think both proposals are the same on this. I don't think there's a fundamental disagreement. Every MP is allowed one item. They do not have to submit an item, of course. If they want to submit several items, that would be up to them, if they so desired. But in the life of that Parliament, they would probably only....

The Chair: Paul Macklin, then Joe Jordan.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: But isn't it a fact that at this very moment an MP can put in as many as they want?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: So would this be an improvement, or more of a restriction? I suggest Mr. Reynolds' proposal and Mr. Lee's proposal wouldn't advance in any way, shape, or form our present position on that.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: There's really no change.

The Chair: Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: It usually goes in once, though, right, even though you have 30 bills? You don't increase the odds by dumping in more bills.

I think this is where we may want to look at the issue I brought up. I would rather see, at this point, an MP do a rough draft of what they have in mind. Don't commit legislative drafting time until it's drawn.

There are 600 bills in that bin. If we don't change anything, we may see 30 of them in this Parliament. So how much time has been spent on stuff that's never going to see the light of day, just because of the time limits? At that point, we could deal with the issue in a conceptual stage and not take it any further, until it gets on the formal track.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: How would you propose that work then? I can agree with not wasting the time of a lot of drafters, but—

Mr. Joe Jordan: I think you'd extend the time to draft it between the draw and when that bill would actually be in front of the House.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Right after the election, that may present a problem.

Mr. Joe Jordan: No, no, you're going to have a lag. You're going to have a bit of a void there.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, so you may have to do some catch-up at some point. I see your concern, and I don't want to waste—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Motions wouldn't be a problem, but bills would. They could take....

But I think you're going to find you'll have the same amount of resources directed at fewer things, and we might be able to do it a little quicker than it's being done now in terms of assigning a lawyer to each person.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I accept that.

The Chair: That's useful, I think.

Marie-Andrée.

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: Just to give you exact numbers, at this point there are 171 bills on the long list and 52 ready to be introduced. That's about 225 bills that have been drafted. The other 400 are motions.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Can I ask you one other question on that? How many different members are there? Many of those bills belong to one member. I know some members have up to 100 motions. Do you have any statistics on how many members are—

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: Of the roughly 220 MPs who are left once you remove the office holders, about half of those, about 90 to 100, are the customers—

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: So 90 to 100 are interested in private members' business. Thank you.

The Chair: Is there anything else related to this line?

Could we go to the draw? Are there comments?

Yes, Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Mr. Chairman, just to point out procedure, I don't think we're arriving at consensus. I think we're identifying issues, right?

The Chair: I think we're helping with the next step. We're trying to get to a point where we can practically consider these things. By the way, the step after that, once we have the scenario we want, is the question of what the costs in time would be. What are the costs in drafting, and so on? We're trying to get to that point. So every comment here is on the record and it's going to go in this line.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

The Chair: We're going from the first line.

Mr. Joe Jordan: The issue—

The Chair: Are you on the draw now? Okay, Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I think the issue with the draw right now is that we need a way to reduce the number, because we don't have the time. So we'll look at the time issue to see if we can get enough time, and that way we can eliminate the draw.

The 100-signature rule was a way to try to introduce another step that would say if there's substantial interest in an issue, it should be expedited—circumvent the draw. What happened was...actually you'd have a better chance of being drawn than you had through the 100-signature rule, because the first item we got through that process got held up. And then there's the issue with members.

• 1200

If you don't have enough time, then the draw, though it's not perfect, is as good as anything you're going to get, unless you want to go to some kind of waiting system that involves other members. I think we have to take a look at that.

The ideal solution is to somehow find the time, so you don't have to have the draw. Then all you're really dealing with is in what order the House deals with them, and I think you can use the order they come in as the order they go out.

The Chair: Garry.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I think we're saying the same thing here. The draw would decide who gets to go first. If the life of a Parliament is four years, then probably by that time, depending on how much time we allocate for each one...many of them will just have one hour. So you can crank a lot of the motions through. In the life of that Parliament, if there are 90 to 100 members interested, the chances are quite good that you would be able to get most of these through. The draw would simply determine who gets to go first and who has to wait three years.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But I think you could reasonably assume that if things were all votable, you would get more members doing it. I think people would take the opportunity to put one in.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: That's my point. I think it would reinvigorate our own ten people as well to get more involved in the process. That's been my point all along.

