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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 13, 1995

.1113

[English]

The Chairman: Order. There's a mini quorum for the purpose of hearing evidence. Perhaps we could have some general discussions and then adopt reports once we get a full quorum, if there are reports we wish to adopt.

We have before us, as the first item of business, a draft report concerning petitions. Do any members wish to make any comments?

The word ``therefore'' has no ``e'', but I presume the English text is unchanged and the French text is changed to comply in all respects. Is that correct?

I think this clears up the issue we have been discussing with respect to petitions. Are there any other comments on it? Are members happy with this draft?

Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): It's mainly the styling of petitions.

The Chairman: It's mainly to avoid having these signatures that have a line put through them prohibiting the petition from being filed.

Mr. McWhinney: I read an announcement about how the waste disposal department is eliminating all petitions, other than the cover pages, between 1867 and 1920.

The Chairman: I think that's been going on for some time, but it is not the issue we're seeking to address by this report.

Mr. Hermanson.

Mr. Hermanson (Kindersley - Lloydminster): Mr. Chairman, we would strike out Standing Order 36(2)(d):

The Chairman: No, it's in its text.

Mr. Hermanson: Okay, the text is considered the signatures.

The Chairman: No, the text is the text up above.

Mr. Hermanson: So the text is added. Before it was just that there should be no erasures in it and interlineations, period.

The Chairman: Right, ``in its text''.

Mr. Hermanson: Now, it's saying ``in its text''. I understand.

The Chairman: Yes, that's correct.

Mr. McWhinney: Is it your view, Mr. Chairman, that the contemporary definition of ``petition'' includes multiple cards submitted together? We are getting some of those - I would say 100 cards that simply have a signature on them.

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The Chairman: No, they're not, because a petition must contain at least 25 signatures.

Mr. McWhinney: On a single sheet of paper.

The Chairman: No, it can be on two sheets of paper, but they have to be stapled together.

Mr. McWhinney: So if we get 100 postcards that someone has assembled with a rubber band, you would think that is not a petition? We are getting some very loose and informal approaches; I just wondered what the current view on this is.

The Chairman: Perhaps the clerk can enlighten us.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): The petition has to have the formal prayer submitted to the Parliament. If it is one of these commonly used lobbying tools that is simply addressed to the member of Parliament saying ``please vote against this bill'' or ``we object to this particular policy'' - then it is not considered a petition; it is a representation to a member.

Mr. McWhinney: I'm glad to have your advice. People do say that is a petition and complain when it is not presented.

The Chairman: Are there any comments? Are the members happy with this draft report?

Mr. Hermanson, do you move that this report be adopted as a report of the committee and be tabled in the House?

Mr. Hermanson: I do.

[Translation]

Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): I have a question for Mr. Marleau. Concerning the matter of petitions, Standing Order 36(2)(c) reads:

Mr. Marleau: I think the criteria used to determine what is a usual size is dignity. For example, toilet paper would probably not be accceptable.

Mr. Langlois: Then legal or lettersize paper would be acceptable? It does not have to be legal size?

Mr. Marleau: No.

Mr. Langlois: Thank you.

Mr. Marleau: Then there is no regulation size.

[English]

The Chairman: We have before us a motion that this be presented as the 82nd report. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings]

The Chairman: Second is emergency debate. The committee heard on this subject fromMr. Hermanson at our last meeting. It is before us today for discussion. We have a briefing note from Mr. Robertson on the issue, which members will have read, no doubt. Are there any views from any members in respect to emergency debates?

Do the members wish to defer this until they have had more time to digest the report fromMr. Robertson?

Mr. Pickard (Essex - Kent): I would prefer to defer it because I haven't had a chance to get through it, and maybe that was my negligence.

The Chairman: It just arrived yesterday, I think, so I am not surprised. Is it agreed that we defer this, then?

We will move on to Standing Order 73, the referral of bills before second reading.Mr. Hermanson, this is an issue you wished raised. Do you want to address that? We will hear a few views on this and then it may also be the subject of some other action on the part of the committee.

Mr. Hermanson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As the committee is no doubt aware, we changed the Standing Orders at the beginning of the first session of this Parliament to allow bills to go to committee prior to second reading. This was viewed as the beginning of a reform process within the House to enhance the role of the committees in the House, to encourage less partisan activity on the part of the committees, and to actually give them some clout in changing the bills before they were approved in principle.

Those characteristics are certainly laudable. However, we have sensed that there have been some problems with the process, and I suppose that is to be expected when you launch out in a new direction.

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The process has been used five times. Bills sent to committee prior to second reading include Bill C-38, the Marine Transportation Security Act; Bill C-43, the Lobbyists Registration Act; Bill C-45, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act; Bill C-64, the Employment Equity Act; and Bill C-89, the CN privatization act.

In a slightly different category, Mr. Chairman, was Bill C-69, which our committee dealt with, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, which was in fact drafted by this committee rather than being referred to this committee prior to second reading.

In the document called Reviving Parliamentary Democracy, it said that the changing of the legislative process will increase the involvement of parliamentarians at the early stages of the legislative process and it would allow a decreased insistence on party discipline. This has not always proven to be the case. It also does provide an opportunity for the government to ram through legislation, proceeding with clause-by-clause as dictated by the department.

Apart from Bill C-38, all these bills were dealing with substantial issues deserving a full second reading debate if there wasn't that debate at committee. Perhaps there's an argument that even if there was debate in committee, if they're very substantive bills it might be important to have a second reading debate.

We need to consider whether bills should only be sent to committee before second reading after consultations have taken place amongst the House leaders of the recognized parties following the introduction of the bill. Of course, if the bills are of a non-controversial nature and of more of a housekeeping nature, perhaps this process would work fine. Then we need to argue whether or not there's a need for them to go through that committee process if they're non-controversial. You would think it would be controversial bills that would go that route, so that in a less partisan environment some of the concerns could be dealt with.

If they are controversial in nature, it's imperative that government should be required to be willing to accept consideration of amendments and allow enough time for the committee consideration, particularly of clause-by-clause, which has been the biggest problem we've seen in the process to this point.

Bills C-43 and C-64 were given enough consideration in the committee as far as witnesses and discussion were concerned, but they were rammed through the clause-by-clause stage. That is a real concern. We think the amending of the Standing Orders to permit a second reading debate may be necessary in those types of cases.

