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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 2, 2002

1110

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.))

1115

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast, Canadian Alliance)

1120

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa--Vanier, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

1125

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds--Grenville, Lib.)

1130

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC)

The Chair

1135

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon--Souris, PC)

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Saada

The Chair

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

1140

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, CA)

1145

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

1150

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie--Bathurst, NDP)

Mr. John Bryden

1155

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

1200

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

Ms. Paddy Torsney

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

1205

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

1210

The Chair

Mr. Wayne Cole (Committee Researcher)

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

1215

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Ted White

1220

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Canadian Alliance)

1225

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Jason Kenney

The Chair

Ms. Paddy Torsney

1230

The Chair

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance)

1235

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport--Montmorency--Côte-de-Beaupré--Île-d'Orléans, BQ)

1240

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères--Les-Patriotes, BQ)

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

1245

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

1250

Mr. John Bryden

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish

The Chair

Mr. John Bryden

1255

The Chair

1300

Mr. Ted White

The Chair

Mr. Joe Jordan

1305

The Chair

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron

Mr. Joe Jordan

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

1310

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Ms. Paddy Torsney

1315

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

1320

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance)

1325

The Chair

Mr. John Bryden

The Chair

1330

Mr. John Bryden

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

Mr. Mauril Bélanger

The Chair

CANADA

NUMBER 062

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 2, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á (1110)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, this begins the 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It's a rather different meeting from the usual. It's in the form of, as you know, a round table. The members of the committee greatly appreciate the guests who are here, and the idea is to conduct this as a round-table meeting.

I already have one request from the Alliance for a short statement from their House leader at the beginning, after I have made my statement, but I'd be grateful if, following that, we could keep to the general outline for the round table, which you all have.

That outline, by the way, is not cast in stone. If some of the themes there you have no interest in, we won't discuss them. But the idea is--and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs thought this out as well as it could--that we need some formal, general consideration of private members' business before we discuss the very special interests of individual members and individual parties around this table. If we can have a really constructive, creative discussion today and get a lot of material on the record through short, frequent interventions--which is what I hope they will be--then the committee will have something real to work on so that it can proceed.

In the future it may be, colleagues, that for those of you who have special interests, the committee may invite other witnesses to one of its other meetings, but the purpose today is to try to get on the record a broad range of views and as much real information as we can about private members' business as it is today, as it has been in the past, and as it is in other jurisdictions.

I'm going to begin with a short statement from the chair, which really is on behalf of the committee. I am then going to go to John Reynolds, because of this request from the Alliance, and I'm then going to go to the first of the themes.

[Translation]

First of all, on behalf of the members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I would like to welcome all of you here this morning, and to thank you very much for attending.

[English]

The purpose of today's meeting is to have a round-table discussion on the general topic of private members' business. The committee wants to hear your concerns and experiences, as well as your ideas and suggestions. It's not our objective to propose specific changes today, but instead to engender discussion on a wide variety of options. We hope these will provide a foundation for our future deliberations.

Some of you have been involved in private members' business for a long time, and I know there have been lengthy discussions about what can or should be done to improve private members' business.

As chair of this committee, I've received suggestions from both government and opposition members. For reform to work, however, there needs to be a fair degree of consensus in the House of Commons and some agreement on the objectives and purposes of private members' business. We hope that today's discussion will inaugurate a new stage in the ongoing--and if you read the literature you've been provided with, long ongoing--review of our procedures and practices.

[Translation]

Although many of you know all about private members' business, since today's round table is being televised, I feel that I should take a few minutes to explain what we are about to discuss.

[English]

First, some terminology.

When we talk about “private members”, we refer to those elected members of Parliament who are not part of the cabinet. In other words, whether you're sitting on the government side or on the opposition side is irrelevant. A private member is an MP who is not a minister, a secretary of state, or a parliamentary secretary. This is why we have here today members from all five parties. Private members' business belongs to all private members irrespective of their party affiliation.

The expression “private members' business”, then, refers to the time the House sets aside for business emanating from private members--one hour a day, five days a week. That business can take the form of a bill, which, before it becomes law, must go through the same stages as do government bills--three readings in the House, three in the Senate, all the way to royal assent--or that of a motion, which results in a resolution of the House, often expressing an opinion or calling upon the government to do something.

[Translation]

Unlike government bills and motions, however, bills and motions emanating from private members must be drawn at random before they can appear on the Order Paper and be introduced for debate.

[English]

This is largely because there are far more bills and motions tabled than time to deal with them. For example, so far in this session of Parliament, which began in January 2001, there have been a total of 251 bills and 496 motions tabled in the House. That's around 750 items tabled. Of these, 128 have been placed on the order of precedence, 22 of these have been voted on or will be voted on, while the rest have been or will be dropped from the Order Paper after one hour of debate. In addition, five Senate bills have been debated in the House.

The Standing Orders provide for the establishment of an order of precedence, a sort of running list at the beginning of each parliamentary session, and at various intervals thereafter. This order of precedence consists of 30 items of private members' business, an equal number of bills and motions in the sequence established by the draw of members' names. To add to the complexity of this system, private bills and public bills from the Senate are automatically placed at the bottom of this order of precedence.

All of the 30 items on the order of precedence will be debated for an hour in the House, but only some of them will be voted on. At any time, up to 10 of the 30 items can be declared votable, which means that they get up to three hours of debate. They come to a vote at the end of this period.

The decision as to which items should be votable is made by this committee, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, through one of its subcommittees, the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business. That subcommittee consists of one member from each party in the House, plus a government chair. So the government does not have a majority on that subcommittee.

Á (1115)

[Translation]

As I mentioned, votable items are voted on by the House after three hours of debate. If a motion is approved, it becomes a resolution of the House. In the case of a bill, if it is adopted at second reading, it is then referred to a standing committee for detailed study, and must return to the House for consideration of amendments and third reading, before going on to the Senate.

[English]

As with any attempt to summarize a complex process into neat or short descriptions, I've left out a lot of details. But I sincerely hope that the discussion we will have will fill in all the gaps in the current procedure that I've tried to describe.

For the purpose of our discussion this morning--colleagues, you have this before you, but people watching on television do not--we've suggested we divide our time into the discussion of four broad themes: first, the purpose of private members' business; second, whether all items of private members' business should be votable; third, the details of the selection of votable items; and fourth, whether more radical changes should be considered--whether we should drop what's going on at present, change it completely, or modify it somewhat.

I'm going to keep the interventions short. I'm going to move them around as much as I can. I hope you'll enter into the spirit of this round table. If some of the themes prove not to be of interest, we'll move on to the next one. But I am going to attempt, on behalf of the committee, to move us through these discussions.

I have been asked that the leader of the Canadian Alliance in the House, John Reynolds, make a short statement.

John, if you would do that now, and then, colleagues, we'll proceed to the first theme in our agenda.

John Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much.

Private members' business is a vital and essential part of the parliamentary and legislative process. We're here today to discuss ideas to bring the current private members' business procedure out of the 19th century and into modern times. There's a desperate need for reform. I think we all agree on that. This issue lies at the very heart of democracy.

We've been asking for a long time, with support from all parties, for all private members' business to be votable. There needs to be a new mechanism in place to ensure that all items are brought to a vote and that the divisions on these questions remain free votes.

Many reform proposals have come to the table in past years. The last time this committee took on this issue the government made a decision not to make a decision. At the behest of the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary, this committee reported back to the House last December 5, five months ahead of the deadline, saying that it could not come up with a solution. That, Mr. Chairman, is unacceptable.

We do not need to spend more time talking. We all know what we want, and we appreciate what you're doing here today in the round-table discussion to try to find a solution to this issue.

On behalf of the official opposition, I am today presenting three absolute conditions for reform: first, that all private members' bills and motions be automatically votable unless requested otherwise by the sponsor of the said bill or motion; second, that no private members' business items be subject to amendment unless the amendment is seconded by the original sponsor of the bill or motion. This would preclude the kinds of poison pill amendments we recently and shamefully saw in the House on Bill C-344. Third, if a private members' bill passes second reading and makes it to committee, it must pass the committee stage in a timely fashion and be reported back to the House within the four corners of the original bill.

Mr. Chairman, these are our requests. Everything else is detail.

We're not asking for more time than the five hours per week in the current cycle. We're not asking for a model that would diminish the time available for the government to conduct its own business, because I know that's very important to the government. In fact, we would be prepared--and I hope it will be part of this discussion--to look at possibly sitting Tuesday and Thursday nights from seven to ten just to discuss private members' business. We'd be prepared to look at the example of reducing the hours on private members' business from three to two if they were all votable.

Carl Sagan said that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. That is the reason this committee cannot make progress on this file, Mr. Chairman. It keeps starting from scratch and trying to recreate the universe.

If our three democratic reforms are met, Mr. Chairman, I pledge today that there will be no obstruction or delay from the official opposition in bringing long overdue reform to private members' business.

We've put proposals on the table. We appreciate your discussion today, but we hope that the government, as is the case for the other parties, would be prepared to move forward as quickly as possible to solve this problem that exists today in our Parliament of Canada.

Thank you.

Á (1120)

The Chair: Thank you very much, John.

Colleagues, we'll now proceed to item A. I have a list, and I'll keep to it as long as I can.

Let's start by trying to define the universe. From time to time it's not a bad thing to think about the context of the decisions we might or might not make. We're discussing now the purpose of private members' business, and you see some suggestions there.

I have on my list Mauril Bélanger and Réal Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa--Vanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would prefer not to address the first issue. However, I would like to speak to the second topic. Consequently, I would appreciate it if you would add my name to your list of speakers on the second issue.

[English]

The Chair: Okay.

We'll go to Réal Ménard and then to Garry Breitkreuz on this issue.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to make one comment, which relates, if I'm not mistaken, to the first topic.

Over the past few years, I have used the private members' bill system on many occasions. I would like to add my support to the following reform:

That all members have the opportunity once a year, to table either a motion or a votable item.

This would mean, therefore, that members would have the opportunity to table four items in any Parliament, provided that the life of the Parliament is indeed four years. The advantage of such a major reform would be to enhance the role played by members of Parliament. In addition, it would also mean that all members of Parliament would have the opportunity to have one topic of their choice discussed in the House each year.

There would have to be two criteria here...

[English]

The Chair: Réal, I know, by the way, your personal interest in this topic, and I hate to do this, but I'd be glad to put you very high up under one of the other themes.

I urge you, colleagues--and by the way, it's not just me, but the committee--that we consider the place of private members' business again, for one or two minutes, maximum.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: You are not cutting me off because I went off subject are you?

I would just like to close by saying that for this process to be implemented, we would have to double the number of hours earmarked for private members' business. Consequently, one hour would have to be given over to private members' business. In addition, Friday's question period would have to be eliminated. And the whole of Friday would have to be given over to private members' business.

[English]

The Chair: That's on the record, but it's not on the topic.

Garry Breitkreuz, on the general topic if you could, please.

And I assure you, colleagues, I'll try to get you back on if your interests are elsewhere. And if this session is fairly short, we'll move on to section B very quickly.

Garry Breitkreuz, followed by Ted White and John Bryden.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am speaking to the purpose of private members' business, which is your first topic there. There is a real need to revitalize democracy within Parliament and within Canada, I feel, based on my experience for the last eight years as an MP. I really must underscore that we should not fear triggering debates across the country.

Apathy has become one of the real significant problems within this country. We see the number of voters declining within the country. People really feel disconnected from the entire process of decision-making. One of the reasons I have been fighting for years to encourage people to scratch below the surface on the issues is because very often at election time decisions are made without a proper understanding of those.

Private members' business goes to the very heart of this, and can be one of the key tools that can really revitalize an interest in what's happening in Parliament and the issues that face the country.

I would like to really emphasize the fact that democracy doesn't work unless people are informed of the issues and there is an effective opposition within the country. That effective opposition can come in the way of holding the government to account and introducing new topics that have not been introduced into Parliament.

Control has been centralizing more and more within the country. We're all quite aware of this within the cabinet and Parliament. And this is a way of giving a much stronger voice to MPs. I would conclude by saying that democracy must enable the people of Canada to have their voice heard and respected, and private members' business is a tool where there would be a lot more input by the people of this country through their MP into Parliament.

