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, May 10, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.)): It's time to start our meeting of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business for today, Wednesday, May 10, 2000. We're meeting in consideration of a summary of members' responses regarding the 100-signature process.

I think you all have a copy of the letter we sent out to all members of the House asking for their opinions and asking them to share their thoughts on the ten questions there.

As you people know, the original object of the 100 signatures was to basically make it a fast track in some regard. It has turned out to be perhaps a victim of its own success. We thought we would address that, so we sent out all these letters and have had a good response from members, across the board.

So how do we want to proceed? Do we want to open this up for discussion or shall we start with the report, with the summary of the members' responses? Shall we start with the number one question and their response and just have a discussion around the table for the first item? The first item in front of us reads, “Should a signature in support of a specific item...?”

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure what process you want to follow here. We can review all the individual responses, but how productive will that be, other than to collectively read what we've just read individually? I wonder whether—

The Chair: Can we ask James?

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I know that both the clerk and research have looked at this and have summarized it some, and if we can get some agreement on some points where we need to look at making changes—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I don't want to bring the meeting to a premature end, but I wonder whether we couldn't ask Jamie to give us—

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I guess this is a summary, technically speaking, but it's not a summary in the sense that it tries to gather together—

The Chair: No, no.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: —and say there appears to be consensus, at least among the members who responded, on this item, but on that they are evenly divided, and on this there is a variety of opinion. Then we could go from there.

I just think that if we try to do it without that kind of guidance, we're just going to have a rambling discussion for an hour and a half and then go—

The Chair: That sounds like a great idea, because there's a good cross-section of members here, I think—and suggestions—so can we refer that, members, to Jamie?

Joe.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, last time we went through a similar process, and I know that we asked the question about members appearing. I thought we had a very good response and a very good discussion with them.

I don't remember what we did with that information, but picking up on what Bill said, having gone through this, I guess the issue I have with this whole process is that maybe we need to back off and redefine what private members' business is all about. I know we've loosened up the criteria; we used to have twelve and we went to five. I know that the motion the Canadian Alliance passed kept items on the order paper.

At the end of the day, I think what we have is a process in which we don't have enough time allocated for everybody who wants to do it. So you either have to expand the amount of time you're going to devote to private members' business or you have to figure out a way of being fair.

Now, is first-come, first-served fair? Is random draw fair? To me, it seems fair. I mean, the rationale for dropping things when the House prorogues is that if you don't happen to get it in on the first day of the first session after an election, you're done for the whole thing. As you know, there is a random component to it. I guess we either have to expand the time or just accept the fact that not everybody is going to get (a) their bill drawn and (b) their bill votable.

When I look at the people who have responded here, I see that—and this certainly isn't a criticism—some of them are very high users of the process and have very strong opinions, but I think maybe we need to look at what the real problem is that we're trying to solve. Whenever anybody talks to me about this whole issue, it's that they're upset because they didn't get drawn yet, or they have a 100-signature bill in the queue, there's one in there that's holding everything up, and they're backed up over Chicago, or it did get drawn and it wasn't made votable. But all of those things relate to how much time we give to this private members' business.

In the last two years, I think we've had some very good bills come through this process, but I think if you read the history of Parliament, we've taken the private members' business.... It used to be kind of inconsequential fringe things, but we have some pretty mainstream things coming through there now, so things are changing.

I would resist the notion to try to tweak around the edges. If we're going to take a look at this, I think we need to go right back to the beginning. What's it for? How does it work? Then we need to communicate that to people and have the discussion.

But it's almost like we're looking for band-aid solutions when maybe the issue is how much time we have for it.

The Chair: Madam Dalphond-Guiral.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): I agree with what Joe just said, except that I am surprised that there were no more than 15 MPs participating. This represents approximately 5%. Joe said that for a number of years now, there have been excellent bills that have been drawn from among those that have 100 signatures. There have been excellent ones, but not so many since the process has been applied. There hasn't been a flood of these. What is frustrating is that things have got backed up.

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Another frustrating thing for people on the subcommittee is that sometimes, there is a 100-signature bill, but there does not appear to be much interest. This is frustrating for us, because it is a bit of a trap. If the claim is that they are all votable because 100 signatures have been gathered, then bills that may not have much value could be supported. I think we can admit this among ourselves.