The Chair: Can we minimize this little chat here?

Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: A draw whenever the order of precedence gets low is what happens now, is it not?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: So that doesn't need to be in there.

Regarding the draw, you say priority should be given to MPs who have not submitted an item. I presume you mean MPs who have not had an item drawn. If you have 100 members who have a bill they want to introduce, and they haven't had an opportunity to, you're surely not suggesting we should go out and hunt down members who haven't submitted anything?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. These are really small encapsulated comments; they don't explain the whole process. And you're right, at the beginning of Parliament everybody who has a bill or motion will put their name in the hat, and until all of them have had one turn, nobody gets a second chance. That's what that is intended to explain.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Okay. Now I have a question in terms of the draw. If I submit 100 bills or motions, and somebody else submits one, do I have 100 chances of getting chosen?

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: No, it's just your name.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: No, you don't have a better chance. You get one kick at the can, and you have to decide what is the most important.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: In other words, if somebody who has already had a private member's bill has their name drawn, they would have to wait until anybody—

Mr. Joe Jordan: They wouldn't go back in the draw. If they're pulled, they stay out. They're done until everyone else is done.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: That's right.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: So there's a second pot set up, then, for the next round?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Well, it's not like that completely. Now, after your item drops off the order paper, your name goes back in. I'm suggesting that your name doesn't go in until everybody's had a chance. It would make it more fair than it is now. Right now a lot of people can wait and never be drawn. It brings an element of fairness into the whole thing.

The Chair: Libby Davies, then Carolyn Parrish.

Ms. Libby Davies: Just on the draw, the way it works now is that because it's random by name, it doesn't relate to party standing, right? Anybody could be drawn, whether it's a government member or an opposition member.

One of the concerns we would have is that by doing it this way, where basically everyone can submit something, you can all go in, it would give preference to government members, so we wouldn't all be on equal footing. Again, I think it comes back to the intent.

Mr. Joe Jordan: It would be as individuals, not as parties.

Ms. Libby Davies: As individuals, for sure, but it seems to me there is also an issue to make sure there is some sort of equal footing. The random thing was random, and we all took our chances on that. This is actually now taking us in a different direction, so I would certainly have that concern.

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish, then Marlene Catterall.

Libby, if this greatly increases interest, you may end up seeing greater interest among government members, but typically, if you look at it, government members are sort of slightly less engaged. I was drawn, but I'd put only one in.

Ms. Libby Davies: But then it would even it out not just for government members, but amongst all of the members, right?

The Chair: I understand the point.

Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I just wanted to correct a misconception. What happens now is if you put your name in and you get drawn, and you appear on the order paper, at that point you can't put another bill in. As soon as your bill is up for discussion, discussed, and disposed of in the House, you can put your name back in. We've had some members drawn three and four times in one year, in one session. McTeague has horseshoes hanging from each of his ears; he's getting drawn all the time.

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This will actually mean the people who are super active, like Bryden, McTeague, Szabo, will be restricted to one per session, whereas right now they can enthusiastically be drawn every couple of months.

So we really should be having somebody answering these questions who understands the system—and I don't mean you.

Mr. Breitkreuz, really you shouldn't be answering these questions. If these are technical questions, Jamie should be answering them.

And as far as your other point is concerned, there are just as many Liberals or government members in there as there are opposition members.

I find most of our craziest bills actually come from the government backbenches, but that's also a misconception.

My knowledge over the last five years would indicate we have some very active private members on the government side in the backbenches who are in there all the time.

The Chair: Under the draw line, are we okay?

The votability line, please.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Chair...no, wait.

The Chair: Excuse me, Marlene. I had forgotten.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: What Ms. Davies seems to be suggesting, again, is going to more of a party system, and that is antithesis to what the idea of private members' bills is all about. She seems to be suggesting that because there are so few NDP members, and that applies to one other party at least, they should be given a better chance than anybody else at being drawn.

Ms. Libby Davies: No, I'm not suggesting that. I think whatever changes are made we just want to be assured we have an equal opportunity, that a system isn't devised that basically, because of its nature, allows a party, based on the number of members it has, to have more.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Obviously, it would. Twelve members together have less of a chance of getting drawn than 150 members have of getting one of their member's bills drawn.