That's why I think it is absolutely vital that we really revitalize the whole area of private members' business. It strikes to the very heart of what we do in this Parliament, and I think it would revitalize the whole democratic process across the country, whereby people will take more of an interest in issues because they could see that their MP was speaking up on their behalf and able to do that.

Of course, we'll discuss more of this later in terms of the importance of free votes and making all private members' business votable, but this is I think the introduction that needs to be made. This strikes at the very heart of democracy.

The Chair: Thanks, Garry. I appreciate your addressing the topic.

It's Ted White, John Bryden, Joe Jordan, then Gerald Keddy.

Á (1125)

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Peter. I'm also speaking on topic, which is the purpose of private members' bills--

The Chair: Just a moment--

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: On a point of order.

The Chair: Yes, please.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: You have a two-hour meeting, correct?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger:You have four themes.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Are you planning on splitting each theme to half an hour?

The Chair: Yes, I'll cut it off at some point. I'm doing my best here, folks.

Ted, please proceed.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Peter. I'll start again.

I am speaking on the topic of the purpose of private members' bills, the place of private members' bills. I think for the most part it would be fair to say that much of the private members' business deals with smaller issues, not necessarily unimportant issues, but smaller issues that would often, if they were left to the government, have to be included in an omnibus bill of some sort, and so often it takes a very long time for situations to be addressed in an omnibus fashion. So certainly one of the roles I see for private members' business, and I'm sure the public see it this way as well, is a way of trying to push through or implement issues that would otherwise have to wait a long time to be dealt with.

Along with that theme, I find it not only frustrating but frankly insulting that the system sets us up as capable, thoughtful individuals who can study government legislation, make amendments, and then finally vote on that legislation, but for some reason we're not intelligent or capable enough to prepare small legislative measures ourselves and submit them for debate and vote in the House. I think there is a place for that. If we can be credited with the intelligence to study the government's legislation, then surely it logically follows that we have enough intelligence and ability to create small legislative measures ourselves.

So if anyone were to argue there is no place for private members' business, I think they're wrong. I think it naturally flows from the conclusion that there is a place where it should all be votable, and certainly I'll be speaking more when we get to that theme in this session today too. But to make it anything but votable is an insult.

The Chair: John Bryden, then Joe Jordan, then Gerald Keddy. I may well be cutting this theme off at that point, but we'll see how it goes.

Mr. John Bryden (Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I agree with Mr. Breitkreuz and Mr. White in essentially everything they said. I would only add that generally people expect MPs to be legislators. Generally, people are uncomfortable with the idea that government has a total monopoly on legislation. Generally, people would like to see private members as an alternative voice to government in initiating important public debates. I agree absolutely that the confidence of Parliament is dependent upon the confidence of MPs, and private members' business is a way of bringing public confidence to MPs.

The Chair: I appreciate it.

Joe Jordan.

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

I think it's important that we spend some time on this topic, because the discussion on the other topics is going to stem from this.

As a committee member and as a former member of the subcommittee, I know we've been around this issue. If you look at the purpose of private members' business, I don't necessarily buy into the opposition leader's premise that this is somehow a case of democracy in crisis. I think that democracy is a process of evolution.

I would challenge the members. We have looked at other jurisdictions as to how they handle private members' business. The United States is a system of government where every bill is essentially a private member's bill, but if you compare the success rate of bills proposed to that of bills adopted, it doesn't even come close to what we're doing here.

We had the Ontario procedure and house affairs committee before us last week. They told us that everything is votable, but the government can choose to refer any item to the committee as a whole, which essentially kills it. You're giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

You come back to what is the purpose of private members' business. Historically, as Mr. White pointed out, private members' business has dealt with issues...maybe small isn't the right word, but it is a word. They're non-partisan issues. They're issues of national significance. Historically--and I'm not saying we're bound by these--they were issues that did not involve expenditures by the government. You couldn't bind the government to expenditures.

This goes back to the fact that our system of government, rightly or wrongly, is based on the Westminster model, and it has been an evolution. If we're going to introduce a process for private members' bills that can deal with absolutely anything, a process Mr. Bryden characterizes as a separate instrument for initiating public policy debates on issues, it's very important that we recognize exactly what it is we're doing.

Right now we say things should be non-partisan in private members' business, yet I know there's a great deal of frustration around it. You have opposition critics or in some cases Liberal committee chairs who are introducing bills that have absolutely everything to do with their portfolios. It seems that we need to have a very clear definition of what we're trying to do.

Private members' business did not start or cause this sort of disconnect with voters. I'm certainly not, Mr. Breitkreuz, saying that this doesn't exist, and it's not going to solve that either. I think we need to put it in perspective. We need to look at the whole issue of empowering MPs, the work of committees, and so on and so forth, but it all starts with what is private members' business for?

If we're going to define that, we need to get very specific with the criteria and remove the subjectivity. If you want them all votable, you have to be prepared to extend hours. Otherwise, you're going to have either a filter of a draw or a filter simply from the clock ticking, with the result that things won't get heard. If we're going to initiate a process identical, once it's in the pipeline, to that of government bills--

Á (1130)

The Chair: Joe, you're moving away from the theme.

Mr. Joe Jordan: If you're going to initiate a process, this is the purpose. If you're going to initiate a process that is identical to that of government bills once it's in the pipeline, then we're going to have address the differences that exist in terms of time limits on debates and so on and so forth. If it's going to be a separate stream for initiating laws of any kind, then that's a pretty big change, and we're going to have to give that a great deal of thought.

The Chair: We're getting close to the end of this theme.

Gerald Keddy.

Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I really had intended to speak on item D. I have a couple of comments on item A, and I'll try to make them quickly.

The purpose of private members' business should be viewed as a way of changing the law, or advancing an issue or a cause, by discussing it in the House of Commons. I think we're all in agreement on that.

One of the major problems we have is time. Probably there is too much private members' business, and not enough separation of private members' bills and motions. Perhaps if motions weren't votable, and all private members' bills were votable, you'd have fewer bills, and we'd do a better job at it. Now, there's another discussion on how we introduce these to the House, and how we seek parity and equality between all the parties and members in an attempt to get their bills forward. But certainly a lot of private members' business can be dilatory or obstructionist, which I don't think a private member's bill should be. We want to remove that from it. Perhaps there's room for that in a motion.

We really have to look at what's votable and what's not. I think we're all in agreement that if you have a private member's bill, it should be votable--

The Chair: We're going to do that next, in C.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: --and if that means fewer of them, then we should have fewer of them.

The Chair: Thanks, Gerry.

Rick Borotsik.

Á (1135)

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon--Souris, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: And then it's Derek Lee, Paddy Torsney, and Tony Tirabassi, if there's time. But it depends on time.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Mr. Chairman, I'll be very brief, because the next item will be the votable side of it.

I personally, and I think the majority of my caucus, believe that private members' business is an absolute, vital function of this Parliament--and of any Parliament. It allows private members of all parties an opportunity to put forward an issue that's either very important to them or to their constituencies. It is perhaps not only discussed in this particular place, but it may also be turned into law, Mr. Chairman.

I think the first theme can be agreed around the table, that we would like to continue with private members' business. What we would like to do is try to define a better way of doing it. That's all. So I think the first theme you've covered off quite well. If anybody disagrees with this--that we should not have private members' business--then would they please speak. Then we can argue that point and not simply go around the mulberry bush.

The Chair: We'll see.

So it's Derek Lee, Jacques Saada, Paddy Torsney, and then Tony Tirabassi, if there's time. I'm sorry, Tony.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.): Most of the good stuff has been said.

I don't like connecting private members' business discussions to party positions. I've heard that come out a couple of times. Private members' business is for members disconnected from their party. I think we ought to keep it that way.

I just want to add the rhetorical question, which should show the obvious, that if we didn't have private members' business, where would we all be?

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Jacques Saada and then Paddy Torsney.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): Mr. Chair, the first two parts of your question contain the word “or”. The way I see it, the word “and” and not “or” should be used. It goes without saying that when you are first elected to Parliament, you don't know from the outset whether you will be a member of the governing party or not. We run for office because we have ideas and principles that we want to advocate and policies that we want to put forward. If you do end up on the government benches, there are ways of doing this, but at the same time, you can't take that as read. As a government member of Parliament, I want to be able to espouse points of view that my government is not necessarily inclined to endorse. You can do this if you are in opposition. Therefore, I would like to fully support what Mr. Borotsik said earlier. I support the underlying principle of this initiative.

[English]

The Chair: Paddy Torsney, and then it depends on time.

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.): First of all, I think the role of private members' bills is to highlight issues of local concern and try to encourage the government to act in a certain way.

Certainly, for instance, one of my private member's bills was on peanut allergies. It would have revolutionized how information was dispensed in restaurants right across this country. To suggest that would have been successful after two hours of debate is somewhat naive. To encourage a discussion of things and to prod the government into action is probably a marker of success, rather than necessarily having the bill adopted holus-bolus.

A second private member's bill of mine was to get the government to move on game cards that were distributed. Again, that was rolled into a piece of government legislation in which the government was involved in a bigger consultation. Ultimately it was successful, but it was part of a bigger thing. So that's a role for private members' business.

But to suggest that, for instance, we would change the Criminal Code after two hours of debate is really quite naive. I would be very concerned about any process that would in fact have that implication.

The Chair: Tony Tirabassi is the last one on this.

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I too am in full support of private members' business. I definitely think it is essential. Perhaps Mr. White put it best. I envision the role of private members' business as being smaller, less complex pieces of proposals or legislation. That's made under the assumption that really, we all come here under the banner of a political party.

If there's one assumption we can make, it's that as individuals, it's not so much that we lack the capability or the ability or the intelligence to propose legislation or motions. The fact is that the resources available to an entire group under a certain political party are much greater. There has to be a separation between government business and private members' business. That's really how I see it.

The Chair: Colleagues, I thank you for keeping to the topic. We will now move on.

Rick Borotsik posed the question. I don't see anybody here opposed to private members' business, so far anyway.

If we can move on then, our second theme is whether all items of private members' business should be votable. You have a list of possible topics there, but I can tell from the previous debate that there's already a lot of interest in it.

I have Mauril Bélanger, who was bumped from the first list.

Á (1140)

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I used to think all private members' business should not necessarily be votable. I've now changed my mind because I've been put through the system, which does not work. I was prepared to have the bill I had sponsored be judged as to whether or not it should be made votable on the criteria the committee has agreed to use. Without getting into the substance of the bill, so far I've been unable to get an explanation as to why the bill I put forward was declared to be non-votable, because it meets all five criteria. I'm subject, as we all are, to decisions that are made in camera, without explanation and without appeal. I think that's where the whole system falls apart.

I've thought about this and I've read the minutes of all the committee meetings you had last fall on this matter. It seems to me that this notion that they all be made votable was not acceptable because there was a need for a screen of some sort. Mr. Blaikie was one of those who made that argument most eloquently.

I would suggest to this group that we find a way of putting a screen so that all items that get onto the notice paper are votable. The notion I want to put forward here is that you apply the criteria before a bill or a motion is put on the notice paper, so that whenever a member's name is drawn in the lottery, he or she can pick whatever item is in there, a motion or a bill, and it's votable, end of debate. You still apply the screen, the criteria that are set up. That's why you eliminate possible embarrassment and whatnot.

I would suggest that we go further and remove that role of applying the criteria from the subcommittee you created, because it's obviously an impossible task to ask of these members. It doesn't work. Those who have been on it have seen that it doesn't work. Those who have had to go through it see that it doesn't work. I would suggest that we consider giving that task to table officers. Here are the criteria. Does this proposed bill or motion meet the criteria? If so, it goes on the notice paper, and if drawn, it's votable, end of debate.

If it's decided that it's not votable, establish an appeal mechanism of some sort to the Speaker or to this full committee, not to the subcommittee, so that decisions are made in the open and on the basis of the criteria, not the substance. I've been to the committee a few times, and most of the debate was on the substance as opposed to the criteria.

An hon. member: The criteria could be expanded.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Well, whatever the criteria may be. That can be decided.

The Chair: The criteria is the next item.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I understand that there would be a time difficulty, and I'm not necessarily suggesting that we only consider doubling the time. Maybe we can consider halving the time so that instead of speaking for ten minutes, members can speak for five. Instead of dealing with one in each hour, you can deal with two, and maybe we don't need three hours. Maybe we need an hour and a half, or even one hour, so that over two periods you get the bill debated.