I would tend to agree that the whole thing needs to be reviewed. When the 100-signature idea was explored, it was to deal with a selection that had already been made. Was it ever considered that it should be tried out to see how it works? Perhaps Jamie could tell us whether there was some uncertainty about it. I seem to recall that there was.

We should therefore perhaps take stock of all that and see what would be the best way of implementing the process on the basis of the factors we have. Fifteen responses is nothing. I feel that this is nothing. What is really necessary is to determine whether there is some way of extending the time allocated for discussion of private members' bills.

That's what I feel. I think that we're about to adjourn.

The Chair: Thank you.

[English]

Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I don't know. I go back to my suggestion of a few minutes ago that I think we need to have.... I also want to say I appreciate the chairman's cheerful optimism, but I don't think this is such a great response—not that many members have actually responded. If you ask me, they were basically indifferent, with the exception of the members who responded. So in some respects we've been given a considerably free hand. Therefore we need to have an analysis of what we have before us.

Given the size of the sample, I think we need to take these responses seriously. In effect, if we were to actually compel people to answer, we would probably get a similar kind of mix. We'd just have 150 of them instead of 15, or whatever.

The basic problem is that there is more private members' business than can be conducted. More private members' business is intended by private members than the House can handle. This was handled in the past by lottery. I was one who was very skeptical about this 100-signature thing to begin with. It never really happened because I wasn't the only one who was skeptical about it. It happened by accident because of basically Reform Party mischief, if you like, in the House on a particular day.

We now have it, and frankly it's the nightmare I thought it would be. If we keep saying we have to have more 100-signature private members' business allowed, or we have to make them all votable, eventually all private members' business will be equal again and we will have to come up with some other way of deciding which private member's business will be dealt with and which won't. We'll be right back to square one, except members will have to go through this tortuous process of getting 100 signatures.

Will the people who decide what's votable and what isn't be any further ahead? Not really. Then we'll all be in the position of having to reject bills that 100 MPs have said should be votable. Of course they can't agree among themselves what they are doing when they sign this 100-signature thing.

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I think what we need is not just an analysis of what these members who've responded said, but an analysis of some of the more fundamental questions of what we were trying to achieve—or some people were trying to achieve, and I mean that in the best sense—by bringing forward this 100-signature thing. We need to analyse whether it's achieving it, whether it even stands a chance of achieving it, or whether it really is a way of recreating the old problem that there's limited time and therefore you need to have a mechanism. Do you want a mechanism that requires a whole lot of work on the part of MPs but really has the equivalent effect of a mechanism that doesn't require a whole lot of work, or not?

I'm rambling a bit here, but I'm just saying I think these are some of the things we need to look at. Maybe it would be helpful to have the kind of analysis of what we have before us that I suggested.

The Chair: Before we go to Mr. Jordan, I'm learning from you people.

I heard that the odd members spoke to other members about this. Of course they said “Well, he or she is going to make certain comments, so yes, I agree. It's a little bit busy around here in places, but I agree that we need to look at what this is and where we want to go.”

Joe.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Just to pick up on that, if we were to get rid of the 100 signatures.... From my own experience, you have a better chance in the lottery than the 100-signature queue now anyway. It's one of those kinds of “looks good on paper” things.

The problem the 100-signature thing has caused is it's raised expectations among people. People understood, for a variety of reasons, that if they got their 100 signatures it was going to be votable and it was going to be on the floor of the House very soon. The benefit of the lottery was that it was such a simple concept. People put a lot of work into their bills, but we don't need to make them put a lot of work into running around getting 100 signatures, because I think it feeds that expectation.

People understand the lottery. They also understand that the ones that are drawn get dropped if the House prorogues. It's not a perfect system, but at least it clears the slate. You take your chances again. Getting a private member's bill drawn is purely a matter of luck. But then you have some impact on making it votable because you get to come before the committee and make your case. Unless we're going to expand the time, we need some filter. We need something, and the draw's a very fair way.