We also need to clarify the responsibility for drafting the amendments in committee. Does legislative counsel do it? Does the department do it? As you know, Mr. Chairman, we have seen a real stretching of the resources of our legislative counsel who are here to serve members.

I've discussed this with the clerk and I may have even discussed it with you, Mr. Chairman.I know that some of our critics, particularly in the justice area where legislative counsel is most required, have had real problems in light of the number of justice bills and the scarcity of the resources.

I appreciate that the clerk has taken some initiatives to try to rectify that problem. But part of the problem we got into that, which very apparent last night, was the number and the broad range of amendments on Bill C-68. This could have been lessened had we had more resources through legislative counsel. We need to consider that aspect if we are sending more bills to committee prior to second reading.

I'd leave four recommendations that I think the committee should discuss. The first is that we amend the Standing Order 73(1) to delete the word ``notifying''. That's where the minister notifies the House that he intends to send the bill this route. We should replace it with the word ``consulting''.

This would permit critics to voice their approval or disapproval of the minister's intention, and it would allow some give and take and some discussion as to what would be the outcome of this process and what the minister's intentions are with regard to putting the bill to committee prior to second reading.

The second suggestion would be to delete Standing Order 73(1)(b). This would allow amendments to the motion, for instance a six-month hoist or other reasoned amendments.

The third recommendation is that Standing Order 73(1)(c) be amended. We could keep the 10-minute speeches, but perhaps we should allow 5-minute periods of questions and comment. Maybe we'd even have to extend the time a little bit to allow the 5-minute comments and questions. We find that the debate is much more meaningful when you do have that little chance for questions and comments.

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If a member has said something in his speech - and it doesn't matter which party that person represents - and there's not the opportunity for some member to challenge or ask for a clarification on a point, I think we are taking something away from the debate, particularly if we don't have a second reading debate and we do want clarification on the matter.

Fourth, if these problems persist we may have to look at some amendment to Standing Order 76(9) to make the motion debatable, amendable and votable. This would allow opposition parties that are not satisfied that the bill has received proper consideration at committee to have second reading debate.

In the case of the five bills I mentioned, I think only Bills C-43 and C-64 would have required a second reading debate. So perhaps some consultation is required, following the committee reporting the bill back to the House, as to whether or not a second reading debate is needed or not or whether the work has been satisfactorily done in the committee stage.

So I present these recommendations and this background to the committee for consideration in the spirit that we would still try to reform the place and make this committee process meaningful and perhaps salvage a process that we think is heading in the wrong direction.

The Chairman: Mr. Hermanson, has a bill passed yet that followed this process of being referred before second reading? Have we done a report stage on one?

Mr. Hermanson: I believe we've completed Bill C-38 haven't we, the Marine Transportation Security Act?

The Chairman: That was done that way, yes.

Mr. Hermanson: Bill C-45?

The Chairman: That's not through yet; that's still in the court stage.

Mr. Hermanson: That's not through? Bill C-43 is the Lobbyists Registration Act.

The Chairman: That's through.

Mr. Hermanson: That's through, and Bills C-64 and C-89 aren't through yet. So we've done two of five.

The Chairman: The two that have gone through -

Mr. Hermanson: Bill C-69 we've completed, but it's coming back, I understand.

The Chairman: Yes, but it didn't go before second reading.

Mr. Hermanson: It didn't go, no. It was a little different.

The Chairman: Bill C-43, the Lobbyists Registration Act, I think followed...it was Bill C-69 on procedure, wasn't it?

Mr. Hermanson: Bill C-43 is Lobbyists Registration Act.

The Chairman: Sorry, wasn't Bill C-43 drafted by the committee? No, maybe not, okay. But the two that have passed have been without difficulty. It's the three that are sitting at the report stage that -

Mr. Hermanson: No. Bill C-43 may have received a bit of a rocky ride. I believe Bill C-38 was no problem whatsoever. We don't anticipate that there will be a problem Bill C-45 or C-89. We think we're doing reasonably well on those bills. The two we've identified as being the problems were Bill C-43, which has gone through the process entirely, and of course Bill C-64, which is just a sham in the committee stage.

The Chairman: Are there any comments from members on this?

Mr. McWhinney: The very weighty suggestions - I think there was some discussions of the subcommittee on this at the last meeting. The only problem I can see there is that is would almost require somebody like you chairing the subcommittee, Mr. Chairman. Somebody with an intricate knowledge of parliamentary procedures would be you or Don Boudria or Derek Lee perhaps. I agree these are very weighty and thoughtful suggestions. But they obviously can't be resolved in debate now because they require, I think, detailed reflection.

Mr. Hermanson: What I have done is I've tried to paint a broad picture of the track record of this process. My understanding was that this is referred to a committee. We would strike a subcommittee from procedure and House affairs that would look more deeply into all of these matters around the Standing Orders as they relate to submitting bills to committee prior to the second reading, and that we would report back by a certain date. I believe it was October, was it not?

The Chairman: I think that was the plan. The difficulty at the moment, Mr. Hermanson, from what I hear from the whip, is that there seems to an inability on the part of the striking committee to agree on anything. Do you know anything about that? I wish the whip were here to enlighten us further, but he's made it clear to me that there seems to be an inability on the part of the three whips to agree on any names for any committees.

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Here is the whip now. Mr. Boudria, what a relief to see you. We were just discussing the appointment of a subcommittee to discuss rule changes to Standing Order 73 and other rules that have to do with reference of bills to committee, and I was just explaining to Mr. Hermanson that I thought you had said to me there was some difficulty in having the striking subcommittee come up with names for committees.

Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): As you know, Mr. Chairman, I did provide one name lately, but I need two members. However, in the interval the striking subcommittee came to a standstill. The striking subcommittee, in its wisdom, is not producing any reports right now, so until that solves itself we can't appoint any other member. There are no members appointed, but if and when that settles itself, I'll gladly appoint the member who's missing and then that committee, and presumably all other committees where membership changes might be needed from time to time, can continue to occur.

Mr. Hermanson: Mr. Chairman, I suppose if there's no agreement amongst the whips as to striking this committee, then our committee as a whole could deal with the matter. We wouldn't have to strike a subcommittee.

Mr. Boudria: You make the motion in the House, then, but I don't think the House would have any time between now and the end of June to debate such motions. I was notified last week by the whip of the Reform Party that if this committee produced a report, it would be debated in the House. I'm not the House leader, but I'm quite sure the House leader would not be particularly thrilled at the idea of taking House time to debate a report of this committee on changing memberships. Given that reluctance, and the reluctance of the Reform Party in that regard, I don't know what we can do about that until that solves itself.