Mr. Joe Jordan: That's the way it is now.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That's the way it is, and that's the way it should be. Each member has an equal chance.

The Chair: Okay. Votability. Is that straightforward?

Paul Macklin and then Joe Jordan.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: There's one item that isn't on this list that may be implied, but it likely may be very important, and that is the screening, who's screening.

You need to go over to Jamie's prepared notes on the next page.

We need to take a look at that screening process and see what it is we are going to screen for, because simply making everything votable as it comes in the door could lead to some very serious consequences.

The Chair: So your point is that we should formally consider screening?

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: I would think if we're following through logically step by step, yes.

The Chair: Do you want to do that, folks?

Look at the screening item on the notes, the selected components elements...and there's screening, and the suggestion is that should logically be before votability.

So let's have a look at those items.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I have a question on that. That doesn't apply to everything, does it? The bills would be screened, not the motions.

Mr. James Robertson: Yes. Motions are currently screened, but the chances of a motion being ruled out of order are much less, because they do not have the effect of changing the law. Therefore it's more difficult to rule a motion out of order than it would be a bill.

Mr. Joe Jordan: This is where we get into the meat of this discussion, because it'll depend on what the criteria for screening is, which will depend on what private members' business is for.

One of the traditional criteria is that the item is not on part of the government's legislative agenda. It hasn't been identified in that session. It hasn't already been dealt with.

If we're going to keep those types of criteria, then conceivably someone can be drawn, that's their bill. They may only have one, and they can't do that one because buddy had it before them a week earlier. So it gets a little complex at this point.

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I think this is the deal breaker. The deal breaker for me is what the criteria are going to be that are going to screen these bills before they go into a process where it's going to end up in an automatic recorded division somewhere down the road. And it may result in being referred to committee in a schedule that has nothing to do with the normal workings of the committee. This is what Libby was talking about. Try to send something to the environment committee in the next four months when they're doing clause-by-clause on species at risk and it's going to be an interruption.

I'm not saying it's not doable, but this is the kind of detail we're going to have to think through very carefully.

The Chair: Pierre Brien, then Carolyn Parrish and Libby Davies.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Brien (Témiscamingue, BQ): I am not in favour of saying that unexpected items could be submitted to the committee. A committee is an extension of the House, and if the House is the one that issues an order of reference, the message is clear and the committee will find time to study it. I am not convinced by this part of the argument.

I understand that establishing a screening procedure is not easy, but the fact that something to be studied may affect the committees' schedule is not an argument, in my opinion.

[English]

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: One of the concerns, and I agree with Joe, is we have regulations that all parties agree to, that you can't keep rehashing...a bill that just lost...bring it back.

To take it to the ridiculous, if Charles Caccia got 15 members of the Liberal Party to say they want labelling of GM foods to be an issue, then he could go to everybody who's drawn and say do it again. It's the same thing with gun control. Mr. Day could say to everyone in the Alliance party who gets drawn, “I want you to do gun control”, and you could keep doing it over and over again. So that's a ridiculous example.

The screening is absolutely essential. Part of the regulations we have now are very effective. And I think you're going to have to come up with a very detailed way of screening bills. They can't be bills that affect taxation. They can't be bills that are repetitive. They can't be rehashes of government legislation that's just gone through. They can't be rehashes of other private members' bills that have just been voted on.

So this screening is very complex, and if you want to finely tune that and change the regulations we have now...if you're going to say all bills are votable, I would be willing to guarantee, with an appropriate screening system, that you're still going to cut them down to about one-third getting through.

I caution you that without a system in place, you can't just say every single person in the House of Commons can put any bill in they want, because you're wasting House time, which is very expensive on bills that can't pass.

Ms. Libby Davies: On the draw issue, the way it is now, because it is at random, we all theoretically have the possibility of getting more than one thing in, right? So it isn't based on party standing, whereas if we switch to a system that says basically you have one item, then it would affect us, right? Once we have one item in, that would be it. So it would be more reflective of the standing of the parties. That's really my point. If this is based on private members' business as individuals and not as how we stand as parties, then we have to be careful how it's designed. I'm concerned that what I think is being suggested we move to would hurt the smaller parties.