One of the problems I see with the 100 signatures is I don't know how committed the people signing the bills are.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Not very.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Yes. On this notion of whether you should be seconding the bill, if that's going to be a mechanism, putting your name on that paper should mean something. Otherwise, everybody will have 100 signatures. What will you have gained?

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Everybody will sign everything.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So I think we really need to look at this.

The Chair: Some people may sign so many that they hit the wall and won't sign any more at all. It may have some ramifications.

Do you have anything on this?

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance): I don't disagree with everything that's been said. I think we need to revisit the whole concept. I know how it came to be, and I'm not sure what was trying to be achieved there either, Bill, other than perhaps it was somewhat just mischievous. Clearly, different people have different ideas, and I don't think it's going to work. We should maybe revisit the whole issue and reconsider it.

The Chair: Do we want, at this time, to have Jamie here to give us a summary of what we have?

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): I could either do that now, or we could prepare an updated—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Maybe you could do that, along with an outline of some of the more fundamental problems. I don't think you've actually done that, in a written sense, in the past.

Mr. James Robertson: No, I don't think so. It was called a summary, as you've pointed out, but it ended up repeating what all the members said in response to the questions.

I could try to put together a summary saying that opinions were divided under question one, and giving some of the issues that were raised. What you're raising today are clearly more fundamental issues about both this particular process and perhaps private members' business generally.

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Certainly the addition of more time would solve some of the problems. Although it might also mean that more members would look at private members' business, my own feeling is that when this has been really looked at in the last few years there has been no real likelihood of more time being made available for private members' business.

The question, then, is how do you make the existing system work better? For instance, should there be 30 items on the order of precedence or should we look at the numbers? Should we look at the number of hours votable items get and either reduce it...? It was originally five after the McGrath committee, then it was reduced to three, with five parties, all of whom probably want to go on record at least with one member.

It may not be possible to reduce it too much. One option that was suggested is that this subcommittee could decide whether a particular votable item got one hour of debate, two hours, or three hours. That adds a whole other level of subjectivity, but it might mean that there are some items that are important but that don't need three hours of debate.

I just throw that out. Maybe we could look at some of those issues.

The last round table, which Mr. Jordan referred to earlier, was held about a year and a half ago, I guess, and it was on the issue of making everything votable. I think the consensus was that there was no consensus at that meeting, that there were some members who believed very strongly—and I think one of the members who responded here makes the same point—that everything should be votable, but other members who were very much opposed to that for a number of reasons.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Just as a procedural issue, the changing so that the bills didn't drop off when the House prorogued and the 100-signature process were brought in by unanimous consent of the House. Does that mean it has to use that to be changed—

Mr. James Robertson: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: —or can the procedure and House affairs committee do it?

Mr. James Robertson: No.

Mr. Joe Jordan: It would have to go back to the House—

Mr. James Robertson: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: —for unanimous consent.

Mr. James Robertson: No, it wouldn't have to be unanimous consent.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: You could have a report from the committee, which could be adopted on division.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

Mr. James Robertson: But the Standing Orders were changed to make a number of changes, including the fact that items could be reinstated at the same point they were at prorogation, and the 100-signature thing. If changes were to be made to those provisions, it would require a change to the Standing Orders.

The Chair: Just before we go to Mr. Blaikie, there seems to be more talk around the Hill—and I'm sure it'll happen after the next election, because of the size of this country, from sea to sea to sea—of people looking at a four-day week, and even looking at a four-day week with a fifth day for private members' business. You know, you hear a lot of these things discussed in the hall, but we sure can't wait for those things to happen.

William.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I think that's a highly speculative comment on your part, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Well, I just pass on what I hear people....

Mr. Bill Blaikie: It's just what you hear.

The Chair: That's where it all starts, I believe.

Go ahead.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I think the committee has some work to do here, but at some point we should consider whether we actually want to make a recommendation or whether we aren't just a subcommittee that is designated by the standing committee to do private members' business as it is designed, and not see ourselves as the designers of private members' business, because the standing committee at the moment is about to commence a review of the Standing Orders.

It would seem to me that an argument could certainly be made that this should be part of that. Rather than being done in isolation, this summary could be done in the way that we've suggested—that is to say, some analysis, some outlining of some of the difficult questions. They could be referred, even without recommendation, just as information back to the standing committee for their benefit, in the context that they're about to begin a review of the Standing Orders.