Mr. Hermanson: It sounds a little bit like sour grapes here.

The Chairman: Mr. Hermanson, are your proposals...you were fairly specific in the changes. Perhaps the clerk could draft those up, and at our meeting next week we could have a look at them, either as a committee...or maybe by then there would have been some discussions between the members of the striking subcommittee that could lead to a resolution of this matter. We could get a subcommittee struck and put them to work on this.

I must say that especially after last night's excessive voting arrangements, one of the things I think the subcommittee might look at is getting rid of the report stage on bills altogether and opening up committee proceedings so that members who are not members of the committee can go there and move amendments to bills, submit them to the committee and have them considered by the committee, and avoid this report stage fiasco, which seems to me a very long time with the multiplicity of votes. It's very difficult for members to know what's being voted on, just because there are often so many that it's hard to follow how one goes with other. That's particularly true when we apply votes and knock out a whole bunch of the motions farther down the list, and you forget which ones have been voted through and which ones haven't.

For those of us who spend some time following this, it's not quite so bad. For the normal member who isn't into following all the procedural quirks through the thing, it's a nightmare, and you wonder how members know what they're voting on. I think it doesn't help the institution that people are put in that position. So if we got rid of the report stage altogether and allowed the decisions to be made in committee where they are properly to be made, we would avoid perhaps this kind of scramble that took place last night and will happen on other bills, no doubt.

Mr. Hermanson: Mr. Chairman, I beg to differ with you. I think you totally misread the problem that transpired last night. Simply put, it's because the government tried to put two bills together into one, two bills that were not broadly supported, even by its own party. There were a number of these amendments that were in fact from members on the government side who were not happy with the legislation.

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Had the bill been split, as had been recommended, and been put into two bills, I suspect there would have been far fewer amendments. I would suggest that by leaving report stage it would provide incentive on the part of the ministers and their departments to put forward good legislation rather than bills like Bill C-68, which were in trouble right from the start.

The Chairman: True, some of us think it's excellent legislation.

Mr. Hermanson: Well, not a lot of your own caucus are concerned about it. So you're misinterpreting the cause of the problem.

The Chairman: I looked, Mr. Hermanson, at Bill C-85, which was extensively studied in committee. I think there were 40 amendments down for that. There's Bill C-41 - there's a whole string of amendments set down for that. If these could be dealt with in committee, we'd save all kinds of House time and concentrate on the debates on the broad policy on third reading and second reading and so on.

But I was only offering the suggestion to help the subcommittee in its work. I wasn't saying it was essential; I was just throwing out ideas, as you were.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, we discussed this briefly some months ago, and at that time we recalled how much time is consumed with report stage votes. The tangent, as I recall, was a little different, but nevertheless the fact remains that we do have a very complicated report stage debating mechanism. Anyone who hears Mr. Speaker's ruling on the grouping of the amendments will realize it's enough to get almost anyone lost.

[Translation]

The whole system is a nightmare.

[English]

It's designed in such a way - and this isn't the fault of anyone, I suppose, it's just that events have perhaps overtaken us at some point - that we have a long, long list of procedural possibilities described to us. A vote on number 1 shall apply to number 6, 7, 25, and it goes on. However, if a vote on number 1 is negatived, then we will vote separately on vote number 13, and if it isn't negatived, then we will do something else. It just goes on and on like that and members come in the House....

I know, of course, members read the Order Paper very assiduously and even try to memorize it, I'm sure. Notwithstanding that, Mr. Chairman, they have a hard time following what we're doing.

In order to follow the vote last night, for instance, three separate documents were required. One of them is the Order Paper. One of them is that document produced by the Clerk's office, which is provided for Mr. Speaker - I usually refer to it as the road map - and then the third document is the one produced by the whips to determine where there is consensus on how individual parties will be voting. I usually operate with those three documents, as do my colleagues and the other two political parties.

On our side there's even a back-up, which is you, Mr. Chairman, who tries to determine where and if I'll trip along the way in order to avoid possible mistakes.

It's a very complicated system, and I guess what I'd like to suggest is the following. At the risk of giving yet more work to our very able staff, I wonder if we could get some sort of a comparison of how report stage is done, for instance, in the Ontario and Quebec provincial houses, and possibly in the U.K. House of Representatives. I understand that the Australian example is virtually identical to ours; I think they replicate ours, as a matter of fact.

There has to be somewhere a better system of dealing with report stage than what we have now, let alone the bill we were doing last night. This is something we've raised at this committee before, and I really think we should study it.

[Translation]

Mr. Langlois: On the question raised by Mr. Hermanson and now under discussion, namely report stage, I think that Bill C-68 is a fine example of the mess we are in.

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Several members who intended to vote against an unamended C-68 unamended tabled their amendments with legislative counsels.

That's when we realized that they're were only 3.5 legislative counsels for members, which is not nearly enough for 295 members. I think cuts were made at the wrong place.

And to top it all, the Standing Committee on Justice was offerred the help of legislative counsels from the Department of Justice - in other words from the Executive Branch - who were to help draft amendments from those opposed to the bill. This means that those who drafted the bill could have found themselves drafting amendments contrary to some of the principles of the bill. Something is wrong here.

This is why the Reform Party, especially, proposed a string of amendments. The legislative counsels had not had time to draft them and I understand why: they were overworked. There were some 200 amendments, and the Reform Party decided to move them at report stage.

My view is that Parliament, the Legislative Branch, should be provided with staff that is not only competent but also sufficient in number. We have competence; what we don't have is adequate numbers. No matter how competent, no one can work 25 hours a day. There's definitely something wrong on that count.

The Executive Branch doesn't need extra support, it's the Legislative Branch that needs it. We can barely keep up. I respectfully submit that this is where we should look. Many problems would be solved if members could do their work as lawmakers without having to rely on legislative counsels from the Executive Branch. Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: To follow on that -

Mr. Boudria: Briefly, just on that point,

[Translation]

I would like to point out that the Board of Internal Economy is looking into that very issue. I cannot provide details on the proceedings, of course, because meetings are held in camera, but the issue is before the Board.

The problem goes even further. In fact, there are two. First, there is a shortage of legislative counsels and the Board is trying to remedy this. Second, there's the mess that you have described and that I have referred to myself, the fact that you need three documents to follow, as best you can, what is going on in the House. This may not be sheer nonsense, but close to it.