I have a number of other suggestions of a practical nature to break the bloody logjam. I'll tell you that I have a bill there that I firmly believe meets the criteria--I've yet to be told by anyone on that subcommittee that it does not meet the criteria--and yet it can't be made votable. That is not fair to the people of this country and it's not fair to me. I really think the system has to be fixed, not reinvented. Don't reinvent the universe or the wheel, just fix the problem. The problem is at the subcommittee level in not applying the criteria.

The Chair: And that's all we're here for.

The order is Keith Martin and Joe Jordan.

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The level of interest is probably indicated by the number of people in this room today. If only we had so much participation in all our committees, life would be much better.

I think we have to remember the basic principle that democracy is a participatory activity, but for too long all of us, regardless of our political party, have been excluded from the democratic process. Worse, this has meant all of the people who have sent us here, all of our constituents, have also been excluded from this process.

As one of my colleagues mentioned today, 69% of the people think we're corrupt. The number of people voting is going down, and this has to change. This is so because this place is run by the Prime Minister's Office and we are powerless to do our job.

Á (1145)

The Chair: But should all actions be votable?

Mr. Keith Martin: In order to change this, I draw your attention to the following in terms of simplifying the system. I've introduced seven private member's motions over the last year and a half--motions 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 362, and 363. The last one, 363, talks about how all business should be made votable. It extends the number of hours along the lines suggested by my colleague, John Reynolds.

The time should be increased. All things should be votable. As for the selection process, every single MP should be able to have at least one private member's bill per Parliament. The way to do this would be to draw our names in random order so we're not alphabetical. We will all know what the order is once our names are drawn randomly from the pool without regard to who we are. Then we'll know when those private members' bills will come down.

Voting should also be electronic, not only on committee but also in the House. This would enable us to have free votes in committee and the House and break the draconian manner in which we are crushed by an excessive amount of heavy-handedness.

The Chair: Now listen, both of the last speakers have wandered off into later items. I'm trying to keep strictly to this thing, Keith.

Mr. Keith Martin: But if I could just finish--

The Chair: You can because you're a member of Parliament.

Mr. Keith Martin: Along the lines Ms. Torsney mentioned, it's absurd for the government to adopt a bill up to two hours.... We know that a bill will go to committee stage, where it will be hashed out; it will come back to the House, and it will be hashed out twice more in the House. We at least have to put faith in the democratic process and in the fact that we're all MPs given the job to legislate and to use our intelligence and apply the wishes of our constituents.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, if all this is is a talk shop, then we're wasting our time. But if we use this to implement changes that we all want, then we would have done something effective. We can't let “study-itis” rule us any more and have more studies.

Furthermore, we have to extend this not only from private members' business but to committees and also to the House at large. The whole system needs to be shaken up and democratized, not only for us but also for the people who work in this institution, as well as for the public at large.

Thank you.

The Chair: Okay. The order will be Joe Jordan, Yvon Godin, John Bryden, and then you, Garry.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very quickly, in terms of the votability, maybe I can bring members up to speed as to what point we left it at or the point of departure on this before.

I agree with what I'm hearing. I think the frustration that Mr. Bélanger and others have expressed is one that's a reality when you try to put 750 bills and motions into 22 slots. Given the current way we do it, you're going to have people who are very frustrated and very disappointed, because the process takes a great deal of time, and at the end of it you're put through a filter that is hard to explain, and there's no arguing that there isn't some level of subjectivity to it.

The issue, though, is that maybe we have to look at the form of private members' initiatives. Maybe we don't need them in bill form, because we're tying up the table officers if 750 documents are sitting in the dust at the bottom of this barrel and they've been put in constitutional, legal, bill form--or motion form, not so much--prior to going in there. I think we may want to look at some kind of document that's a hybrid, that Parliament should address this issue or should take this action, that doesn't take the table officers and the legal staff hours and hours to put together.

In terms of votability, if what we are doing is referencing this to committee.... We talked about doing it prior to second reading, because a vote at second reading is an agreement in principle, and you're giving those who are inclined reasons not to vote against something, because they can find one paragraph in the bill that they feel is wrong and that's the justification they're using.

So if the process can be the development of a document that is an indication of a topic or a direction that Parliament should take or something that Parliament should consider, and then it's debated and the vote is to go to committee prior to second reading to do whatever happens next, I think that's perfectly doable. I think that's something that would be very helpful.

But right now we're trying to take an old system and put some band-aids on it on it and come up with something that works. We're bound by the bills and motions and the work that goes into that. They languish in the draw because you need some filter, and then you're also held to the fact that governments are very reluctant to approve something at second reading because that implies a lot of other things that may not need to be dragged into this.

So if we're going to look at votability of all items and we don't know what items are yet, we should be looking at references to committee prior to second reading. I think that's a major way of moving this thing forward.

So an MP can bring an issue to Parliament. Parliament will have a recorded division on that item. But it's whether or not it goes to committee prior to second reading, not adopted by the House at second reading, because there's a big difference in terms of what that implies.

Á (1150)

The Chair: Okay.

I will note, colleagues, as it's not a normal committee meeting, just so you know the list I have so far, it's Yvon Godin, John Bryden, Garry Breitkreuz, Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Ted White, Val Meredith, and Réal Ménard. That's the order I have them in, as best as I can. Okay?

So, Yvon Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie--Bathurst, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to be brief. I have a couple of ideas on this problem, and I will outline them for you.

To begin with, when I hear political parties say that they would like all private members' business to be votable, I find it hard to believe. Right now, we use a draw. Around 15 motions and bills are drawn at random. According to the rules, up to six items can be votable, but sometimes it is hard to even find two. All parties are at the table trying to make a decision together.

Here is where I have a problem, and I will give you my opinion. I do not agree that all bills and motions should be votable, but if the committee is allowed to choose six, then it should do so. There is no reason for not doing so. Moreover, the committee chair should not vote. You say that the government cannot decide which motion will be votable, given that one person per party is involved in the process. But given that the chair is a Liberal, there are in fact two Liberals who have the right to vote. They may not be able to bring motions to the House of Commons, but they can prevent them from getting there. In order to bring motions to the House, five people out of six have to vote in favour, but if two people vote against, the motions do not make it to the House. That was the situation in the last committee where I sat.

I would like the five parties to take part in the process, and four of the five would make the decision. I can see that working. I would also like the government not to have the right to interfere in private members' business and pass motions, which was what happened in the last incident at the House of Commons. Let the members decide rather than have the government pass motions overturning their decisions. In my opinion, that was a terrible incident. It should never have happened.

My last suggestion is that members of Parliament should not be able to go through the back door and bring a motion to the Senate that has already been presented before the committee. It is like a 10 percenter; you cannot send it out in your riding, and then send it some place within the riding if it is the same 10 per cent. So we need to adopt a standardized procedure. If an MP is unable to get a motion through the committee, he should not be allowed to go through the back door, by going to the Senate and coming back, thereby ensuring that his motion gets through.

Those are my suggestions, basically, and I would point out that not all parties want everything to be votable. Our party, for example, does not want that.

The Chair: Thank you very much for that.

[English]

I noticed some members wanted to respond to what Yvon said. My sense is that a lot of those responses could be made under the next general theme, but we'll see how the thing moves along. I already have some requests for the next item.

John Bryden.

Mr. John Bryden: I agree with Mr. Bélanger, and I even agree with Mr. Martin when it comes to the principle that there should be only one votable bill per Parliament. I think the problem is that partisanship is part of the process and that we have to eliminate it. In my particular instance, I had a bill that, when it went before the private members' committee, was guaranteed not to pass because some opposition members were philosophically opposed to it.

I'm not criticizing them for that; it's normal to be partisan in this place. But the difficulty is that if you allow partisanship to determine the votability of bills, then you'll have cases like mine, where I worked for seven years on a particular piece of legislation only to see it fail. This was not because it didn't meet the criteria but because members of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business, because of their philosophical approach to politics in this country, naturally rejected the bill.

I think Mr. Bélanger is absolutely right. I too at one time thought that bills should not all be votable, but now I think they should be. There should be fixed criteria we all understand, and there should be an independent assessment of whether the bills meet those criteria, either through the table officer or otherwise.

I would further add that I agree that every member should have the opportunity in a Parliament to have a bill that's votable. But I deplore this practice we have now, where members put in trivial bills, tying up the legislative counsel of the House for bills that will never advance and that they have no intention of advancing.

I would suggest that for every Parliament each MP be entitled to submit one private member's bill that will be deemed votable if it meets the appropriate criteria.

Á (1155)

The Chair: Thank you, John.

Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just like to comment on some of the previous comments that have been made.

I think you're always going to have some who strongly do not want private members' business to be votable. A private member's bill requires MPs to examine legislation more closely, and it puts an onus on us to pay closer attention to what's happening in debate. I think that's a good thing, and I wouldn't want to see us back away from making things votable just because of that.

I'm one of those people who have had many bills and motions drawn in the time they've been here, since 1993 in my case, and there have been many more than a dozen for me. Not one has been deemed votable. Many other MPs have had the same experience. That's why we have to take this out of the hands of a few people in the backrooms on a particular committee.

I would emphasize that I don't want to see this cut into government business. Yet this should not happen. We may have to increase time for the debate on private members' business. So be it. I don't think we should go to less than what we have now; I think the minimum should be five hours per week.

It's been obvious from the comments made that the subcommittee that selects private members' business for votability doesn't function. I've sat on that committee, Mr. Chairman.

We must continue with free votes. Party discipline should not be invoked. I would like to remind this committee that we had a motion passed last year in Parliament and that there was not one dissenting vote on the motion that the committee should bring back proposals to make all private members' business votable. The committee decided five months ago not to do it, so we have a problem here: Parliament makes a decision, it goes to committee, and the will of Parliament does not carry through.

We took a survey, and most of the members who replied to that survey wanted all private members' business to be votable. I think that's a clear indication that on the number two item you have here, Mr. Chairman, most members feel that they want it to be votable. I don't think we should allow a few who don't want it to be votable to put the kibosh on this.

Â (1200)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Garry.

It's Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Ted White, Val Meredith, and Réal Ménard.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Like some other colleagues here, I had the opportunity over several years of sitting on the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business. I must tell you that I found that experience to be particularly rewarding and dynamic, and in the vast majority of cases, the chair did not vote, something that I found quite interesting.

The most frustrating thing, however, was that we often had 10 items to discuss and only two of them could be votable, whereas maybe five, six or seven of them deserved to be. That is very frustrating. Moreover, all the items before the subcommittee meet the criteria. Otherwise they would not be there. So it is a matter of selecting certain items.

I listened to Yvon saying that not all items should be votable. In fact, when the subcommittee comes before the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, if there is room for six votable items, all six should be allowed to get through. If he says that not all items should be votable, there may be a situation where all 10 items before the subcommittee may be deemed non-votable.

I think that this dilemma can never be resolved. I believe that we need to start from the principle that parliamentarians, when they decide to vote for or against a private members' motion or item, will use their judgment the same way they do when they vote on government business; all items should be votable, since I do not see how we will come up with any solution that colleagues will feel is fair. I think that is the first thing.

The second thing we need to do, in my opinion, is to allocate a time so that we can get through a certain number of items. Réal was talking about having one item per member per year. It is too bad, but I think that that might be too much. There is a tendency to bite off more than we can chew. So perhaps we could try to deal with two items for the length of a Parliament. There is also the fact that many members never have items and never will.

So I think that we need to reduce the time allocated in the House to presenting these motions or bills. They should definitely all be votable, even though we would all agree that some of them are far-fetched and so on. But who am I to decide that what my colleague has brought forward is far-fetched? That is all I wanted to say.

[English]

The Chair: It's Ted White, Val Meredith, Réal Ménard.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: There's a quorum call going on.

The Chair: It's up to you, colleagues. We can continue. It's a quorum call, okay? Please continue.

On a point of order, Paddy Torsney.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: Perhaps everyone around this table could speak to their whip's staff and encourage their members not to call while we're trying to have this discussion.

The Chair: That's not a point of order.

Colleagues, if we could continue, please....

Ted, please.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Peter.