I think it may be a mistake to try to do private members' business in isolation from a lot of the other things that have been done, because when this system was created in the first place it wasn't created by a group of people who were looking only at private members' business. It was created by people who were trying to see how they could make the whole place work better. One thing was connected to another.

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I mean, I'm not trying.... It doesn't matter to me. I'm on both committees. If you refer it back, I'll still have to deal with it. But I wonder whether there's value in thrashing it out here and thrashing out there, or whether we shouldn't just have it thrashed out there.

We're a small committee, and I think one of the problems we might have, no matter what we recommend, is people saying “Who are these four or five people?”, whereas if it was done by the standing committee in the context of a whole review, it might have more legitimacy, and then we see our job as executors of whatever private members' business policy the standing committee comes up with as opposed to, as I said before, the designers of our own task.

The Chair: I think it's because of your experience and because you're on both committees that you have our very undivided attention.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I listened carefully to what Bill just said. The problem I see in working at the full committee level is the instability in terms of the people who sit on the committee. Depending on what is on the agenda, some people fail to attend, whereas here, on the subcommittee, we can count on four out of five people attending. At least there is stability. How many times have we worked together? Very often. Joe has attended every meeting since joining the subcommittee. I believe this is conducive to work because we can concentrate on the task.

Without coming to a decision, we could make a number of recommendations. This could be useful at the full committee level. I am somewhat hesitant about saying that all of this should be referred to the full committee.

[English]

Mr. Bill Blaikie: But we can try our hand at it. All I'm saying is that there is another way of looking at this, if we choose.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I would react to that, my dear.

[English]

The Chair: Recommendations can go back, along with any summary, to the full committee.

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But I think Bill does have a point. I think what we can conclude from our survey is that there's no quick fix. We have arguments on both sides of virtually every question we asked from people who I would consider knowledgeable in terms of how this thing works. You know, it would have been nice on one of these questions if we had gotten unanimity on an issue, but we didn't.

I think at this point the fix might involve things that are outside our scope. If it involves looking at extending hours, well, we really have no control over that. We could spend a lot of time on this and I don't know what we'd accomplish.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: That's what I'm trying to avoid.

The Chair: Yes, Dave.

Mr. David Chatters: If we're going to simply make recommendations on how this 100-signature thing can work better rather than exploring the possibility of whether it works at all, there are not that many options you have to look at. Clearly, if the people who think that signing the bill is simply an expression that the bill warrants debate, then it really.... There'll be more and more, and it's really quite meaningless.

I assume it was envisioned originally that the 100-signature thing would only be used for extraordinary issues. It wouldn't be very many of them, and it would be quite rare. Clearly that's not the case. Everybody thinks their private member's bill is the most important bill in the world and warrants debate, warrants being votable.

So if we're going to make recommendations, the only recommendation that I see we could make is how to make the 100-signature rule more rare and of more substantive things and more meaningful. If it's just going to be because somebody thinks it's important, then I think we should throw the whole thing out and just go back to the straight lottery.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'm prepared to back that recommendation right now.

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I think we could talk about it for days. I think Bill expressed it well. Given the fact that we don't have enough time, you have to come up with some random way, a random way that's fair and in which you don't stay in the draw forever. You get your chance; you can put another one in. Someone may not have an idea for a private member's bill until halfway through the session. If they weren't there the first day, they're out of luck.

It's random and there's a downside to that, but I don't know what else you could do. You could come up with a very sophisticated way of having some other kind of filter. With regard to the 100-signature thing, I agree, everyone will meet that standard. So we're no further ahead, except that we've raised an expectation. We have a lot of people running around with sheets of paper making deals with people—sign mine and I'll sign yours. I just don't think it has any....

Mr. Bill Blaikie: It doesn't have any meaning. This guy wouldn't even agree to have this debate. Can you imagine how villainous this person is?

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'm also getting letters from people who know I'm on the committee, lobbying for someone's 100-signature bill, and that—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: That's the only development I don't like.

Mr. Joe Jordan: This isn't good.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I don't like that at all.