[English]

The Chairman: I understand that one of the things being advocated by some is a transfer of these persons to the research bureaus of the parties. Each would have its own, who could then do the work for the party instead of having a parliamentary one that does it for everybody and ends up in obvious conflict sometimes in different amendments.

But if the committee feels strongly on the issue and wishes to make a recommendation to the Board of Internal Economy, we are free to do that. But the board is clearly the one that's going to make the decision because they control the purse strings.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Pickard: I think trying to make decisions on a situation such as occurred in Bill C-68 is somewhat wrong as well. I understand the complications we got into last night and the difficulties that arose, but can we afford to build a system that takes care of every problem that occurs?

If I were a municipal councillor and once every hundred years in that municipality there is a rainfall and flooding that will wipe that community out, or comes close to that, could I afford to build drains to handle that system?

If we're looking at Bill C-68, it's almost a parallel situation that I see. We're talking about a situation where 200-and-how-many amendments came forward at report stage, 100 amendments at the committee, 300-and-how-many amendments coming forward on this bill. It was used as a political tool by various parties. Let's be facing the real question here. It was done on purpose by political parties to create an abnormal situation.

It seems to me this occurrence, if we search the records, would not be anywhere near common; it's the once-in-100-years scenario, and it's a very abnormal situation. To try to adjust our whole mechanism in accordance to something that's that abnormal is questionable, in my mind. However, that doesn't negate that there are some problems in the system that have to be rectified. I think it's a bad example to use, because I don't anticipate, unless there are political pushes being made, that we will run into this situation that often.

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The Chairman: I don't think it's quite as rare as you suggest, Mr. Pickard. I seem to recall a similar incident on the GST bill.

Mrs. Parrish (Mississauga West): I'm sorry the whip has left, because I would like to compliment our whip and the whips of the other two parties on last night, despite the fact that I was never so bored in my entire life. I ran out of reading material and all of my neighbours lacked amusement after awhile, as did the chair of this committee.

The Chairman: Mrs. Parrish, Beauchesne's sits on the table and one of the pages will bring it over to you. It's fascinating.

Mrs. Parrish: Oh, thank you, that would make my day. Actually, I was looking for potato chips or something.

The whips and the chair of this committee did a Trojan job last night, and I'm quite impressed with the fact that they kept their patience and they cooperated so well.

I have a slightly facetious remark, from my very limited observation, that all lawyers should be banned from running for the House of Commons and at the very least should be banned from debating at third reading. I noticed last night that there was a propensity of smart-assed lawyers on our side of the floor getting up and making comments, where only eight people were in concurrence.

I'm wondering if there's not some way to refine the process even further so that when a lawyer gets up and makes an amendment and he has six or seven people supporting him, we could do the votes thus: all those who are in favour of this amendment, please stand; then you count noses quickly - you count all the lawyers and they can sit down again. Going through one vote last night with all -

The Chairman: Mrs. Parrish, think about me.

Mrs. Parrish: You're such a nice person, I keep forgetting you're a lawyer.

On one vote we had over 200 people having to do the ``up and down'' for eight people who were just flexing their legal brains over some little moot point, and I found it most upsetting.

I think the amendments that were implemented by the minister were based on consensus from the committee, and those amendments came out early. I think all other amendments are, asMr. Pickard suggests, politicking. I think it's a lack of recognition by some people that they actually lost the election. We have the majority, and you can put 170 amendments on there; they're not going to go through. So this whole system is ridiculous; that's my simple comment.

Mr. McWhinney: By the way, Carolyn, I thought the eight -

Mrs. Parrish: I know, you're a lawyer too.

Mr. McWhinney: No, I thought the eight were not lawyers. They are very worthy people.

Mrs. Parrish: They were worthy lawyers.

Mr. McWhinney: Worthy lawyers, good.

Mr. Lee (Scarborough - Rouge River): Mr. Chairman, just on a point of order, this is a matter of privilege here -

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Lee: - and it's clear that I get irked once in a while when smart-assed former school trustees try to stereotype members of Parliament. I don't think it's making a great contribution to this place, so I think we would like to try to avoid that kind of stereotyping. I won't submit a motion on the matter of privilege, but I've made my point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Very good.

Now, Mr. McWhinney, the floor is yours.

Mrs. Parrish: And I will apologize to Mr. Lee.

Mr. McWhinney: To return, I thought your comments were particularly relevant,Mr. Chairman. We are stuck with the Westminster model, but we've changed much more dramatically than the British society and we're moving very close, with the sort of concepts of participatory democracy and the changes in the party system, to an American or continental European-style society. I think we've been sandpapering or wallpapering over cracks in the English committee system, and I'm not sure it'll go on much longer.

You, Don Boudria and the whips have cooperated magnificently this year in a gloss on parliamentary rules. I don't know if we wouldn't be insane by now if we hadn't had what you, Don Boudria and the whips have done.

I wonder, when you make the suggestion - which in my view makes a lot of sense - of allocating research people to the various parties in the the American congressional style and in some continental European styles, would it help in disciplining this flood of amendments? It was quite apparent they'd not been digested, they'd not been synthesized. Where was the coordination? Yet we're dealing with one of our star committees, the justice committee. We know there are good committees and bad committees, and that's considered one of the star committees, with an outstanding chairman whom everybody's praised.

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It really was a very bad showing for the parliamentary processes last night. I don't believe it's an isolated thing and I think only your good sense and the cooperation of the whips made it at least tolerable. I think we have to look to some more fundamental changes. Maybe this idea of a subcommittee is an excellent one, but it will need some pretty strong people, and they have to have a look, I think, at experiences other than simply those of Ontario, Australia and other countries.

If the committee system is going to work today I think you have to institutionalize, and probably the American model is the better one. I think it needs looking at, and I thought your comments were very relevant there.

Mr. Hermanson: There are a number of points that have been touched on. First of all, I want to correct the impression that political parties in this case were loading down Bill C-68 with amendments just to play political games. I find those comments rather repugnant. In fact, the amendments came from members of parties that support the bill. The bill was a huge one. You have to imagine that when you have a bill that's probably badly drafted - and all parties thought there were some major flaws with it - and it's that big, you're going to have lots of amendments. That was no secret.

The problem we found in our party was that there was not enough time allowed and not enough resources in the legislative council to bring in the number of amendments that we wanted to bring in at committee stage. We just couldn't physically do it with the resources we had and with the time that the committee allowed to go through clause-by-clause.