We've heard testimony here today from two people who've sat on the subcommittee that determines the votability of private members' bills. Both of them have said they want all bills to be votable. We've had the vote in the House already--which was what I was going to mention--without a dissenting vote, that they need to be made votable. So when I hear a message, as I've heard around the table here, that maybe they shouldn't all be votable, I would say to any person who feels that way that they should have the option to determine that their private member's bills not be votable.

If we create a system where they're all votable, certainly people like Mr. Godin should be able to say “I don't want my bills to be votable”. But I certainly don't want him saying that mine should not.

Now, in terms of the non-votability, like many others around this table, I've had my name drawn over the years for things like my initiative referendum bill, which I worked on for two years. And I certainly feel for Mr. Bryden, who worked for seven years on his. You know, you put in a tremendous amount of work and investigation, research, then you have your name drawn and the thing is made non-votable. It's so frustrating.

When my bill was drawn, I just never turned up for debate. I just kept letting it drop to the bottom of the order of precedence. I never went into that place, because I did not want to debate for one hour something I had spent two years on. I could accept the outcome of a vote, reluctantly, if it were against my bill, but I could not accept the idea that two years of work would be debated for one hour and we could not even have a vote at the end.

I think, like almost everyone else around this table, we must have all the bills votable. It's the only fair way.

Now, I'm not sure it's a good idea to have one bill for each person per Parliament, because it implies that every MP wants to have private members' bills, which is not necessarily the case. It also suggests that an individual MP is not able to have more than one creative idea in the entire Parliament. So I don't think that's a fair approach.

I really like the idea that was suggested by Mr. Bélanger today, which was that we should set the criteria ahead of time so we know what we're facing. Then, if I'm starting two years of work on a private member's bill, I know what I'm up against before I begin, and I have the opportunity to make that bill comply with the criteria. I think that's fair for everybody then. I would urge the committee to consider that these are really good ideas--criteria to be set ahead of time, so that people know where they stand, and every bill made votable. When your name is drawn, you're guaranteed a votable debate.

Â (1205)

The Chair: Thank you for that.

Val Meredith, then Réal Ménard.

Ms. Val Meredith: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I'll introduce a few new concepts, and I'm going to probably disagree with members of all parties here.

First off, I disagree with my colleague on the idea that there should be more than one per parliamentary session for every member. The reason I say that is because my colleague across the way, Mr. Breitkreuz, has had dozens, and I got my name drawn for the first time this Parliament; in the last Parliament my name was never drawn. So I think it's unfair that a member of Parliament should have to wait for their name to be drawn; and if it's not drawn you have no opportunity, let alone a voting opportunity. So I think there there should be some allowance that every single member of Parliament has an opportunity in that Parliament to put an idea on the table for discussion.

The other issue that I think has to be brought up is that it's not good enough just to say that every item should be votable. I had a private member's bill in the first Parliament that did go through the House of Commons unanimously, pass second reading, and go into committee stage, at which point I had to fight like anything to get the committee to even deal with it. And sitting on the committee it was sent to, I was able to do that. If I had not been sitting on that committee, it probably would never have been brought up. Having had it brought up, I watched it go through the committee process, where it was completed destroyed and never reported back to Parliament.

I would assume that when an item is passed at second reading by Parliament, the least a committee can do is review that bill and report it back to Parliament for a subsequent dealing. I don't think any committee in this House of Commons should have the right to take a private member's bill and destroy it without even having a name to report back to Parliament, which is how the process works.

I think to have every private member's bill votable is a worthy concept, but the system has to change beyond that in order for that private member's bill to be dealt with with respect and through the parliamentary process. And to have committees that, whether you like it or not, are controlled by the government to determine that this private member's bill, whether it's a government private member's bill or an opposition private member's bill, never sees the light of day back into Parliament is I think a breach of parliamentary privilege for that member of Parliament.

So I say there has to be a better system of allowing every member of Parliament to participate in the process. There has to be some acknowledgment that it's meaningful by making them all votable. It's naive to think that you can debate something for two hours and change the Criminal Code, but we've done that in the House of Commons before, where all parties have debated stuff for two hours or less, and it's become law. So I don't think that it's unreasonable if it's well written, clear, precise, for a person to say I agree with it or I don't agree with it after three hours of debate. I just think we're going to have to take this beyond private members' bills being votable. We're going to have to look at committee structure as a follow-up to handling these.

The Chair: I appreciate that. I haven't interrupted much.

The committee met last week with our equivalent committee from Queen's Park, where everything is votable. By the way, they were impressed by the fact we do have the 60-day reporting-back rule now, which is quite new, from our own committees. If something does get to committee, it has to come back, because what happens there where they're all votable is that they're voted to go to the committee of the whole, and they spell whole “hole”, because that is the way they're all votable. They go to this committee and they don't come back. So I thought I'd mention that to you.

Réal Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Mr. Chairman, I think that every bill should be votable, but not necessarily debated for three hours. That is possible.

First of all, we have to put an end to the lottery system. It just doesn't make sense to let chance determine what matters should be brought before the House. At the beginning of every year, in September, I think there should be a registry kept by the Clerk of the House where members of Parliament could register motions or bills that they wish to present during the year, from September to June.

We were told that nearly 30% of the MPs table bills and motions, so not every MP is going to want to take advantage of this, and every year, during the three or four years of the Parliament, one hour could be set aside for each MP. So, in the case of a bill, we could discuss it for one hour and then it would be referred to the committee where it would be voted on, and then it would come back. In one hour, it is possible to explain the measure and then debate it, providing the rules of the game are known. We may see it three or four times during the year, but that would imply that the government would agree to restrict the time reserved for government business.

Mr. Speaker, since 1995, we know that the government has played less of an activist role than it did during the 1980s, and if we want members of Parliament and the people to have confidence in our system, we need to increase the time set aside for private members' business. There are hardly ever any ministers in the House on Fridays. Question period is not dynamic on Fridays. We would be much more useful, as members of Parliament if the day were to start at 10 o'clock and go until 3 o'clock so that five, six or seven hours could be spent on private members' business. We could rejuggle the schedule and find time to make private members' business used more productively.

Could you confirm, Mr. Chairman, whether or not over the past few years, about 30 or 35% of the members of Parliament have in fact tabled bills or motions? What is the approximate percentage?

There is a way to find time. We cannot say that this would be only once during the Parliament, because we have a lot of ideas, more of a role to play.

I will conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that we need to establish some criteria. I think that there should be two criteria and these are the ones we face in court: the issue must not be frivolous or ridiculous in nature, nor should it be hate-inspired. If the courts of law are able to determine what constitutes a frivolous, ridiculous or hateful issue, I think that the members of Parliament should be able to propose measures. If a bill is not frivolous, if it is not hateful in what it seeks, it should be votable, should the MP so desire.

Please answer the question about the percentage, Mr. Chairman.

Â (1210)

[English]

The Chair: I'd like to introduce to you, colleagues, Wayne Cole, who is an addition to our research staff.

Wayne, if you would proceed....

Mr. Wayne Cole (Committee Researcher): It's roughly 25% to 30%, yes.

The Chair: Colleagues, this I think is a good lead-in to the next item. Before we go on to it, I would just like to mention that the committee has received a very detailed response to the themes we set out in our proposal from our colleague Suzanne Tremblay. This will be translated into English and circulated to members of the committee, just so you know we have it.

We now move to a topic that I think has been addressed already and is obviously of great interest to members, the selection of votable items. You know the possibilities there. I already have a long list, and I'm going to add Val Meredith to it. For the moment I have Ken Epp, Ted White, Carolyn Parrish, Mauril Bélanger--who is not here--and Jason Kenney.

I can give some preference to people who haven't spoken yet, but Ken Epp is first.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Chairman, it's a delight to be in a committee under your chairmanship. I've always enjoyed being in the committees you chair.

The Chair: You don't get longer time for that Ken, but thank you.

Mr. Ken Epp: I don't know exactly where my item fits in. This is where I thought it would fit in best.

You cannot be chosen votable unless you actually get drawn. This is my frustration. I've heard Garry Breitkreuz say it 12 times. Down there, Murray Calder has just finished his horse bill, which came from the Senate. He's already on the list. I have been here for eight years, but I have never been drawn. I am extremely frustrated with this, because I have come up with some very fine private member's bills--in my opinion, of course. I would love to have the opportunity to try to persuade the other 300 members of Parliament that I have a fine private member's bill that deserves their support.

So I would like to propose in this area that we have a random list of all non-cabinet members of Parliament. We could do that right now. Take all the present members and randomize them. I'll do that on my computer, if anybody asks. From thereon, that list should be kept as a permanent list, even crossing Parliaments. When you move up to the top of the list, your item is dealt with. When it's finished, you go to the bottom of the list. Furthermore, if somebody ceases to be a cabinet minister, they go to the bottom of the list.

Soon we're going to have some by-elections. We have five--or is it seven--members who are going to be elected?

A voice: Seven.

Mr. Ken Epp: Then randomize them. They go to the bottom of the list, and they keep on moving up.

Along comes a general election. We elect 85 new members. They're randomized and added to the bottom of the list. Let them learn to scheme here before they get in. As they move up, their item is dealt with. Then they go to the bottom, so it's a continually moving rotation.

All members who do not want to have a private member's bill would, when they get to the top, be automatically rotated back to the bottom to hold their options open. Only the list would be published of those who have in fact tabled motions or bills in the House. So we would know exactly or could compute when our time is coming up. I think that's very, very important.

With respect to votability--

Â (1215)

The Chair: All right, just a very short question to you from Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Why do you want to include everybody in this list? Only 30% of members really have stuff. Why not put those 30% in at the beginning of Parliament?

Mr. Ken Epp: I put everybody in because they may decide they want to have a private member's bill three years down the road. Then there they are in their order of precedence. But they have to have their name built in to move up to the top.

The Chair: Carry on.

Mr. Ken Epp: With respect to the question of votability, I like the idea that has been floated by some that it should be up to the member. When I have a motion or a bill that I only want to have discussed, and to bring public attention to it, all I have to do is declare that it is a motion for debate and that I don't want members to vote on it. Let that be up to the member himself or herself to decide. This should be the only criterion.

With respect to frivolousness, right now we have 700 pieces of legislation on private members' business. It has tied up hours and hours of staff time. It would be useless for me to put in a whole bunch of bills. I would only be entitled to have library staff prepare one bill or motion as I move up toward the date when it is going to be debated. This way, those resources could be used much more effectively. We wouldn't have this scheme of thousands of bills being introduced that are totally meaningless. It's a sham to the public when we say “So and so introduced his private member's bill”. A whole bunch of Canadians get their expectations up, “Ah, this might be passed”. Hah! Forget it.

I think we had better start telling Canadians, “We've introduced this bill. It's moving up. There will be a vote. Parliamentarians will have a chance to make a decision on this. Talk to your MP. If you support this bill, have him vote for it.” Let's go through the normal democratic process on these things. That, ladies and gentlemen, I think will do more than a lot of things that are contemplated these days to improve the reputations we have among our people as parliamentarians.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

It's Ted White, Carolyn Parrish--Mauril Bélanger is not here--Jason Kenney, and Paddy Torsney.

For colleagues who've already spoken, I know we're divided into different sections, but if you could be even more precise in order that colleagues who have not spoken can get a chance....

Ted.

Mr. Ted White: Yes, thank you, Peter.

I'm amazed at the wonderful ideas from Ken Epp. I don't know how he gets the time to do it when he has to manage question period.

The Chair: I actually prefer alphabetical order, myself, Ken. From some perspectives, that is random. It's just by chance that I'm here with a name beginning with “A”.

Ted White.

Mr. Ted White: Notwithstanding Peter's argument that it's somewhat random and I'm at the “W” end of that random list, I can confirm that I have seen Ken Epp demonstrate the random program to me. He did it yesterday, and it does work. Several times he showed me how my name could move up or down on the list.

I think he has actually come up with a very good idea, where we do have a guaranteed time or position. We know eventually we're going to come to the top of the list. We can concentrate our efforts on a particular bill that we really want to see come through, and maybe persuade a colleague who doesn't have a bill to put in another idea for us. I don't know. There are other possibilities. But I think that's a great idea in terms of the specific subject of this section, which is how to draw those votable motions. That solves the problem, and it makes them all votable.

I did forget to mention earlier that in New Zealand, where I'm originally from, all the private members' business is votable, and they were astounded when I told my MP friend down there that here they were not.

