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, October 18, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): We'll start the meeting.

My name is Gar Knutson. I have been honoured with the appointment as chair of this subcommittee. My intent today was merely to satisfy a ten-day rule that says the committee has to start its deliberations on what should be votable within ten sitting days of the draw. The deadline is tomorrow. Given that it's all but certain that there's going to be an election call on Sunday, I didn't think it was in anybody's interest to put MPs to a lot of work to make presentations. With each passing minute we're all getting closer to an election and we have better things to do. I point out that there is no quorum, so we won't be able to make any decisions today in any event.

I've had a request from Marlene Jennings of the House of Commons and Senator Jerry Grafstein of the Senate to make a presentation regarding their joint bill.

There's no quorum for hearing witnesses, so if you would like to make a presentation and have it on the record, you are free to do that. I'm willing to stay.

To those who are leaving, good luck in the election, and perhaps we'll see everybody again in a couple of months.

Who would like to begin?

Senator Jerahmiel S. Grafstein (Metro Toronto, Lib.): First of all, Chairman, thank you very much for this extraordinary opportunity.

As you know, the bill is entitled “An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Poet Laureate)”. It aims to have Parliament—this is not by the executive and it's not by government, it's by Parliament—establish a poet laureate, similar to the same position that has been established in England for 300 years, and in the United States since the thirties.

Essentially, the poet would be appointed by a selection of several cultural institutions: the chairmen of the National Library, the National Archives, the Canada Council, and the Official Languages Commissioner. By whatever process they feel appropriate, they would nominate three nominees to be poet laureate, and the speakers of the two Houses would convene and would in fact make a decision on that office.

The poet laureate would hold office for two years. The reason for the two years is to allow for alternates and for changes. We have poets not only in the two official languages, but every language spoken in Canada, some 34 or 40 languages.

This is a very modest bill. It establishes no fixed fee or stipend. In the United Kingdom they pay 5,000 pounds a year, and it's $30,000 a year in the United States. There are already offices in the parliamentary library, so the cost of doing this would be less than a repairman, less than a doorman, less than a staff member, less than a policeman, and less than a fireman. It would be very modest.

The objective of the bill is to treat those writers in Canada who are at the lowest level of the writing society, the poets, who are really underpaid and under-recognized.

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There has been an explosion of poetry in the United States, in Europe, and in Canada, and this would give a focus to that. It would also make Parliament a focus of this renewed and exciting activity.

So this is a very modest bill. The poet laureate would be properly selected.

When we took this through the Senate, there was some question about it. I went on Cross Country Checkup, and I think we had 85% turnout in terms of support of the bill. I went on a talk show in Calgary and another in Edmonton, and there was uniform support for it there.

This is a modest counterbalance to what I consider to be one of the key problems in Canada: the lack of interest in culture and literature. I think this modest bill would do a lot to redress that imbalance.

Hopefully, Marlene Jennings, who has been following this bill with great care, will take it to the House tomorrow and seek unanimous consent to proceed, but we really just wanted to canvass your views with the hope that we could get a consensus from this committee, in the absence of a quorum, for some support.

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): If I may just add to that, it was quite an honour for me when Senator Grafstein contacted me to explain that he had Bill S-5 in the Senate and was fairly confident—with reason, as time showed—that it would in fact go through all of the readings in the Senate and would be sent over to the House. I was honoured that he thought I would be a good member of Parliament to sponsor the bill in the House.

It has gone through first reading in the House, obviously. Unfortunately, given the events that seem to be overtaking us, we would like to see this bill adopted and proclaimed prior to an adjournment of the House. Part of the bill says that the parliamentary poet laureate would in fact be appointed in the year 2000.

Given Canada's rich culture, and given this government's commitment to education and to our young people, I think it would be a really strong statement on the part of Parliament that culture also includes poetry, and that, notwithstanding all of the great technological advances that we have had for communications, this basic human communication still thrives and will continue to do so in our new society of the third millennium.

As Senator Grafstein explained, we do understand that there is no quorum here and that the committee is therefore unable to make a decision. But there are some members of the committee who are here, and we would like to have your views.

I will be rising in the House tomorrow, Thursday, October 19, to seek the unanimous consent of the House to deem this bill adopted through final reading and to send it for a royal proclamation.

The Chair: After consultation with the clerk, it's my view that, given that there are five spots reserved for bills from the draw and that a House of Commons bill with a hundred signatures or a Senate bill is usually made votable on top of those five, this likely would have been made votable if we'd had a proper meeting. I didn't see any objection from the opposition while they were here, but I think that's about all I can say without getting close to misrepresentation. It's not an absolute right that a Senate bill will be made votable, but it's something that appears to generally have happened in the past, and it's likely that tradition would have been respected.

Do you want to—

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos (Ahuntsic, Lib.): No, I agree with the chair.

The Chair: So it's on record. What use you can make of that tomorrow, I don't know, but I wish you luck.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Thank you very much.

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: Thank you both so much, and thank you, members and staff, for your kind indulgence. In the Senate, if there's not a quorum at 15 minutes, we normally adjourn. I appreciate you staying beyond that period to facilitate this.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Maybe we should put it on the record, Senator, about the English-French. It was something that you mentioned, so perhaps you would like to put that on the record. I'm sorry, but I meant to ask you about that.

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Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: Yes. I think it's important to understand that the term of office here is two years. That allows for alternates. We have a grand tradition in Parliament that for large parliamentary positions, there is a provision for alternates. I think that has been adopted for many officers of Parliament and for many positions within the confines of Parliament. I think this is consistent with that tradition.

At the end of the day, based on what the selection committee says and on what is said by the two speakers who will make the decision, my expectation is that they will follow that tradition of providing access to the two official languages, and hopefully also for those people who can't speak the two official languages, but who speak a third language—and there are many of those.

Just as one final point, we have more published poets in Canada per capita than anyplace in the world. That's the good news. The bad news is that not very many people read those books, so this is an attempt to get them to read the books that are already published.

Thank you so much.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Thank you.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Thank you.

The Chair: Good luck. I appreciate your commitment.

We're adjourned.