That committee sat from, I think, 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Legislative counsel had to be present during the committee hearing, but they couldn't even help us draft the amendments that were brought forward. Other amendments were brought in, and that changed the focus of the bill, and there wasn't time to realize what impact these amendments would have on other portions of a very complicated bill.

To start making suggestions that people were playing party politics on Bill C-68, even though there were some strong positions on the bill, is not a correct - -

Mr. Pickard: I believe my comment was politics, not party politics. Actually, politics were played.

Mr. Hermanson: There were some party politics mentioned as well. Then the bill was reported and almost immediately called for report stage. Again, there was not enough time to adequately prepare amendments. Given the number of amendments that all of the parties wanted to put forward at report stage and given the resources that were available, it's a wonder we fared as well as we did in light of the way this bill was handled.

To start condemning the process rather than the authors of the bill and the authors of the timetable, I think, is extremely unwise in this case. If we were to streamline the process to accommodate Bill C-68, I expect we would get a number of more bills from the government that were as ill-conceived as C-68, probably as convoluted and as embracing of as many different issues as C-68 was. That will be a step backwards. We're better to parcel this off in smaller chunks, have just a few amendments, and be able to deal with it effectively, rather than to try to put in that much substance dealing with so many different issues, such as search and seizure, confiscation, registration, penalties for criminal offences, etc. We had half the Criminal Code involved in this one bill. So you have to expect that.

Getting back to what you said, Mr. Milliken, that maybe we should just do away with report stage altogether and have this handled at committee, that really concerns me. I suspect what you would be suggesting then is that someone like me could make an amendment to Bill C-68 but then wouldn't be able to vote on my own amendment. I'd present it to the committee and let that committee vote on it, which is extremely unfair. It takes away the privilege of all members to be involved in amending the bill before in comes back to the House for third reading.

I find that rather scary. I would suggest that if this House were to proceed in that way, then the term ``arrogant'' would take on a whole new meaning. I would strongly advise that we not consider taking away members' privileges in this manner.

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The Chairman: I think it's worth looking at ways the privileges could be granted that maybe are different from what we now have. You'll recall that in the rules relating to report stage amendments, there's a sole section in italics in our Standing Orders that seems to me are not rigidly enforced - in fact, I don't think they're enforced at all, and the clerk may have a comment on it - but they do give some advice to the Speaker:

The purpose of that was to avoid duplications, so you didn't have multiple debates in the committee and then in the House.

So that portion has never been enforced. The Speaker just says, if you didn't present in committee, too bad, that's fine, we'll call it in the House. That's the reason we have this multiplicity of proceedings. What I'm trying to do is either get that kind of rule enforced or get rid of the stage so you don't have this and members are forced to deal with the matters in committee. That's why I made the suggestion.

Mr. Hermanson: I wasn't following that Standing Order, but it says ``were not or could not'', it doesn't say just ``could not''.

The Chairman: No, and it's in italics. It's not intended as a rule. It's guidance, but it has not been followed.

Mr. Hermanson: In the case of Bill C-68, a number of amendments said ``could not'' just because of time constraints. It was physically impossible to introduce amendments at committee stage in the case of Bill C-68.

The Chairman: They did hundreds of amendments in Bill C-68 at committee stage. They sat extra days on it.

Mr. Pickard: There were 80 by the government alone.

Mr. Lee: Just as a bit of an editorial, at the justice committee legislative consideration of Bill C-68 there were dozens and dozens of amendments that were drafted and put forward but were not moved and were withdrawn by many members. Those amendments showed up in the House last night.

They clearly would have come within the definition of ``were not or could not'' and been moved at the committee. So I tend to lean towards Mr. Milliken's view of this, that the committee and the Speaker are capable of selecting the agenda for report stages. More work could be done there to vet these pieces of legislation before they come up for report stage vote.

The Chairman: So these amendments you saw last night had been withdrawn in the committee, had they?

Mr. Lee: Many. Keep in mind that there were 260-odd amendments last night. But many, dozens of those, had been drafted for the committee and were withdrawn before being moved at committee. They were spoken of as being withdrawn; they were simply not moved. But they were drafted and ready for movement at committee.

Mr. Hermanson: I would also suggest that this reflects the nature of the bill; it doesn't reflect a problem with the process. There were amendments last night that were withdrawn at report stage. It was the nature of the bill, the haste with which it was put through all of the various readings of committee and report stage. That was the problem.

Mr. Pickard: How many hours were spent in committee on that bill?

Mr. Hermanson: It was a huge bill, and there were quite a number.

Mr. Pickard: No, but you're talking about haste. How much time was actually spent?

Mr. Hermanson: At clause-by-clause stage?

Mr. Pickard: No, I mean the time spent on the debate of the bill. How much time was spent on that bill in committee?

Mr. Hermanson: You were there, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee: It was close to two and a half weeks to three weeks, I think. It was a long rugged study.

Mr. Pickard: How can we say it's two and a half weeks; it's a month.

Mr. Lee: I'm sorry, it was close to a month solid.

Mr. Pickard: A month of adjustment in committee is haste?

Mr. Hermanson: No, but the question is how many hours were spent on clause-by-clause in how many days? That's the question. That's when you deal with the amendments. Prior to that you're dealing with witnesses and you're setting the framework or the foundation for your decision on whether the bill does need to be amended. Once the amending process started, my understanding was that this committee met almost every day, practically all day, with legislative counsel sitting at the table - correct me if I'm wrong, I just popped in the odd time - prepared to comment on the amendments. The rest of time was basically spent going to bed, sleeping and coming back in the morning to start doing the same thing again. That was the problem.

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Mr. Lee: There was over a week spent on clause-by-clause consideration. The last day started at about 9 a.m. and went to about 1 a.m., if I'm not mistaken. There were roughly 14, 15, 16 hours of consideration the final day, so it was very rugged.

One of the clear messages there, Mr. Chairman, was that if the parliamentary counsel had had an opportunity to do more drafting for members, more amendments would have been put at committee. That issue, the shortage of parliamentary counsel, has already been taken up here earlier. It was clearly a problem.

The Chairman: There are two issues here. One is the question of parliamentary counsel. Is the committee interested in making a recommendation to the Board of Internal Economy in respect to that matter? The second is that it seems to me we obviously need a subcommittee to look at the possible rule changes throughout this area. Members have expressed some views on it. We have to get a subcommittee on rules, a striking subcommittee, working again so they can come up with some names for us.