I believe Mr. Epp has come up with a great idea. I hope many more members will embrace that.

Â (1220)

The Chair: Thank you.

Jason Kenney, Paddy Torsney, Bob Mills, Val Meredith, Keith Martin, and Michel Guimond.

Didn't I say Carolyn Parrish?

A voice: No. She's next.

The Chair: I'm sorry--Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): How could you overlook me? I purposely stayed out of the discussion of votability because, as you all know, I chaired the subcommittee for a couple of years and did chair it when we brought in the 60-day rule where it can't be deep-sixed at committees any more. The Ontario legislators, as Peter pointed out, were correctly impressed with that. They were also impressed with the fact that we vote from the back benches down, which is unique to Canada and does take away some of the influence of the front benches on both sides of the House. So I resent listening to our being told that the committee has accomplished nothing. In fact, it has accomplished a lot.

A voice: It was a good committee.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I also want to suggest that you be careful what you wish for, because my distinct feeling is that if all bills become votable, the lobbying you'll be subjected to will burn you out. The attention you're going to have to pay to all these bills will be phenomenal, and those who don't want to put in private members' bills will be forced to do so, even if they don't want to, because their public is watching. Human nature being what it is and the party system being what it is, I think it's going to result in whipped votes. But that's just my philosophical opinion.

As far as the committee is concerned, I also resent hearing that it doesn't work. When we first started the committee, when it was first invented, there were only three parties in the House. So it was a very tight committee of four people--two opposition and two Liberals. It was deciding its recommendations on consensus. It worked that way beautifully for the first couple of years we chaired it, because there were still three recognized parties in the House. What you have now is four opposition members and two Liberals, so the thing is totally out of whack and it's too large.

I have a suggestion for that, in that you go back to four people and that four opposition parties rotate, two per draw. But if you're going to have everything votable, that's an irrelevant suggestion.

The size of that committee is too big. That's what the problem is there, and you are becoming partisan, in that you have four opposition people and two Liberals.

If you make them all votable, I think you have to rework the criteria. Leaving it to table officers is a cop-out. This is a political venue, and politicians have to look at the criteria and decide if the bill fits. You would be insane to give that to table officers, because they'd be insane to do it.

I think you also have to bring in a very strong criterion that says no bill shall be put into the bin, or wherever it goes, if it's reworking government legislation that has just been discussed in the House. Some members do get polled six or seven times, and their bills have the same theme each time, a theme that has already been decided by the government and will not change, so it's an enormous waste of time.

I think you also have to look at the Senate bills coming through. I don't know, if you're going to make everything votable, then all the Senate bills will just come pouring through, so it's not going to make any difference. But the last six draws had five Senate bills automatically made votable. The fact that you all sit around this table and don't resent that amazes me.

That is why I voted against the Canadian horse bill, because it was a Senate bill. It had nothing to do with the concept of a horse with a name on it. I really couldn't care less.

So if you are going to make everything votable, your next task and the task of this committee is to come up with criteria that are so tight that you're going to get reasonably good bills coming through. You're not going to rehash government legislation for the 54th time. You're going to have to have a solid look at what's going on with the Senate bills coming through.

The Chair: For colleagues who are guests, the committee is already engaged in this matter of real Senate bills and Senate bills that appear to be recycled House of Commons bills. You should also know that Senate time is added on to the private members' time. It's additional time when the Senate bills come.

And this is just a comment, but one suggestion I have heard is that Senate bills, given that they've been through the full process in the Senate--real Senate bills now--might well only need an hour of debate in the House of Commons.

Now we will go with Jason Kenney, Paddy Torsney, Bob Mills, Keith Martin, and Michel Guimond.

Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Canadian Alliance): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I'll try to limit my comments to this theme, but I'm adding my voice to the principle that as many private members' bills and motions as possible should be deemed votable. I understand there needs to be some form of limitation. I don't think it should be an arbitrary and subjective selection by committee. That's a pretty strong sentiment here.

I didn't hear Mr. Godin present a very compelling argument for that. There's a rumour that the NDP House leader--and this is not a partisan remark--has said he doesn't want his party to have to deal with some potentially contentious moral bills that might come up as a result of this process. I think that's entirely the wrong reason to limit votability, just because some of us may be concerned about having to actually face certain public issues.

One thing I'd like to say in terms of the purposes of private members' business is that it is one democratic pressure valve for us as legislators to deal with business that a government doesn't want to deal with. There are a lot of contentious issues that we should expect to come through to the House that the government won't deal with, and these come sometimes from government members and opposition members. We shouldn't be afraid of this; we should embrace it.

Let me also comment on the idea of a limit of one bill per member. I simply don't agree. While in a sense I guess all MPs should be treated equally, not all MPs are equal. There are people here like John Bryden and Garry Breitkreuz, who are masters of private members' legislation.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: That's because they get drawn.

Mr. Jason Kenney: But they spend a lot of time on it. There are a limited number of MPs who spend a lot of time on it, who consult deeply with legislative counsel and outside legal counsel and sometimes have three, four, or five extremely thoughtful ideas queued up. And then there are something like 200 MPs who never introduce anything, or who might, if given the opportunity, introduce something completely meaningless at the last minute just to use their spot.

So I suppose I favour something like what Mr. Epp is suggesting, where every MP gets a right of refusal. In other words, those who have more bills could actually lobby to get ceded a spot that had been given to a member who is going to leave it dormant, or something of that nature.

Finally, I think we could look at--

Â (1225)

The Chair: There is a point of order from Yvon.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Yes, I think it's a point of order.

The Chair: Go ahead, tell me what it is.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I'm not the one to decide if it is or not. You are the chair, and I put my trust in you.

Someone just brought up the name of a person who is not around the table here to defend himself, but it was Bill Blaikie who did not want to have everything votable because he didn't want to vote on moral issues.

When I spoke a little while ago, I spoke as the whip of the NDP and I was speaking on my own behalf, personally and for myself. I don't think this is right, because I don't want to say what happens in camera. But I'll tell you something, their party said they didn't want to vote on some issues because they were there to represent their party.

The Chair: That is not a point of order.

Jason, continue.

Mr. Jason Kenney: I wasn't talking about a particular vote. I have a lot of respect for the NDP House leader, but my point is simply this. We shouldn't be trying to limit votability of bills because we're concerned about dealing with contentious matters. That's entirely the wrong motivation.

I have two other points. I know we dropped this 100-signature petition idea the last time because there were some practical problems with it. I would point out, though, that the U.S. Congress has the concept of a discharge petition, where if a quarter of the members of Congress sign a petition, they can force a bill onto the order of precedence or discharge it from a committee where it's being held up.

I would like us to consider whether that would be a useful way of getting things out of committee. Other members here have mentioned that sometimes committees try to kill these things, so perhaps a discharge petition would be a useful idea.

Finally, in terms of Senate private members' bills, I agree with Carolyn Parrish. It's absurd and insulting that we as elected representatives play second fiddle to unelected people in the other chamber. I think as a matter of practice we should drop all Senate private members' bills that come to this House to the bottom of the order of precedence and keep them there.

The Chair: I think, Jason, they do go to the bottom of the order of precedence. Mauril Bélanger dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence, but he's on it here.

So it's Paddy Torsney, Bob Mills, Keith Martin, Michel Guimond, and Mauril Bélanger.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: First, I'd like to support Mauril's idea of setting the criteria ahead of time, so that we're actually getting more relevant bills and we're not.... Perhaps part of the criteria, as Carolyn Parrish mentioned, should be that it's not about reversing a decision that has just been taken by the House, but that it's actually a new concept that's being brought forward.

Frankly, I think I may have created a false impression when I spoke earlier. I think my bill on peanuts and what restaurants should be doing in this country should have been votable. It wasn't in fact votable, but it should have been, because it was a new concept. There are concepts, as Ken Epp said, that we should randomize, and to have one per MP I think is a good idea. I think that would really help.

But to respond to Val's point, when it gets to the committee process, I think we might need to further improve that committee process to make sure that we're getting things in a timely fashion, that there are some rules around it, and that perhaps they assign hours for consideration at the committee.

The challenge we have, however, is that sometimes events overtake. So in the case of a recent private member's bill there was an issue on the table, but there was already a committee, as a result of a motion that was votable, that was studying the issue. So it didn't make sense. That committee should never have made that item votable when there was already a committee doing that work. So there's been some disrespect of private members who may have put forward a motion to change and to have a different direction for that. I think we all need to be careful about that disrespect to other private members in suggesting that people were whipped, or that government did things, when individual members made choices.

I think Ken Epp also hit on something else, which is maybe not, Ken, that things should be votable or not votable after debate, but maybe we need a second topic area that's one hour for discussion about issues that aren't bills but need to be debated. They're not worthy, or people can't come in to their own parties to have that as an opposition day motion, but they're issues that should be discussed and there needs to be a forum for that. Maybe as a result of that discussion, a bill might be generated later, but they are issues that are of importance and maybe we need to find some process for an hour's debate a week, or for an hour's debate a day, or I don't know what, to have issues discussed that are quite unrelated to bills but would help us highlight local things and would help us create that opportunity, so that we're not wasting the time of legislative counsel sometimes to get the issue on the table, but we're driving the issue in the public opinion and then creating some support for it.

So I would hope this would be something we could look at creating. It's something that wouldn't be part of private members' bills, and it wouldn't have to be votable, which shouldn't be a mark that you don't care about it with your constituents; it's that it would be a better process for the issue.

That's all I had to say on the selection of votable items. But I have to agree with Mauril, there need to be better criteria going up front, because in my own personal case I thought my stuff that wasn't votable should have been votable, and we need to make sure the committees deal with it appropriately.

Â (1230)

The Chair: Thanks, Paddy.

It's Bob Mills, then Keith Martin, and then Michel Guimond.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would certainly agree with a lot of things that have been said.

I'd like to just zero in on that whole criteria process. First of all, we as members need to get some professional advice very early on in the drafting of a bill. I'll use my own example here. I went to lawyers in the justice department, I went to lawyers in the House of Commons, and I went to a private lawyer and gave them my idea. It was a loophole in the Divorce Act. I had three different sets of lawyers advise me on this, and the one message they gave me was to be very specific. Don't leave a whole bunch of wiggle room; focus in on exactly what you want. That is going to be much easier for everyone to vote on and deal with as an issue.

Because I had that advice early, I think I was able to make it substantial, make it very specific, so there was no range at all. As a result, I'm very pleased that it's votable. I think many bills would be made votable if in fact you had that early advice and that narrowing in. It was very substantial and very specific as to what you were trying to accomplish.

So I would say these criteria become very important. If you go through that process, it would be fair to say all items should be votable. I really think that's where we should be focusing.

I don't know if I like this idea of everybody being drawn, because I know a lot of our colleagues who just don't believe in private members' business and don't want to be drawn. Yet if it were done by Ken's method, we would then plug those holes, and I would be concerned that we might get into something that just wouldn't work.

Â (1235)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Keith Martin.

Mr. Keith Martin: The way to get around some of the problems we've articulated in getting private members' business votable is having the manner in which they're chosen be random, but with a slot for everybody. Those who choose not to participate in private members' business can just drop off the slots. In other words, you have a contracted number of people, those 25% or 30% who want to participate in private members' business, and they're the ones who can have an opportunity to have their bills done.

As Val Meredith mentioned, she's equal to any of us. Why should one person have their name chosen six times and another person have to wait two Parliaments to have their name chosen? It's not only unfair to the MP, but it's really unfair to their constituents, because we are all equal.

So that was how we could actually deal with the issue of those who choose not to participate in private members' business.

On the issue of partisanship on the committee, there's the good work Carolyn and her committee have tried to do. Maybe the way to deal with this is really just to scrap the committee and leave it up to the wisdom of the House to decide what is a good bill and what is not.

The other thing, in terms of dealing with removing partisanship, is that Mr. Boudria mentioned that we ought to have electronic voting. Let's implement that in committee, as well as in the House. It would actually do a lot to remove the partisanship if we could vote through electronic voting, where we're not subjected to the dictates of leadership.