The Chair: How do we address—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Just let me finish.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Joe Jordan: The other question we might want to ask ourselves is whether private members need a mechanism that can get a bill to the floor to be votable. With the 100 signatures, the idea is that if so many people support it, it needs to be fast-tracked. It needs to jump the queue. Maybe we could make it 200 signatures or something, and if you sign it you're seconding it.

Maybe there is a need for something like that. But I think we have the two things confused. I think we have private members' business and the opposition's tools to have things on the legislative agenda that perhaps the government isn't interested in dealing with. I don't think private members' business is the venue for that.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: We're not sure whether this procedure creates a two-tier private members' system or whether it's just an enhanced service.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So I'd say scrap it.

The Chair: It's interesting. We have quite a bit of consent toward that.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Call the question.

The Chair: I wonder, on the preamble on another subject that was brought up, the fact that we get.... I've heard of the some mechanisms you people have used when you may get lobbied by your own colleagues, and basically warning them.... You know, you may not be doing yourself a favour. Of course, we've had the unfortunate...just very seldom to get letters from people across the country....

That would depend on whether we're going to make recommendations back to the main committee, which we do. Is there any way to protect the members of the subcommittee, any words to be included at that time? It's just a thought.

Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I don't know if we should discuss this today, but I think it is something we should discuss at some point.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: That is to see if we couldn't develop some common approach toward the lobbying that now seems to be increased, both from individual members and from the public. Because I think for individual members who have private members' bills, whether they're seeking 100 signatures or not, there seem to be a lot more people writing to us on the committee, basically saying you'd better choose this guy's bill as votable or we're going to hold you accountable. That never happened before.

I don't know what kind of stuff members are sending out. I don't know whether they're sending out letters to people who they know are supportive of their bill, saying write these guys and light a fire under them, threaten them. I don't mean threaten in any...I mean it in the political sense.

I noticed we're getting—at least I am—a lot more mail on this. I try to explain to people when I respond that this is a committee decision, and it has to be taken in the context of all the other private members' business that is put before the committee. Not everything can be debated, and certainly not everything can be voted on.

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Personally, I don't think members should be putting the committee in this kind of bind. I for one might be tempted—I'm not saying I would, but I might be—to look less favourably—I'd try to resist that temptation—upon the legislation of those who put me in that position.

The Chair: In my opinion only, members of the committee should be congratulated on its working the way it should, and keeping the results of the who and how and all that. It seems to be working excellently. I've heard no complaints. So the problem is from outside.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I was vilified for one particular decision.

A voice: Yes, I remember that.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: I won't say what decision it was, but—

The Chair: But not on how you voted. That wasn't included.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: No, but it was on the basis of my questioning.

The Chair: Yes, I saw the letter.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: All I was doing was asking questions about the bill itself, and somebody gave these people the impression that I was the bad guy, that if it hadn't been for me, this bill would have been votable. I got very, very nasty letters from the national organizations that wanted this bill—and I mean nasty.

The Chair: It's unfortunate, most unfortunate.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Not just that they were sorry, or disappointed.

The Chair: No, they were not nice, or correct.

Okay. Probably we're all looking at time now. Are we looking to make any recommendation at this moment? There's been one suggestion here that's had a fair bit of play and been received relatively well. We're going nowhere with the 100 signatures at the moment.

Mr. James Robertson: Perhaps what I could do—and I can't guarantee this for next Wednesday, unfortunately, but for the Wednesday after the break—is have a summary of this, a more coherent or shorter-form summary of this. We'll do up a draft report that will try to reflect this discussion and basically recommend that the 100-signature provision or procedure be repealed, eliminated; that the general issues of private members' business need to be addressed; and that this should be incorporated as a main part of the standing committee's review of the Standing Orders.

Mr. Joe Jordan: The other aspect is that if we're not going to drop items from the order paper, I think that needs to be looked at too. We had something that I thought worked well.

The Chair: Yes. Okay.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: The reason that happened was simply because it was a question of treating private members' business and government business the same. The government wanted that for its bills, and the argument was made that it was a question—

Mr. Joe Jordan: It won't be an issue now. I mean, we're not—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: —of equal treatment.