That strikes me as the way to deal with this because I think there's going to have to be some study and research and so on, although Mr. Robertson tells me he has some work on this already done and will be prepared to deliver some information to the committee next week.

Perhaps we can go back to the first question: is there any desire to make a recommendation to the Board of Internal Economy respecting legislative drafting?

Mr. Lee: Mr. Chairman, this is a problem. I haven't experienced it very often as a member. There's the pressure on the parliamentary counsel just before our committee deals with clause-by-clause. Bill C-68 circumstances are the worst I have encountered. We on the committee are not exactly sure why suddenly there was this great problem. Clearly, it related to the volume of proposed amendments coming from various members and parties and the existence of only two parliamentary counsel working in tandem on that.

It's clearly an issue. I don't know what the solution is, but I think we should take steps to address it, either on an isolated basis or in the context of rule changes.

The Chairman: The suggestion I put forward is one I'd heard bandied about. I don't know what the board is considering and I've not discussed this specifically with the members of the board. The suggestion was that additional funding be given to the research bureau of each party for them to hire their own legislative counsel. The feeling was that sometimes the legislative counsel were used as a tactic to either hold up or move forward legislation. Members could go and demand production of dozens of amendments that they knew would not be available in time or on a timely basis. The counsel is therefore being used as an argument for delay or obstruction or whatever on a bill. That's depending on your point of view.

While I'm not suggesting that this has motivated all the cases we've had, it does put counsel in a difficult position, especially when the requests come from three or four different sources, possibly all opposed or fighting for his or her time. So if we had each party have its own draftsmen, then the party could sort out with the draftsmen which items are priority items for moving forward in committees and in the House.

Is there any disposition on the part of the committee to recommend that to the board, or does someone got a better suggestion?

Mr. Pickard: Mr. Chairman, I remind the committee of my earlier suggestion that this is an abnormal situation, and maybe there needs to be some means by which to deal with abnormal situations. When we talk about the normal process, then I think we should be very concerned about normal process and whether it works in the majority of cases or whatever.

I realize the GST, the free trade debate, all of those could have had hours and hours and hours of amendments, but it's the odd situation we're focusing on here. It may well be that where there are situations like this there may be some basis under which we can look at funding for a particular issue. But to change the whole process because there's a quirk in the system I have some reservation about as well. I don't feel I've got enough information. I don't know if I'm aware of how many times this has happened in parliamentary history.

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It could be a move to alleviate one problem, which down the line would dramatically multiply our problems. I'm not sure what effect making those recommended changes would have. Maybe I'm naïve about the whole process and unable to determine exactly what effect that's going to have in the long run, but I certainly would like more time to try to deal with the implications before we try to make a decision here today.

Mr. Lee: Having been through the process a few times, I have some fairly refined views. I think it is not a good application of funds to simply hire one, two, three, four, or five legislative counsel. Between the salary component, the office overhead component, etc., you're probably looking at $100,000 each over a year. I don't think there's a workload consistently through a year, given that Parliament doesn't even sit for about three months of the year. There isn't a workload for three or four new parliamentary counsel.

Keep in mind that the service we're looking for is technical drafting of amendments, technical statute drafting. It is not politically strategic drafting. We need only the technical word drafting. That's generally the function parliamentary counsel fills.

Rather than hiring people in a caucus, where the research bureau of the caucus is going to become involved in politically strategic drafting sure as day follows night, instead of only the drafting of technical wording, I think we ought to be looking at letting our parliamentary counsel, or its office, simply retain on an hourly basis counsel from the private sector who are competent in technical drafting. They are out there.

They could be retained on an hourly basis for the bottleneck periods, which might be a day, or a couple of days, or a week at most. It may mean some night-time work for these counsel, but I think that would be a preferred solution, and it wouldn't involve $500,000 a year. You're probably looking at most at a five-figure exercise spread over a year. That's my view.

Mr. Hermanson: Actually, I made the same argument that Mr. Lee made to Mr. Marleau, our Clerk, just a few days ago. I had exactly the same thought. I suggest that maybe he would like to respond, because he said these people are very difficult to find on that basis. There are times when there is a flood of legislation and you need the extra bodies. It would certainly make sense to have some people on a retainer who are on some kind of a contract basis for piece-work when it was required. Mr. Marleau was not closed to the idea, but he had some concerns about that.

I know there is a problem. I've had a private member's bill I've been trying to draft, and private member's bills are at the bottom of the barrel for these people when they're busy. It certainly has been at the bottom of the barrel in this case. We've been working at it a long time to try to get it up to the format and the level of quality where we feel we're ready to introduce it to the House. I can't even remember the term they give these private members' bills. They've got a phrase that means it sits on the bottom of the pile and when everything else is done they get to these bills.

There certainly is a problem. I don't know the entire solution. I think that's a very credible suggestion, and if it's workable, I would certainly support it because it's a cost-efficient way of providing the service. Something needs to be done.

The Chairman: There doesn't appear to be a consensus here on making any recommendation. I know some of the members of this committee sit on the Board of Internal Economy, and the Clerk, who is its secretary, is here and is hearing the discussion, so perhaps we can just leave it at that. The board is going to make the decision.

Mr. McWhinney: Let the clerk perhaps report to you in light of this discussion. The failure last night was not in the politicization of the process, although that element was there. There was a terrible failure at the technical, legal level. There were repetitive, redundant amendments, and there was no attempt to synthesize them. It's deplorable, I think you'd agree, Derek, in terms of legislative drafting.

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Whether it's more staff provided to the parliamentary counsel office or your more particular suggestion of responding to Mr. Pickard's suggestion for special cases, which is that one might consider allocating counsel to individual parties, something has to be done to clear it up. Only the pragmatic compromise the whips have worked out by this sort of block voting saved it from being a complete disaster, I thought.

The Chairman: Is anybody suggesting a recommendation to the board on the subject? I don't think there's an agreement on anything, and nobody's making any specific move. Insofar as the legislative counsel are concerned, we might drop it then.

Mr. Hermanson: Could I make a motion that the Board of Internal Economy study the transcript of this procedure and House affairs committee so they would be aware of the concern expressed around the table by members of all parties who sit at this committee.

Motion agreed to

The Chairman: Because I'm worried that we might lose our quorum, I wonder if we could skip ahead and deal with the report of the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business, which is item 4.