Lastly, in the process we have here, let's not let the good suggestions we have heard at this committee merely go away in some report that's tossed on the shelf to collect dust like so many others we do. Let's make sure the ideas that were presented here today are going to be used and implemented by the end of this year so we can get down to the work we all want to do.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Michel Guimond, then Mauril Bélanger, and then we'll move to the last theme.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport--Montmorency--Côte-de-Beaupré--Île-d'Orléans, BQ) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We need to realize that the proceedings of this round table will be used to fuel eventual discussions within the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. At the end of this exercise, our researcher will have to try to pinpoint certain areas where there is at least some consensus of opinion.

I think that one issue bears repeating. We have already mentioned this, but I think that everybody agrees that, in the year 2002, having a draw is totally archaic. It harks back to another era, prior to the arrival of the automobile. This is a practice from another century, no doubt based on British law.

Everybody has suggestions. We could have 301 ideas if every member of Parliament in this House decided to come up with one. Personally, I had thought that the solution could be that, at a specific time, let's say the first week that Parliament is back in session, the Clerk of the House would make available to members of Parliament a registry in which anyone wanting to register or debate their bill could sign their name. It would be easy to determine the order of precedence if 72 out of the 301 members of Parliament signed their names. There may be some type of scrum at the door of the clerk's office just like members of a rugby team — I don't think so — but it would be easy to establish the order of precedence. If my colleague were the first to sign his name on Monday, September 16, 2002, at 9:26 and my other colleague did so at 10:34, they would be first and second, and so on and so forth. So there would be a register available in the clerk's office. Those interested could sign their names and those that were not would not.

It would be exactly like the registry that we have to sign in order to get our salary increase. I felt that this was a good idea. You could sermonize, vote against salary increases, but if you wanted your salary increase, you had to sign the registry.

We were unanimous about the second issue as well. It is absolutely essential that we ensure that bills coming from the Senate, and which have been turned down by the House... Obviously, if all bills are votable, this may be a moot issue. I am not in the habit of talking about people in their absence. I will not specify who this is coming from, but I can tell you that when the Procedure Committee was sitting, there was a great deal of pressure that resulted in Ms. Parrish leaving the subcommittee. People told me that the Senate may take retaliatory action when private members' bills make it to the Senate, after going through all of these steps. We, the elected members of Parliament, who are not appointed, should not have to put up with this type of threat from the Senate. If the government leader truly wants to help us improve the situation, he should raise the matter with the Senate government leader so that we no longer have to face this type of dilemma when we are dealing with Senate bills. This may, however, be a moot issue, if all bills...

Â (1240)

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères--Les-Patriotes, BQ): Especially since our bills do not go to the Senate.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thirdly—I thought my colleague Keith Martin was going to mention this—when votable items are selected, we must ensure that they are not amendable so that we avoid the situation like the one our colleague Keith Martin faced recently. Of course, this is a non-partisan round table, but we cannot be as pure as spirits. We are not part of a religious community here; we belong to a party and we are elected officials. It would be to avoid what happened the other day, when the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business, even if it is inoperative and dysfunctional, had succeeded in reaching a consensus on Keith Martin's bill and the government used privilege to make an amendment to kill the bill and to kill any free vote that could have taken place.

So we should make sure that private members' bills cannot be amended, as is the case with opposition motions since the leaders changed the Standing Orders.

In the past, when the opposition presented a motion on an opposition day, after the first speaker, someone would quickly suggest a cosmetic amendment that meant absolutely nothing. The government would be asked to examine a matter, and at the end of the first speaker's remarks, someone would add the word “immediately” or someone would add a comma so that the government did not present an amendment during our opposition day. By consensus, the House leader sat down and said that that kind of farce should no longer occur, and they amended the Standing Orders.

So, if all items are made votable, to avoid what happened to Keith Martin from recurring, we should ensure that private members' bills cannot be amended either. If we are not satisfied with the bill on decriminalizing marijuana, we can kill it in the House, we can vote against it, but we will not be able to use an amendment to say that the bill will not be votable: that distorts the very principle of private members' business.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Michel.

Mauril Bélanger, and then we will move on to the last item.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With respect to bills that are not selected as votable items and which, in the end, come back to us via the Senate, I must admit I am very sympathetic to the comments made by Mr. Godin and Mr. Guimond. That is not the way to do things, but there is a “but”. The “but” is that if the system we have is not applied fairly, then some colleagues end up in a particular situation, and say that they do in fact have a bill or a motion that, in their opinion, meets all of the criteria set by this committee, but which has not been deemed votable, we more or less force them to go elsewhere.

That is the situation I'm currently in, Mr. Chairman. I am very sympathetic to their arguments, because I do not think it is fair that there are two different ways of proceeding in the House and in the Senate. So we should make sure that our system or our procedures are not such that our colleagues do not feel forced to turn elsewhere.

That brings me to what I was saying earlier about establishing criteria. The process for private members' bills is a kind of continuum. It is unfortunate, in my case and in other cases, that after several years we end up being told that our bill has not been made votable, but we are not told why. The suggestion I was making was to take this part of the continuum and insert it earlier on in the process. That way, a member can proceed with his or her work. As Mr. Mills said earlier, he did the work, he consulted several lawyers. I did the same: I consulted several people. I had our people in the House draft a bill that is highly specific, that meets all of the criteria—to my mind, it meets them; no one told me anything to the contrary—and several years later, my name was drawn. I do not have the gene for luck. For some people, luck is genetic, as there are some people who... For those people who are lucky, take out a patent on your genes, because they are going to be worth a lot.

Why couldn't we move that up and apply the criteria at the outset, so that all members can know as soon as their bills or motions are placed on the Order Paper whether or not they will be votable if their names are drawn?

Mr. Chairman, I also suggest taking that away from the subcommittee. If your committee wants to maintain a role for the subcommittee, I hope that you are going to demand that it provide some explanations, that it explain why a specific bill or motion is not made votable, so that we can improve them, Mr. Chairman. How can we improve a bill or motion that is not made votable if we do not know why? That is currently the case. You cannot make heads or tails of the system: I have said it before and I repeat it. We are subject to decisions that are made behind closed doors, without explanation and without the right of appeal, and this is the Canadian Parliament. This system poses a real problem for me. I have taken a look at what I feel the problem is.

As for whether or not all members should have an opportunity to introduce a bill or not during a Parliament, I do not object to that. How would we do it? Mr. Guimond has suggested we have a register. Perhaps we could have a draw to determine the order among members who have expressed an interest. I am not sure, but I am open to that, as I'm open to the notion whereby once the name of a member has been drawn and the bill or motion has been made votable, it cannot be pushed aside as was allegedly the case with Mr. Martin's bill, even if this story was a bit more complicated than that. But I do not have a problem with the idea itself.

So if we are going to have a good system for private members' business, there must be a bit more transparency and fairness, because at present, there is none, and if we continue to use a system as lame as the one we have, all we will have is bickering and we won't be serving anyone properly, certainly not our constituents nor the Canadian Parliament or the people of Canada.

So I implore you. If you are not prepared to reinvent the entire process, I can go along with that, I understand, but at least look at what can be changed, like the way the criteria apply, so that the system is no longer arbitrary, so that it is transparent, and preferably, at the start of the process, so that we can at least know what to expect and how to improve our bills and motions, if need be.

Thank you.

Â (1245)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Yvon.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: This is not a point of order; I am seeking clarification, Mr. Chairman.

Our colleague Mr. Bélanger is under the impression that he cannot appeal a decision made with respect to his bill or motion. I was under the impression that after having sat in camera, if the item was not selected, the subcommittee subsequently reported to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and that people could come before this committee to say...

[English]

The Chair: Technically, it's true. He's going to say that in practice, it isn't true. There was one example this year where that did occur, because technically, it is the main committee that makes the final decision.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I want to give notice that I wish to appeal the decision of the subcommittee in the case of Bill C-407.

Â (1250)

Mr. John Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to appeal on the basis of Bill C-391.

The Chair: As a result of today's meeting, it may be the rules will change.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I'm giving notice, Mr. Chair, I will indeed--

The Chair: That was an excellent lead-in to our last theme.

Our last theme is on whether more radical changes should be considered. You'll see a number of topics there. We've already heard from members. This is where any changes that are possible or practicable can be discussed. I'd be glad...if people want to repeat the views they've already given, that's great, but repeat them more quickly than the last time.

Mauril's was a good example. We've had suggestions that the criteria be changed. We've had suggestions that the position of the use of the criteria in the continuum be changed, and so on. I have a good list, and we have the time to do it.

Carolyn Parrish, John Bryden, Ted White, Joe Jordan, and Garry Breitkreuz.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, again I feel I'm a bit on the defensive here.

I want to point out to everybody that private members' business tends to be the vehicle of backbenchers of the government side and opposition members. Logically, that's where the business is coming from. I want to encourage you by suggesting that if you look at the history of it--and I think Joe Jordan has the numbers--we've had the highest number of private members' bills passed into law since 1993 than any other government at any other level. So the system is not completely broken.

A lot of the people who are here today are here because they're frustrated--like Mauril, like Mr. Martin--and I understand that. But the system is not a disaster. It works reasonably well. It needs to be improved, obviously, because this thing keeps getting rehashed, over and over again.

Now, in speaking specifically to section D, I've heard people say they go to three sets of lawyers. My God, why we're paying more lawyers than we have to, I don't know.

If we're going to make every bill or every private member's idea votable, I think we should seriously look at making them all motions. You know yourself when you have a bill or motion that's going to the House to be voted on, and you feel very intense and serious about it, you circulate. I get them in my office and I always read them, because they have your letterhead on the top. If it's an opposition bill or it's from one of our backbenchers, I read it. If you're to justify with research and so forth the concept, why not let those concepts go to the House to be voted on?

The onus is on you to circulate the material. If the concept is good, it gets through second reading. People say yea or nay, because they're interested in the concept or they're not, and then you go to the lawyers and use the thousands of dollars' worth of time. They're not there to amuse you; the legal department is there to do a job. If one in ten gets through under the concept of a motion, then that legal department will draft the best bill possible for you.

I think if you're going to look at making everything votable, you have to look seriously at changing the concept from these very intricate bills that cost the taxpayers of Canada a fortune and don't even get drawn half the time, and don't get voted on three-quarters of the time. Let's start using tax dollars wisely. They're not here to amuse us.

I would like to clarify a point, since it was brought up. I did not resign as the chair of the committee because of pressure. I love pressure. I like creating it, and I like being the recipient of it. The reason I resigned as chair of the committee was because of my own colleagues. We made a decision at the subcommittee. It was appealed at the full committee. It was upheld at the full committee. Then my buddies waited until I was out of the room, brought it up a second time, and sneaked it through. So I assumed they didn't have much confidence in me, and I resigned on a matter of principle. I didn't resign because of the pressure. I thrive on pressure.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That was for the record, Mr. Guimond.

The Chair: Carolyn, thank you very much.

By the way, on behalf of the main committee, I want to once again thank Carolyn for her work over many years on the subcommittee. As members of the general public who watch this will realize, it is not the easiest job in the House of Commons.

Okay, it's John Bryden, Ted White, and Joe Jordan.

Mr. John Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I can certainly vouch for Madam Parrish. She did a wonderful job on the private members' committee when she chaired it.

I found myself, Mr. Chairman, essentially agreeing with everything Jason Kenney said. I know that's quite unusual, but nevertheless I did. He made a point I hadn't thought of. While I'd like to see all bills made votable or see every MP have an opportunity to have a votable bill or motion in every Parliament, it is true there are some members who take more interest in private members' legislation than others. The committee might consider a parallel lottery system, with say ten bills that can be selected by lottery per year. That might be another venue for those of us--me, Mr. Breitkreuz, and others--who are particularly interested. It would give us another venue not only if we have a bill picked but if we are at the bottom of the list. It's just a thought.

The other thing Mr. Kenney said that I thought was very important was that the government should not be afraid of private members introducing bills that are contentious, provided that those contentious bills, for instance a private member's bill on abortion, only enter the House once per Parliament. I don't see any reason that shouldn't be debated and voted upon in Parliament, but only once a Parliament, please. These are issues of great concern to the people of Canada, ones the government will be reluctant to introduce itself, and it is right and proper for private members to have an opportunity to deal with that.