Secondly, on the screening, my question is how would what's before us here on page 2 actually be different from what we have now? Right now when you want to put in a bill, the House does advise you on whether or not they think it's acceptable in terms of the subject matter or it's constitutional.... That does happen now; at least I've had that happen on bills I've put in.

Right now we do have criteria. It goes through a committee. Here it's saying referral to a committee after tabling for screening. This is not spelled out, but it does presume there's some sort of criteria again. How would this be different? Because it seems we would then be getting back into an issue of actually having criteria of some sort. We could debate how broad they are. Are they just on acceptability and constitutionality or are there other issues?

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The Chair: Perhaps I can say again that not only is November 1 a deadline for us, but we also have a deadline today. We have whips and various other people here. We're going to have to move this thing on.

Jamie, perhaps you could comment here; then it's Garry.

Mr. James Robertson: I'll comment very quickly.

Right now there are two basic levels of screening. First when you go to legislative counsel to get a bill drafted, they will discuss with you some of the parameters for private members' bills, which may influence what kind of bill you draft or whether you get a bill drafted. But this is an informal, non-parliamentary system.

When it's put on notice, some screening is done by the House of Commons procedural staff as to its procedural acceptability. It could well be ruled out of order—it's very rare at that point—and not be allowed to be tabled. The second screening takes place when it has been selected in the draw. The private members' business subcommittee looks at a list of criteria as basically minimums before it will be considered to be votable.

The issues on page 2 under screening are as follows. There could be no screening at all; it could just be the lottery, the draw, and the member then takes responsibility for putting forward the item as he or she wishes; or there could be different screening mechanisms built in, either before the bill or motion is tabled, by the table, by some group of MPs or former MPs, or by a committee of some nature. The idea is should there be screening, and if so, who should do it and at what stage in the process?

The Chair: It's Garry and then Joe.

And we're still on screening, as far as I know.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Well, some of the comments made were ones I was going to raise. The key element is who's going to do the screening?

I have a question for Jamie.

Doesn't the Speaker rule some of these out of order? Some bills are ruled out of order. Wasn't there just recently a Senate bill brought to the House that was ruled out of order?

The Speaker will take care of some of the concerns expressed here about things not being in order. It would be taken care of even in the debate. Some people would find out it's not constitutional.

The flaw right now is that partisan politics are entering into the screening process. It's unfortunate and it's why we need to make items votable.

Who does this and the criteria for doing it are very critical things. We can decide that an item can only be introduced once in Parliament. Somebody said that items will be reintroduced and reintroduced. What about the Armenian genocide? How many times has it been before Parliament? It comes every time.

But in the life of that Parliament, you get to submit that item for debate once. If somebody else submits the exact same item, you can't do it again. This can be a criteria and I can live with it. It's not a problem to me.

The Chair: Marie-Andrée.

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: A precision as far as the Speaker's ruling.... I should backtrack and say that in Journals, once we get a bill, we have to verify according to the Standing Orders that there's not something that's substantially the same—

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Right.

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: —already in the big hat. So that's one screening we do. It's a bit difficult sometimes as well. The Speaker will rule on a matter if something is brought to his attention in most instances.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, right.

Ms. Marie-Andrée Lajoie: So the procedural acceptability is there

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I'm sure members would bring it to his attention.

The Chair: We're all agreed there should be a screening line in the next version of this.

We'll go to Joe, very briefly.

Mr. Joe Jordan: To summarize to Pierre, I wasn't arguing we should do this. I'm saying we have to consider what the committee...because a bill like Charles Caccia's, if it had passed, and then went to the health committee, it wasn't something it could have disposed of in two days. It would have taken a lot of time. If we're making changes, we need to understand what the impacts of those changes are and make the decisions conscious of what those impacts could be.

To pick up on this screening thing—and I was involved in two reviews—the frustration members expressed really had its roots in.... Yes, you're screened, but you're screened objectively all through this thing; and at the very end screening is subjective. Now, Garry says it's partisan. In my experience the chair didn't vote. It was one vote per party. It may not be perfect, but it's better than a committee with a government majority on it. We have to find a practical way to do this.

• 1220

So, yes, that's a critical piece. And if you're going to have a subjective screening in this process, put it at the front end so somebody doesn't go through a process that could take years and at the very end find out, for reasons that are very hard to explain—in some cases it may just be a numbers crunch—that it didn't work out.