Mr. James Robertson: The other point that was made by one of the respondents here was that the government can get its business reinstated, but the government also determines when prorogation occurs, whereas a private member doesn't. A private member may have had a bill get to committee or even out of committee, a lot of work has been done, and it gets reinstated.

My own feeling is that the problem that has developed is that originally the reinstatement was intended to apply only to bills that had gone beyond second reading—bills that were in committee or had come out of committee. Perhaps that is something that could be looked at, restricting it to that. That would not affect the number of votable items on the order of precedence.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But it would affect how many you draw.

Mr. James Robertson: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: We've changed some rules and not others, and that's how we ended up—

Mr. James Robertson: And I think what we may have to do on the report is indicate that by tinkering with private members' business—to go back to your point—we are skewing the system and having unintended implications.

Mr. Joe Jordan: That's right.

Mr. James Robertson: It doesn't work the way it was originally intended, which was not perfect, but at least it was fair—

Mr. Joe Jordan: The rules were fair.

Mr. James Robertson: —or unfair to everybody.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Yes. Everyone complained about the same thing, at least.

Mr. James Robertson: And the role of this subcommittee might be more to implement or to put into effect whatever rules the House decides, rather than making recommendations in isolation.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Yes, I agree.

Mr. James Robertson: Now, the only other question I probably should raise is that we did ask members if they were interested in addressing the subcommittee on this issue. Approximately seven of them indicated they would like to, and an additional three—

Mr. Joe Jordan: We could pass their names on to the full committee as people they might want to talk to.

Mr. James Robertson: We'll give them a copy of any summary that's prepared.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But I don't think it would be fair to talk to them until we know what we're going to do.

A voice: It would be premature, yes.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have some difficulty in saying that we should refer them all to the full committee because it is the subcommittee that wrote to people to invite them to appear before a small committee. We don't have to receive them. We asked them if they would be interested. If the decision is made to hear them, if only to obtain backing for a certain number of things, then I think that it should be at the subcommittee level.

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[English]

Mr. Joe Jordan: I think we need to define what our role is, and then we'll know what their role might be.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: We're not obligated to give them this, because we asked if they would want....

Mr. Joe Jordan: No.

The Chair: We can make that decision following our next meeting or at our next meeting.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Agreed, although the last time we talked to them, it was a very worthwhile general discussion about the whole thing.

Mr. James Robertson: Following along some of the other things, perhaps if we do invite members in to talk about private members' business, it would be more fruitful to do it as a general issue, as opposed to this specific issue of the 100 signatures. There is dissatisfaction with how it works, but by restricting it to either 100 signatures or whether everything should be votable, perhaps we get a skewed notion—

Mr. Bill Blaikie: If we brought them, we could ask them these other more general questions.

Mr. Joe Jordan: We should have a reverse lottery, where you draw out members and then they get a bill, just randomly draw members and then they have a private members' slot that they can either use themselves or give to someone else.

The Chair: Or sell it for fundraising.

An hon. member: Oh, I see.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: We used to draw bills. They draw members now, but at one time they didn't. They drew bills.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But everybody's in. You don't have to put your name in. You're in.

An hon. member: Oh, I see.

Mr. David Chatters: Your odds of ever getting drawn are dropping quickly.

Mr. Joe Jordan: We have enough bills now to take us through to a year June. How do we stand?

The Clerk: There are hundreds of bills and hundreds of motions.

An hon. member: Yes, but on the order of precedence, what's the situation?

Mr. Joe Jordan: What's on the order paper?

The Clerk: Now we're down to 19.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Of the 19, how many are votable? I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I'm trying to work out the hours.

The Clerk: It must be about half, but it's getting to be more normal now that the reinstated items have been....

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay, so we've weathered that storm.

The Clerk: And the next draw could take place after the break, that week.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. Well, that's not bad.

The Chair: It's working, then, as it should.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: But it's not working as far as the people who got all these hundred-signature—

The Clerk: I have a list of those additional.... Did you want to see it? Here are those members waiting who have submitted lists with me.

The Chair: Do we have any other issues? Otherwise we're going to break to the call following the week of the break.

Thank you.