That being said, the most difficult subject this committee and all of us have to deal with is how do we expect the government to respond when a private member's bill the government fundamentally disagrees with is going through the process? Even if the bill is very simple, it can sometimes have profound ramifications. When a government bill goes through, there are hours and hours of debate and a great process, and there's a whole infrastructure of bureaucracy to follow it through. A private member's bill could have all the impact of a government bill, yet there is not the time or the mechanisms to give it consideration parallel to that for a government bill. This committee has to decide how we would find acceptable the government exercising its due responsibility to stop a private member's bill when it feels that it's against the interests of the public, no matter how we as backbench MPs feel about it.

I would suggest to you two possibilities. Now, we don't like the system as it stands. I think it's wrong when the government interferes at the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business level or at the committee level. I think a bill has to be aired properly in those two arenas, but the government has to be expected to exercise its responsibility either at third reading or at the Senate stage.

I agree with Carolyn Parrish. I'm totally opposed to Senate bills coming into the House of Commons, bypassing the proper process of the members of Parliament. On the other hand, the Senate has much more time, opportunity, and resources to study a private member's bill in depth. I would suggest to you we might properly consider whether we shouldn't expect the Senate to actually turn down a private member's bill if it finds real cause to object to it once it has reached the Senate after having passed the House of Commons. That is not a power we expect of the Senate now, but somewhere in the process we have to be mature as private members. We have to appreciate that sometime the government must, if it fundamentally objects to a bill, exercise its responsibility and block it.

So I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that this is a very difficult thing for members to contemplate and that we should all think about it.

Â (1255)

The Chair: We're getting near the end, and I refer you to the topics that are on here. They've been mentioned today, but just for our benefit here, one is the question of a change in the amount of time: five hours up or down. The other is whether it should be a day--as it has been suggested today--or whether it should be two evenings of say two and a half hours each. Just so you know, it has been suggested that if the five hours were all together, it would allow more creativity in the way the bills are debated. You could debate one for two hours, one for one hour, and so on. Someone might want to comment on that.

The other, as Keith Martin mentioned, is voting. I would say to him that this committee has looked at electronic voting. The cost is very large, even for the House of Commons. The tendency, Keith, has been to put it off until the House of Commons has been renovated. Are there other ways of dealing with the voting issue?

I'm just making that point, colleagues, but I'm not trying to direct the discussion.

Ted White.

· (1300)

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Peter.

One of the topics in this section is the elimination of bills, and I think that was touched on by John Bryden. I would make the point that I disagree with his position in terms of a committee or anybody deciding that a bill should be pulled if it takes a position contrary to the general government policy. I think that's an issue for the government to address, not this committee. If the government sees that there's good strong support among private members for a piece of legislation that is contrary to government policy, then the government has to deal with that. And one way it could do so is to approach the member and see if it can reach a compromise on what to do about the situation. I don't think that has anything to do with this committee or private members' business.

I'd also like to comment on the words “frivolous” and “vexatious”, which we've heard coming up from time to time here in the context of how bills that might be frivolous or vexatious should be eliminated. If we take a look at the history that was mentioned by Carolyn here about what has passed on the Hill since 1993, I frankly think the list would be fairly embarrassing. And in terms of vexatious and frivolous, I think most taxpayers would think 99% of it was. There have been a few examples in recent times: the statue for Parliament Hill and even the naming of a Canadian horse I would venture would be seen by most of the public as a complete waste of our time.

So in terms of vexatious and frivolous, the way the bills are being eliminated right now is that the serious stuff is being eliminated and all the stuff that obviously won't cause too much trouble for the government is being allowed through. There's something wrong with that picture.

The reason people spend thousands of dollars on lawyers is because they're taking their topic seriously. I did an immense amount of international research for one of my bills because I took the topic seriously. In my naïveté in 1994 I actually thought that if I brought a meaningful piece of legislation to the House, it would be voted on and maybe even passed. But that was the wrong concept altogether. It has nothing to do at the moment with whether it's a meaningful piece of legislation and everything to do with if it doesn't create too many ripples and it's easy to get through.

So I don't believe we should be eliminating bills. I like the ideas I feel have crystallized here that we need to have some criteria set up front so that I, as a private member, know that I have to create a bill that fits these criteria and then I'm on a list, randomized or however it's drawn, and I know that after a certain period of time I'll come to the top of that list and my bill will be votable. At least that's partially satisfying. And to deal with the other issues along the way of how it's treated in committee and so on, I think we need to get to that.

I believe that what's being proposed here, coming together in the members' suggestions, is pretty good. We have criteria, then we create our bill, we get our randomized position and we're guaranteed votability. I like it. I hope the committee decides to go that way.

The Chair: Joe Jordan, Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Certainly I take exception to some of the things Ted said. I think part of the problem is that there's no one homogeneous position of all private members on this.

I have a couple of quick points.

Think what you want about the Senate, but the practical reality is that the Senate has to deal with our bills. If the Senate decides because of something we did to them that they're not going to treat our bills or deal with our bills, you may not like it, but we can forget this discussion, because we're not going to get anything through. We have to deal with that practical reality, and we are dealing with it as a committee. We're looking at a change that says if it's been dealt with in the House, it's not allowed back through the Senate in the back door. So I think that's going to deal with that.

In terms of the list, one of the issues we're going to run into is that if everybody gets on the list automatically, certainly no party is going to let a member not put something up. As Bob Mills said, they're going to plug those holes.

I think a better approach might be that we have a period of time when if you're interested, you put forward your concept, your motion, your bill, your proposal for legislation, whatever. It's screened initially. If there are problems with it, you're given an opportunity to address those problems. At the end of that period, through those actions you'll eliminate the people who don't really want to do it. If the whip just hands somebody something that says “Go do this”, I think we'll eliminate that. So it's almost like a reverse onus. They have to do something to get on the list.

Then you have your randomized list. Dump on the draw all you want, but if you draw all the names out of a hat, it's exactly the same as Ken Epp's computer program. Given that you had too many bills and not enough slots, it was just a way to get from 750 down to 22 or whatever it is. So randomize it.

Then you have your order of precedence. As time passes, you have to do certain things. If you don't do those certain things, you're going to lose your spot. As you get nearer the top, your idea takes more concrete shape. That way, the table officers and the legal staff are devoting their time and attention to something that's going to be presented in the House. I agree with Ted. I think we have a concept here that on the surface appears like it's workable.

I'll take you back to the one big thing, the criteria. Depending on what those criteria are, at the front end, that's what's going to control what gets by. Don't kid yourself; governments of the day are going to focus in on that, because they have certain ideas about what's important and what's not. We would all do the same thing if we had our hands on the levers.

So it's those criteria. It's not this committee that decides it, by the way; it's going to be the House that decides it. That's where we're going to spend, and should spend, the majority of our time, because that's going to decide whether this thing works or doesn't.

· (1305)

The Chair: Stéphane Bergeron has a question, Joe.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It is more of a comment that I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, with respect to what Mr. Jordan just said. I think talking about reciprocity between the Senate and the House of Commons is a euphemism, and it shows the Kafkaesque nature of the present system, in that there are hardly any bills by private members who are duly and democratically elected by the Canadian people that end up in the Senate, in comparison to the number of bills and motions that come from the Senate, from people who are not elected, and they take precedence over bills from people who are duly and democratically elected by the people to the House of Commons.

So there is something a bit strange about that.

[English]

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying we have to deal with the reality we have. I mean, Dan McTeague's fleeing the police bill is an example of one that went through the whole process and became law. So it can be done.

The specific case that was drawing people's criticisms of the Senate was a case where the custom was that we treated Senate bills a certain way--there was an understanding--and acted unilaterally. Once we talked to the Senate, we got it worked out. I think we have a deal that's going to close the back door on that.

The Chair: Okay. I'd like to point out, colleagues, that's the first time Kafka has been referred to in this committee since I was the chair.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to address the question you pose of whether more radical changes should be considered. I want to ask this question: isn't it unbelievable that making all of the items we debate now votable is a radical move in a democracy? That's pretty radical. If we get that through, I'm going to be very pleased.

I want to conclude by making these observations. I think we need to respect the right of each member to introduce items for debate and have a decision rendered on them in a free vote. I have been very fortunate in having my name drawn many times. It hasn't helped at all. I heard people complain that they've never had their name drawn. What's the difference? It doesn't make any difference the way the present system is structured.

I would like to also say that if a bill is amended it should be with the consent of the person who moved it. And it should be reported back to the House within the four corners of the original bill. I think that is essential. If the person who moved the bill sits in committee, and so on, and consents to what the committee reports back to the House, so be it. After discussion, he may agree with some of the things the committee recommends.

I'm answering your questions here, Mr. Chairman. I think when it comes to deciding on time in the House, we have to allow House leaders the right to fit it into the weekly schedule. My preference would be to have three hours on Tuesday and three hours on Thursday night to debate these things and then have all votes on Wednesday at three o'clock. I think that would probably give private members' business the profile that it would need.

We may have to put in place extra time for other topics members put forward that don't need to be votable. I would suggest that it be somehow treated the same as we treat emergency debates at this time. If people have issues that have to be brought forward at a certain time, and they would like one hour of debate, they would apply for that and we could probably have a standing order that would deal with it.

I don't agree with the comments on the Senate made by Mr. Bryden. I think a lot of private members' business runs contrary to government policy. We as opposition or backbench government members have absolutely no say in who sits in that Senate. I don't know if that is going to work. That could be the real fly in the ointment here. I'm not sure how we're going to deal with it. At the present time, because we don't have very many members in the Senate, it could be very difficult to get that through. We're going to have to deal with it at some point.

Thank you.

· (1310)

The Chair: Keith mentioned electronic voting. I don't think you were on the committee, because we have considered that. It seems to me, in practical terms, it will be a while before it will appear in committee.

What would you think of a written ballot vote?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Is that a secret ballot?

The Chair: Yes--a free vote but based on....

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I would think that would be fine. Each member would have to answer to their constituents, however, I suppose.

The Chair: No. The results would be listed.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I would think that would be fine.

The Chair: Colleagues, I mentioned this. It's something that has come up in previous debates we've had.

It's Paddy Torsney, then Mauril Bélanger.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: First of all, I hate it when people do this, but let me commend the chair and everyone who has put together the topic and the groupings. It has actually worked out much better than I ever anticipated.

An hon. member: Hear, hear!

Ms. Paddy Torsney: After some heated partisan moments at the beginning, we've been able to listen to each other and even to change opinions as the debate has gone on because we've thought about additional things.

With respect to the concept Mauril had with criteria at the beginning, before the bill is created, probably some of those things would be easier to deal with if we dealt with motions or with topics. It wouldn't be as difficult for members for whom there were details they didn't like in a bill or who were concerned about certain aspects. If you could get topic areas, that might be easier for us. I would suggest that I'd much prefer the criteria to be applied earlier on than Mr. Bryden's suggestion that somehow the Senate would kick it out.

If you think people are disgruntled now, after all the work they've put in goes for nothing, I think they'd be off their rockers if they'd put in all the effort.... I know it's not just the effort in terms of legal services. There's a hell of a lot of effort I put into my two member's bills, lobbying different organizations, speaking with different groups, and working with police forces or with seniors groups. There is a whole lot of work that goes in; it's not just the legal services. Certainly on the legal side you can get caught up in these picayune details that can put the kibosh on your idea, while the topic is what we're trying to advance.

Maybe regarding your first point, whether we should consider the elimination of all bills and motions, there need to be proposals for legislation. That is something we need to explore more.

As to one day a week, I would prefer that it be Monday. Friday is often a day when constituents come in and are able to attend question period, and it is a time for a lot of bills to get done. I would be in favour of Mondays for private members' bills, as everyone is fresh and can think clearly.

Second, as for Mr. Breitkreuz's comments about amendments only being approved--I guess this is the problem we get with legislation--by the member who is moving the bill, well, government bills get amended in committee, and the government doesn't get a say in that. It's a bit of a funny one, and I'm not sure how that would work.

The last thing I want to say, and it's as a result of the goodwill that's been shown around this table, is that by and large we need to show a little more respect. One of the challenges we have is that people keep referring to a private member's bill vote as being a “whipped vote”. If all the Liberals voted one way, it must have been whipped, or if all the Bloc voted one way, it must have been whipped. Frankly, we were attracted to our political parties because we had similar ideas and thoughts, and it's not necessarily that we were whipped. Sometimes we all just agree, and that's not a problem.