Mr. Hermanson: On a point of order, on this review of the Standing Orders, are we planning for some future time to strike a subcommittee to deal specifically with the issues that I brought forward, or is it being broadened? I wasn't sure. You made some comments such that maybe this committee should look at some other issues other than the Standing Order that refers bills to committee prior to second reading. I would like a little clarification of what -

The Chairman: We haven't set it up. Maybe when we have names we can look at what order of reference we want to give it. I think there's general agreement to set up a subcommittee.

We seem paralyzed by the striking committee's inability to act. So we can come back to this perhaps at our next meeting. I hope we can get this striking subcommittee working again.

Mr. McWhinney: There's no problem in going ahead with Mr. Hermanson's suggestion. Its implementation is obviously contingent on the striking committee.

The Chairman: We can discuss the specific words of reference to the subcommittee, if we wish. I would have thought we'd be happy to have it work in the area of improving the procedure in respect to dealing with bills, whether it's before second reading or after.

Mr. Hermanson: I guess we need to make sure we don't bite off more than we can chew. We did have a deadline set. I want to make sure my concern is dealt with. If we can deal with the broader picture and do it satisfactorily by the deadline that's been set in the motion, I'm not opposed to that.

The Chairman: I'm worried about the deadline on it because we can't get the people appointed.

Mr. McWhinney: You suggested December 1 at the last meeting. That seems more realistic than October 1.

The Chairman: We already have the words, which ask:

But that was changed to October 15, 1995. It's just a matter of getting people appointed to it.

So can we move on to item 4, the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business. We have the report.

Mr. Lee: Mr. Chairman, I move that the report of the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business be concurred in and presented to the House as the 83rd report to the House.

The three items we are recommending to this committee for votability are shown in the document in front of you: Bill C-317, Mr. St-Laurent; Bill C-275, Mr. Caccia; and motion M-425, Mr. Gilmour.

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Motion agreed to

The Chairman: We have the brief from the Canadian Association of the Deaf, which was circulated to members last fall, called ``CPAC and the Hearing Impaired''. Mr. Robertson, do you have something you wanted to say on this issue?

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): I could just quickly summarize the brief.I believe it has been circulated.

The Canadian Association of the Deaf has been pushing for more captioning and more services for the deaf and the hearing impaired. They have filed various interventions with the CRTC and complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and so forth against the House of Commons over the last few years. Their request to the committee was for this committee to make some efforts to get the House of Commons to caption more of the material that is shown on the parliamentary channel on CPAC.

Their conclusion, on the last page, is this:

Subsequent to that submission, which was dated last October, CPAC received a five-year licence from the CRTC. This does, in the course of the licence, make reference to various undertakings that CPAC had made with respect to the provision of services and programming for the hearing impaired. In fact, the commission pointed out that there was nothing in the agreement between the House of Commons and CPAC to prevent CPAC from captioning more of the material that the House provides to it.

CPAC is not precluded by its agreement with the Speaker of the House of Commons from closed-captioning the program CPAC receives from the House pursuant to the agreement, and the CRTC encourages the licensee to increase significantly the closed captioning of programming that CPAC receives from the House of Commons.

This decision came out in January of this year and renews the licence of CPAC until August 2002. It may have dealt with at least some of the concerns raised by the Canadian Association of the Deaf.

The Chairman: There's one thing, of course, that's about to happen, but it hasn't happened yet. We're going on the Internet with all the House of Commons debates and committee proceedings, which will open those up to persons who are hearing impaired. This will be by the next day for Hansard.

Is that an accurate statement?

Mr. Marleau: It should be up and running by September for all House documents, but not the video component.

Mr. Hermanson: Are you talking about the written text on the screen as closed captioning or are we talking about sign language?

Mr. Robertson: In their brief they indicate that there are a number of different ways in which services can be made available, such as by having signing and closed captioning. The problem with closed captioning is that it requires a decoder, which is expensive, but it is probably the most commonly accepted way of doing it.

They indicate that they would like to have other services, including a summary of the day's events, with signing that would be interpreted for hearing people. I think their main concern practically has to be closed captioning, which is along the bottom of the screen and is decoded with a machine.

Mr. Hermanson: Again, I'm not really familiar with the technology. I'm just trying to think of what would be a simple way to provide some service maybe very soon in very cost-effective way.

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I know that the proceedings are repeated. Would it be possible by the time the broadcast is repeated - because we have the blues and all that's happening anyway - to have some kind of a text without using a decoder? I don't know if that's possible, but I'm just sort of brainstorming here to think of some possibly inexpensive ways to at least provide some service to the hearing impaired without great cost to CPAC.

Mr. Marleau: Mr. Chairman, may I try to respond to that? The closed captioning issue, when it came up before the Human Rights Commission in a complaint a couple of years ago, was one largely of expense and also of equal treatment of both official languages. The software at that time for closed captioning in French was way behind the English closed captioning software. I haven't checked just before this meeting but that gap is closing all the time. So it was a matter of cost and equal treatment. It was felt by the Speaker then that it would be difficult to closed-caption in only one language and not offer it in the other.

We attempted to shift, in the contract to CPAC - and I suppose CPAC will read this in your proceedings - the responsibility as a licensee of dealing with the larger community out there. We provide the raw feed of the proceedings, the two-line track to CPAC, and then they are the distributor. That's why the CRTC added to the licence the gentle suggestion that CPAC position itself and develop closed captioning over time, and as the technology gets cheaper and the English and French become more comparable.

As to the summaries at the end of the day, we've had complaints in the past from the hearing-impaired community, because there are two sign languages and we offer one only one sign language for Question Period; that has been an issue as well. We happen to use the one that is more common than the other, and I guess within the community that's a matter of interpretation. It will fall upon CPAC to deal with that as well in the future.

I would not recommend that we seek approaches within the parliamentary apparatus but continue to put pressure on the current licensee, the regulatory agency that is responsible for that, and other oversight agencies to deal with the issue.

The Chairman: We provide it now for the replay of Question Period, is that correct?

Mr. Marleau: Yes. Well, replay of the entire proceedings, but QP as a minimum and some of the committees in the down time.

The Chairman: But the sign language is used just for the QP.

Mr. Marleau: Just for Question Period, yes.

Mr. Pickard: I think the major goal obviously is quite clear, that communication with the deaf is very important in this country, and I would support that position. How best to do it, and what the major directions are that we can handle, are significant.