Now, making them all votable is an attempt to solve this, but when we look at whatever mechanisms we're considering here, where they're placed in the process is going to be important as well. Again, it's a complicated thing, but we have to go through it in a very logical way.

The Chair: Garry.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, your point is well taken. Where they're placed in the process is important.

But to pick up on this subjective/objective thing, I would like to remove the subjectivity from it as much as possible, and therefore who does this is very important. I'd rather not have members of Parliament involved in this process because—

Mr. Joe Jordan: It's our business.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But if there's a problem with the constitutionality of it...or I don't know what items you're going involve here for screening. I don't think we should be deciding whether something is constitutional or not. We should have an unbiased person reviewing the bill to see whether it violates the Constitution or other things we may bring forth as items to be considered in screening.

I'm very familiar with the process now and there's a lot of subjectivity in it. I'd like to have people who don't have that—

Mr. Joe Jordan: But it's not necessarily partisan; it's just the subjectivity, because it's all parties. We're all responsible.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: But some of us are not experts in the Constitution, and I don't see what other criteria you're going to bring forward. Procedural, constitutional—those are the two suggested here—or if an item has been brought up previously in the Parliament. Those are the three items for which you would screen it out.

The Chair: I'd actually like to draw this to a close, if I might.

I know many of you have responsibilities in the House. We can go on, if you wish. I'm quite willing to sit here, but it does seem we're not going to finish this thing today.

I do believe this last section has been very useful. At a future meeting we should proceed along the lines we were discussing. We're just getting to votability and we've agreed that screening should have been one of them in there. But I suggest to you we're not going to finish it today.

It seems to me as chair that members want to continue this, but on the other hand the committee has to report to the House by next week. Next week, as you know, we're taken up. We have Mr. Kingsley. There's a deadline associated with his presentation. Then we have to deal with the question of privilege, which is essentially urgent. We have been dealing with this even though the question of privilege is imminent.

So we do have to look for more time, because we have to report to the House by the first.

Dick Harris.

Mr. Richard Harris: Mr. Chairman, would it be in order then to propose a motion to extend?

The Chair: If it were the committee's wish, I certainly would.

I don't, Dick, at this moment see a way out of where we are in time for the first. The motion would have to be to the effect that the committee reports to the House, and due to lack of time it has been unable to come up with a practicable solution to this problem and it requests an extension of such and such. This would be the sort of thing I would envisage. I'm simply making the point, Dick, that a week or two isn't going to do it, because of the question of privilege and the commitments we have for next week.

Mr. Richard Harris: Well, this being the case, I would like to propose a motion that we ask for an extension until December 7. This would give us 36 days—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Ninety.

A voice: No way. You're trying to kill it altogether.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Practically, we made great progress today. I can take my thoughts and force them into this template. These headings are very good; we hit all of the buttons. But this is not an issue with a simple solution. When can the committee devote...?

We should hear witnesses here. This has to be voted by all members of Parliament. We're talking about a fundamental change here, and if it can re-engage parliamentarians, then the importance of it can't be understated. And we don't want to rush into this.

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Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.): We can also report back that we cannot find a workable solution.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Well, that's the other option.

The Chair: Dick.

Mr. Richard Harris: Mr. Chairman, I'm suggesting December 7 because it's an additional five weeks. I think this is an important piece of business to get done. If we're getting toward the end of November and we find we are bogged down a little, we can always request another extension. But I think 90 days is unreasonable, because we could very well lose touch with the importance of this thing.

The Chair: If we're going to continue with this—and it's up to the committee—we have to return to it as soon as we can. But I want to point out to you that it doesn't actually give us five weeks, because of these other commitments the committee has. It's a bit less than that.

Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: First of all, we look as though we're not well organized if we ask for five weeks and then have to go back and ask for more extensions. We look poorly organized, like we don't know what we're doing. I don't know if 90 days is the length of time, but you have to remember that we have breaks in there, the Christmas break and everything else.

What I find unproductive is bouncing around, one or two days on this and then a whole bunch of other days on something else. It might be a good opportunity to subcommittee it out, but you have to either do a subcommittee or concentrate on your schedule and have two weeks straight here to work on it. The only way you're going to get that flexibility is to give yourself the 90 days. That doesn't mean you have to go 90 days; it means we don't look like fools going back and repeatedly asking for extensions. We may be finished sooner, in which case we'll do it sooner.