We do a disservice to each other and to the institution to suggest, as was suggested a couple of weeks ago, that somehow the person of John Maloney, the member of Parliament for Erie--Lincoln, has become Prime Minister and is doing something that was against everybody else in the Liberal Party and in the House on a recent bill. That's absurd. The Liberal members in that particular case had a free vote, and they voted the way they did because in this case they believed that a committee was already dealing with the issue.

I really encourage members, as we deal with private members' issues or topics, to show each other a little respect and respect the fact that Val Meredith and her political party can have a different idea from mine, and that's okay. It's not that she's being whipped or I'm being whipped; it's because we actually disagree. That's why we might have been attracted to our parties and why we might agree with our colleagues.

Thank you.

· (1315)

The Chair: Thanks, Paddy.

Colleagues, we have 15 minutes left, and I have five people. Could you bear that in mind, Mauril?

[Translation]

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Okay. I will not be long, Mr. Chairman. I want to address three areas.

First of all, I would like to point out that I share the opinion of those who say that when the name of a member is drawn and his or her bill or motion goes before the House and is votable—regardless of whether the outcome of the vote is positive or negative—the name of that member must not be put back in the draw for the remainder of the session. So a member's name can only be drawn once, thus improving the chance for other members to have their names drawn as well. I support that idea.

[English]

Regarding what Mr. Bryden said, I'm not sure I understood, but my concept of Parliament is that the government is responsible to the House, and not the other way around. The government has to have the trust of the House to continue governing, and if the government has a difficulty with a bill, it has quite an arsenal to deal with these things. It shouldn't be discretionary. There has to be accountability to the House of Commons, and not the reverse. I'm not sure I understood where you were going, so we'll talk.

My last question, Mr. Chairman, is to you if I may. Where do we go from here, and how quickly?

The Chair: Could I come back to that at the very end?

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: By all means.

The Chair: We have three or four speakers, and I hate to take up their time. But I'll address that later, Mauril. Thank you very much.

Michel Guimond, Dale Johnston, and John Bryden.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me focus on the question raised under point D of the agenda that was proposed for the round table, which is: “Should we set aside one day a week exclusively for private members' business?”

As a democrat, I recognize right away that the government must govern, whatever the party might be, and that it must grant a certain number of hours in the House to the bills on its legislative agenda. Thus, the government has its own schedule and needs a certain number of hours in order to govern, because that is what it was democratically elected to do.

On the other hand, if we say that everything must be subject to a vote, we must reserve time for this, within the currently available sitting hours. As we cannot increase the available time, we must find other solutions.

Now, I would like to reiterate the suggestion made by my colleague Stéphane Bergeron when he was our party whip and we were both sitting on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. At that time he suggested that rather than taking excursions to Sparks Street or Bank Street or visiting the RCMP car wash, as we did recently, our committee should travel to see what is being done in the Quebec National Assembly. Apparently, their system is efficient and effective. Some may quibble about it because it comes from Quebec, but I am not going to be paranoid about it.

With regard to Fridays, Quebec seems to have a system that works. Even if the work in the House had to start an hour earlier on other days, or finish an hour later, or even if we sat in the evening, if necessary, Fridays should be set aside for private members' business. We should consider this seriously.

Since my leader appointed me deputy whip, Mr. Chairman, I have a different role to play during the Friday question period. I don't know if many of our colleagues here attend House sittings on Fridays, but let me tell you that for an opposition party, taking part in the Friday question period... At times the government members must be embarrassed by the quality of the answers. I have nothing against parliamentary secretaries. They are delightful people, but they are not necessarily responsible for the files that are being inquired about and so they give answers that are insipid, colorless and odourless. I believe that this undermines the credibility of politicians in the eyes of the Canadian and Quebec population.

If I have to gather statistics to prove my point Mr. Chairman, I will do so. Out of a cabinet of about 30 persons, on Fridays, there are regularly... I am sure they have good reasons. When the Minister of Transportation, for instance, has to attend the inauguration ceremony for widening the airstrip at the Yellowknife Airport, as he cannot be everywhere at once, he cannot be in Ottawa to answer questions on Friday morning and get to Yellowknife by 1 p.m. I recognize the fact that ministers may have responsibilities that compel them to travel outside of Ottawa, but I am telling you, and I will prove this with statistics, that out of about 30 cabinet members, 22 to 24 are regularly absent. The House is literally deserted on Fridays, and I do not know why we are still carrying on with this masquerade.

· (1320)

Thus, Fridays could be set aside for private members' business. This is a terrific opportunity. Members whose bills might be debated would have an interest in mobilizing their colleagues who have supported their bills and also accepted to make a 10- or 20-minute presentation about them, and would urge them to be present on Friday. I think that the debate would be more interesting and that the members who would be present on Fridays would be really interested in the issue.

Even if we were to start earlier or finish later—and let me conclude with this— we could set aside Fridays for private members' business. I had already discussed this with the government House leader at the time, Mr. Boudria. He told me that if we lost some debating time on Fridays, we would have to make it up at some other time. I agree with that. House leaders could agree that instead of sitting at 10 a.m. on the other weekdays, we would begin at 9 a.m., as most government offices or private companies do. The “shop” opens at 9 a.m. If this is not convenient, we could also finish later.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Michel. I appreciate it.

Do you have a point on this, Yvon? Please make it directly and very briefly, Yvon.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Chairman, I have some reservations about what is being said concerning the time we begin our work. I begin work at 7:30 a.m. The time the House begins to sit is not necessarily... In other words, I do not want the record to show that we start work at 10 o'clock.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, now it's Dale Johnston, John Bryden, and then we're going to conclude.

Dale, please.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'd just like to make a few observations. We've talked about everybody in the House getting a private member's bill. I think that's a good idea. But we should first recognize that there are some people who will not be eligible to get private members' bills on the order paper. The Prime Minister, the cabinet, the parliamentary secretaries, and the secretaries of state automatically don't.

That brings the number down to about 220 to 230 people who will have “the opportunity”--I'm referring directly to your last bullet point here--to propose an item for debate. This applies to each member per session or per Parliament, one or the other. So this should be able to work most of these people into the hours that are now set aside for private members' business.

I think the draw should only determine the order of precedence in which these bills or members appear on the order paper. If my name is the first, second, or third one drawn, and I don't have a bill prepared, I should be able to negotiate with one of my colleagues--or in fact with anyone in the House--as to whether they want to take my spot. I would then take a spot lower down in the order of precedence.

I've heard quite a lot from Carolyn Parrish about the merits of that committee, but if we were to make all private members' business votable along the lines I've been talking about here, then this would do away with the need for that committee completely.

In fact, private members' business has some things in common with citizens' initiative. A private member's bill gives an MP an opportunity to bring something forth on the national agenda on behalf of his or her constituents. It's all about empowerment. I'm sure that's what my colleagues were referring to when they said this goes right to the basics of democracy.

To me, this would fix the system. I tend to simplify things, but if we were to do these few things, a lot of people would be a lot better off. If you are opposed to votable motions or bills, you simply can skip your turn when it comes up. Or you can bargain it away for a couple of duty days that someone will do for you, or whatever. It would be something that is coming to you if you want it. If you don't want it, nobody is forcing you to do it.

I noticed that Mr. Jordan talked about how we must accommodate the Senate and so forth. Speaking as someone who has shepherded a senator's private member's bill through the House, very successfully, I would note it was basically a housekeeping bill. I had no problem doing it. I was asked by Senator Taylor if I would do it on his behalf. I was glad to do so.

But I take exception to some of the things Mr. Jordan said about us not playing ball with the Senate, because they may or may not deal with our stuff once it gets to the Senate. I don't think the Senate is silly enough to take on a debate like that. It would be a public relations fiasco they don't need or want. So I take exception to the allegation made by Mr. Jordan.

As far as the amendments to a private member's bill being friendly to the mover or accepted by the mover are concerned, I really don't think this is such a novel idea. As a matter of fact, we're just referring to amendments made in the House, not in committee. The bill could certainly be amended in committee. That's the purpose of a committee, isn't it?

What we're talking about here is nothing really revolutionary. As a matter of fact, isn't it precisely the way we deal with supply day motions now? So it's not as though we were reinventing something here. The idea of making amendments to a private member's bill is basically the same as one would do in a council meeting. If the amendment changed the entire tenet of the bill, then it would not be an amendment. If it's a friendly amendment, and is accepted by the mover, then it should be amended.

Mr. Chair, in winding up, I think this discussion has been good. I'm pleased you initiated it. I hope, however, these discussions bring something to fruition, that we actually try one of these things. What's the harm in trying one of these suggestions and seeing if we can't improve? I think I've heard from everybody here various degrees of dissatisfaction with the way private members' business is done now. Overall, everybody has some degree of dissatisfaction.

· (1325)

The Chair: Thank you.

By the way, I hope there are some outcomes. The other thing I've learned here is that it is a matter for private members, not a matter for the government. It's a matter for the Parliament, as represented by the private members as you defined them.

John Bryden, you have the last word.

Mr. John Bryden: I just note, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Bélanger and I are among the last members at this committee who have bills before the House. I would suggest to you that one of the reasons for this is that we, the two of us, feel most keenly the hurt that comes when you invest years of effort in getting a bill before the House, only to see it rendered non-votable under the present system.

I take great hope from the debate here. It was a proper debate among parliamentary colleagues, regardless of party. I do hope, Speaker--sorry, Mr. Chairman--

The Chair: Mr. Speaker is fine.

· (1330)

Mr. John Bryden: Well, Mr. Speaker, then. I hope we do find a way to correct this problem and give people like myself and Mr. Bélanger and all our colleagues a legitimate and free chance to express ourselves in legislation.

The Chair: Okay.

Colleagues, I know we're getting close to question period, so on behalf of the committee we want to thank the permanent members who are here, particularly the MPs who have been guests today and have contributed so much. We do appreciate that.

Secondly, with respect to Mauril's question about what happens next, all participants will receive some sort of a summary of what has gone on, not just the members of the committee but everyone. Also, I would hope you would say to our colleagues who could not be here that, as you've seen, we have excellent research materials. If they have an interest in this issue, they should simply ask the committee, me or the staff, and we'll provide them with these materials. Once that material has been prepared, which should be quite soon, after the break the committee will readdress this matter.

And Mauril, you should know that last fall the House referred the matter of private members' business to this committee. I think we have spent more time on it this winter than any other single topic, and we came to the final conclusion that we could do nothing with it. So you should know that.

Today's effort is an attempt to revive, in as positive a way as we possibly can, our look at private members' business. I have the feeling here today that the committee will have some new energy and will take all of these ideas and select some of them as immediate changes, perhaps to give the House some direction as to where private members' business should evolve over the next year or so.

Mauril Bélanger.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Mr. Speaker, thank you.

I know the extent of the debates the procedure and House affairs committee has had, as I spent an entire Sunday reading all the minutes of your meetings so I could understand what has gone before. That's why the notion of a screening came to me, as it seemed to be deemed essential; ergo, my suggestion to move it further up into the process.

I was asking also how quickly, and the last comment you made--in the next year--rankled me. I must therefore go on to plan B, if you will, and ask when a hearing can be organized by the procedure and House affairs committee so I can debate or appeal the decision of the subcommittee, which I believe has not respected the criteria the committee has set.

The Chair: And I see there is agreement from John Bryden.

The answer to that, Mauril, is that the steering committee has established, including today, what we're doing up until the break. The steering committee then meets again--and I think you know this particular committee gets all sorts of things referred to it. Our first meeting back will be the steering committee, which includes the five whips of the parties, you understand.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Okay.

The Chair: And at that point we decide what we do next, including this, including security on the Hill--

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I understand that, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: --and including a variety of other things.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I have a procedural question, if I may.

The Chair: By all means.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Is the notice that my colleague Mr. Bryden and I have given today of our desire to appeal this sufficient, or is my letter to you of two weeks ago--

The Chair: No, a letter and this is sufficient.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Thank you.

The Chair: Believe me, you have now formally requested to appear. The steering committee will decide whether you do and when you do.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Thank you.

Mr. John Bryden: Thank you.

The Chair: Colleagues, I'm going to adjourn the meeting. Our next meeting is Tuesday, eleven o'clock, in our regular room. The business will be on the estimates of Elections Canada, with Mr. Kingsley as our main witness.

Thank you all very much. The meeting is adjourned.