As Mr. Marleau points out, the existence of two sign languages creates a real complication;I certainly appreciate that and I think we agree on that. But I think what we need to do is focus on the most important aspect that is coming forward here, and that is having a means of communication.I think from what I'm hearing there are, through various processes, means of communication either presently in the works or that will be in the works by September where information will be available to the deaf.

The difficulty I find is that everybody is not going to be on line with our new technologies and that is going to limit a certain number of people. We are at least transmitting on many stations a French version of Parliament and an English version of Parliament. Is there any possibility, with our current technology, that on the French version we could do the French language in script - I guess sign language would apply as well, but in script at least? We could run a script on the French station in French and on the English station in English, maybe overcoming some of the bilingual aspect of it, in whatever areas we're able to work.

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I know we can't meet everybody's needs. That's almost a financially impossible thing, but the main point is getting communication to the deaf. I think we have a responsibility in trying to expedite that as well as we can.

I certainly would like to see us at least make the attempt of getting the script in French on the French station and in English on the English station. Where technologies would allow us to go to whatever limits we can, let's take it to that limit. It might not be perfect, but it's certainly better than avoiding the situation for another time period down the line.

Mr. Hermanson: I really didn't get my question answered. With the transcription service we have now - this is on disks, it's going onto Internet - is there any way in which that could be transmitted to CPAC and they could incorporate that in replay? Is that possible or impossible?

Mr. Marleau: That's not possible. It's a different system altogether. What we use for the data in machine-readable form, if you like, to produce Hansard is unique to our COMAPS system. It is not compatible with a decoding system for closed captioning.

Closed captioning is essentially using the voice track, digitizing it into a form that a computer can then reproduce as lettering scrolling across the bottom of the screen. But the two are incompatible. We would not be able to do that. Decoding is a stand-alone operation, and I gather from CPAC that it would be the same sort of response as we had when the House had the primary responsibility. The cost is the big issue, or was. It's getting closer and closer.

I know that the Human Rights Commission is currently discussing, negotiating - choose your words - with the various national broadcasters in Canada, so that all national broadcasters will be offering a form of live-time closed captioning.

One of the complaints of the deaf community, when they wait 24 hours to receive the printed transcript, whether it's on Internet or elsewhere, is that they're not on the same and equal footing as those who are not hearing impaired and are watching it live. Closed captioning provides a certain live component to it.

The Chairman: Unless somebody on the committee feels that we should recommend that the House should provide this, I think we can let the subject go, because the pressure clearly is going to be on the cable companies that are delivering the service to see if they want to do it.

Mrs. Catterall (Ottawa West): We have narrowed the discussion a bit by focusing just on the broadcasts, and I'm not sure that's where we started.

The Chairman: That's where it started. That was the request that came.

Mrs. Catterall: I would like to know what indications we have that in fact CPAC is going to be able to move to this fairly quickly. It seems to me that there are two ways of doing it. One is encouraging them, as they have been encouraged, to do this. I express some disappointment - but one knows these things only in hindsight - that that kind of a requirement wasn't included in our agreement.

If it should come to that, when is that agreement up for renewal?

Mr. Marleau: The agreement is parallel to the licences being given by the CRTC, and I think it runs for seven years. I heard the chairman say that it goes to 2002 in terms of reviewing it.

I didn't attend the CRTC hearings, but they addressed this issue there. Maybe Mr. Jamieson has more information on that than I do.

When the responsibility was transferred to CPAC by the Board of Internal Economy, we were not offering closed captioning at that time, so they picked up the service. In the contract the board did demand that the service, as offered, be maintained, that there be no passed-through charges to cable subscribers as a consequence and that the sign language be maintained for Question Period.

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With the sign language there was also a problem with the screen, if you like. If you have two languages, you have two vignettes, then you have the scrolling at the bottom, and then you have the closed captioning slide across the bottom as well. You get a very cluttered screen.

I know CPAC is looking at issues like that, but Mr. Jamieson may have more detail as to what their explanation at the CRTC was.

Mrs. Catterall: Can I take this opportunity to ask, and I'd like to hear the answer -

The Chairman: Well, we're at 12:30 p.m. We have a couple of other things to decide.

Mrs. Catterall: Oh, my apologies. Can I just leave the question floating for another time, then, when we might want to deal with this? How else in services of the House of Commons - our information services and so on - are we also addressing the needs of the hearing impaired?

The Chairman: I'm not trying to shut the discussion down; I just think we should resume this on our next day.

Mrs. Catterall: Remember, I don't have a watch on.

Mr. Pickard: Most of this discussion has circled around costs. Do we have any examples or information that could help us with costs? I would like to know what those costs are. I think the change in technology has certainly changed that whole position in the last few years.

The Chairman: Maybe that could be brought to the next meeting.

Mr. Pickard: That would be helpful.

The Chairman: Now, besides this one, there are two items we have not completed: reports in non-traditional formats and naming of members, which Ms Catterall wanted to mention. A briefing document on naming of members is available and has been circulated, so I suspect we're ready to talk about that one at the next meeting.

Mr. Hermanson: That member-naming item was mentioned at the steering committee. Is this a different one?

The Chairman: It's a new one. Ms Catterall has raised it.

There's one other matter that is of some urgency, and that is the comments on the draft regulations under the Referendum Act that have been referred to the committee.

Yesterday we received a letter from the Chief Electoral Officer, which I've circulated just now, answering the items raised by Mr. Robertson in his report for us. This will need a bit of review by members who are interested in the subject. We need to have our comments to the Chief Electoral Officer by the end of the week.

Are there particular members who have a particular interest in this issue, and if so, could they put their hands up?

In the circumstances, could I suggest that you and I get together perhaps tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Hermanson, and anyone else who wants to come, maybe in my office at 3:30 p.m. or something after routine proceedings, and run through these responses. If we have comments we think the committee should make, we could then prepare a document for the committee, which could be dealt with at a meeting on Thursday.

Mr. Hermanson: I think I'm okay with that.

The Chairman: I think I'm okay too. If it's just you and I, we can confer and fix a time. We'll prepare comments for the committee then for Thursday.

I'll be away on Thursday for the committee meeting. I will be unavailable, so Ms Catterall is going to have to chair. Given the number of items that are here, I think the committee might usefully meet and certainly deal with the comments for the Chief Electoral Officer on these things, if nothing else, if that's agreeable.

I'll declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you for your attendance.

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