I think Mr. Breitkreuz is on the steering committee, so he can help Mr. Adams arrange the agenda so that we will be finished sooner. If you give yourselves 90 days, you can finish it sooner, but I would really like us to spend a week or two on this, or subcommittee it so that we can concentrate. This bouncing around is non-productive.

The Chair: It's Dick's motion, so—

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I will amend the motion to say 90 days.

The Chair: And I'll go back to Dick.

Mr. Richard Harris: Regarding the 90 days, I see the month-and-a-half Christmas break, and then we're into February. To me, 90 days is too much. I think we'd like to get this dealt with before we break at Christmas.

So if we say December 7, that puts a little bit of priority on it. Let's arrange our time between now and December 7 so that we can deal with it. I wouldn't mind dealing with it in a priority fashion where we're not bouncing around. Let's just set a time limit and some time for the committee to deal with it.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Are you accepting a motion to amend it to 90 days?

The Chair: I'm certainly accepting the motion, and it's for December 7.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: And now it's 90 days.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Are these sitting days or 90 days?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Well, 90 calendar days doesn't really buy us a lot more time, does it?

An hon. member: It doesn't buy you hardly anything.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: So it's 90 sitting days.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: What does 90 sitting days take us to?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: It takes us to spring.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: No, I don't think it's even in this session.

An hon. member: That may take us out of this session.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes.

The Chair: Can we have some clarification on that? What does 90 sitting days bring us to?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: What about 90 calendar days? That gives us three months. That's November, December, and January. So we'd have to report back in February.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Let's do April 1.

The Chair: There's a certain symbolism to April 1.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: How about March 1?

The Chair: We're discussing an amendment here.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Let's amend the motion to April 1.

The Chair: I assume April 1 is a reasonable day of the calendar. Could anyone look at that?

Dick, I'll come back to you. This is informal. We're going to come back and vote on your motion. We have an amendment here.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Dick's original motion didn't give the timeline, did it?

The Chair: No. He said December 7.

April 1 is a Monday. It's a non-sitting day. Could we come up with some other day close to that?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: March 1.

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The Chair: We were going to go to December 7. I just want to clarify the amendment here: April or March?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Pick a day in April.

A voice: April 12 will be the first sitting—

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Perfect.

The Chair: Okay, April 12.

I have an amendment to Dick's motion, that we seek an extension until April 12.

Mr. Richard Harris: That doesn't mean we have to take that time.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That's right.

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: Dick, I'm going to call the motion, as amended.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Could I get a clarification?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: The motion reads “no later than April 12”.

Some hon. members: That's right.

The Chair: Fine.

(Motion as amended agreed to)

The Chair: Colleagues, on your behalf, I will report to the House of Commons on that basis, and I will refer to the April date.

The other thing I will do, though, and I will follow up on this, is once we have.... The main complication, Dick, is the question of privilege. Even though we have a deadline that has to do with televising committees and various others, I will find a block of time, like two or three meetings together, and I will bring it to you as a suggestion. I understood the point that was made. Meanwhile, the staff will look at this as far as we have it, and they will come up with another framework we can work with.

Marie-Andrée, we're most grateful to you for being here. You've followed this, and you understand that the stage after that will be the more elaborate scenarios, and I'm sure you and your colleagues will be thinking about those things.

Colleagues, I'm going to adjourn the meeting in a moment. We will meet next Tuesday, same time, same place, with the Chief Electoral Officer.

On Thursday, our witness is going to be Mr. Richard Fadden, the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council—and by the way, this doesn't mean we cannot or will not call the Clerk of the Privy Council at a future time. But Mr. Fadden is the deputy—this is what it says—and as it happens he is responsible for both security and intelligence and for relations with Parliament. They believe that is precisely where this question of privilege lies. So our witness a week today will be Richard Fadden.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Is he the guy who conducted the investigation? That was the point, wasn't it?

The Chair: That's right, but he's fully responsible for this.

Also, at the moment, this will be a normal, open meeting, but it may be necessary during that meeting to go in camera, depending on your questions and the nature of the responses. Do you understand that?

Okay, colleagues, the meeting is adjourned until Tuesday.