:
Colleagues, we're going to start our meeting this morning.
This morning's meeting will pretty much deal with two key issues. One is the steering committee's recommendations on where this committee should go over the next couple of weeks, and the second part will be based on whether we accept that report or not.
First, colleagues, let me tell you that we potentially have six meetings left. That's not a lot of time. The steering committee met this morning at eight o'clock and reviewed all the different motions before the committee, as well as leftover business, or some small items requiring more detailed discussions—which time potentially does not permit. As well, we looked at the list of potential legislation that could be sent before this committee.
The steering committee had lengthy and very in-depth discussions, and ultimately, here's what the steering committee decided.
We will deal this morning with Monsieur Guimond's motion in relation to questions by independent members during question period.
The second thing the committee recommended was that because all the other motions on your list require significant discussion, they should be put off until the fall.
The committee discussed and a number of potential witnesses to be called on Thursday. We've narrowed the list down to four witnesses, all of whom will be contacted, if they've not already been contacted. Lucile has already sent out some e-mails this morning. The witnesses we requested will be here on Thursday, and those who can't make it on Thursday will be requested to submit a report by the end of day Friday, which will be translated and submitted to members late on Monday, if all goes well, for Tuesday's meeting. So we should finish our investigative process as a result of that action. We should be able, therefore, to begin clause-by-clause consideration of on Tuesday, June 12.
Again, rumours are flying about how much time we have left here in Parliament, but we may then begin with on Thursday—but I think we're moving too far ahead. The steering committee only decided, therefore, on the plan of action for today's meeting, as I said, which will be to deal with Mr. Guimond's motion. If the committee agrees with that, we would ultimately adjourn today, and on Thursday we would come back to hear the witnesses.
I should also point out that the Conflict of Interest Code has been finished by our subcommittee after, I think, 11 meetings and some fairly arduous work. That is ready to be presented on Thursday. We'll have a look at that on Thursday as well, along with having our witnesses.
On Tuesday we'll begin clause-by-clause. We need to agree as a committee on a 24-hour notice for any amendments to , and we need to approve a budget.
So that's what we need to do today. Are there any discussions on that?
Madame Robillard, you're first, and Madame Redman, you're second.
:
I have a question, Mr. Chairman.
My understanding is that if the witnesses slated to appear with regard to Bill C-54 are unable to come on Thursday, you will ask them to provide the committee with a brief by Friday if practicable.
Might we advise Mr. Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, of the precise date and time of our meeting? The last time, we asked him for a more in-depth analysis of Bill C-54. We should therefore let him know that we would be expecting his document on Friday.
First of all, I appreciate the work of the steering committee, and just for record, we Liberals would be very happy to be here until the 22nd, if we need to, to get all of this done.
I want to clarify if you said in your report on the steering committee that we could potentially be doing clause-by-clause and the Conflict of Interest Code on the same Thursday, or am I wrong?
Sorry, you did hear that wrong, or perhaps I said it wrong. This Thursday we would have the witnesses for Bill , and the Conflict of Interest Code. Clearly, if there ends up being a lengthy discussion on this issue, we won't be able to deal with it on Thursday.
There has been such a lot of work done on that code.
Madame Redman, you were on that committee, so you know that there was a lot of work done.
Mr. Owen, you were on that committee, and a number of us were there. Chances are we'll have a look at that, and there may be brief discussions, and we'll be able to do it this Thursday.
Clause-by-clause on the contract--I can't see that starting until Tuesday, simply because I don't expect all the witnesses to be able to attend. One of them is a superior court judge. We're asking them.
For another witness--I believe, Madame Redman, recommended by you--we have only an e-mail address. There is no phone number. There is no way to contact them, and we're doing our very best.
I sense that some of them will ultimately be submitting reports rather than appearing in person. I can't see that happening before Monday, so I can't see us starting clause-by-clause before Tuesday, which means Thursday.... Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.
Mr. Lukiwski.
Do you want to adopt the budget first?
Lucile has put together a budget for us for the study of Bill . It would include the cost of witnesses' expenses, potentially a video conference—that I don't see happening, but we have it here just in case—and miscellaneous. The budget is $14,350 to study Bill .
All in favour of the budget?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[English]
I had a meeting this morning with the clerk and he suggested two changes for clarification. I don't know what the procedure is here and whether I must present an amendment.
On the wording of Standing Order 31.1(1), I would change it to:
Only once a week, pursuant to Standing Order 31, the Speaker may recognize
The independent member may not want to ask a question.
My colleague Mr. Proulx suggests another clarification, in accordance with the French version:
the Speaker may recognize one of the independent members
The first one is for Standing Order 31, the declaration; the second one is for the question.
[Translation]
What is it, Lucienne?
:
My motion clarifies the situation, because at the present time, it is at the discretion of the Speaker. The Speaker has created precedents. An independent member can virtually never ask questions and virtually never be present, but an independent member who is always present will be able to ask more questions if he or she is a member of a caucus. This is why I have suggested this change, which was the object of a discussion. It was not a decision-making body, but when we had other problems to discuss with regard to the whips, my whip colleagues were made aware of the problem.
If members of a given political allegiance, who belong to one of the 21 or 26 parties recognized by Elections Canada... I will give you an example. Let us suppose that the Green Party sees its leader and two other members elected. The Standing Orders provide that the members of a party with fewer than 12 members are considered to be independents. Therefore, it is possible to be an independent member but to belong to a given banner. Here is Mr. Hill's concern. If, let us say, the two other independent colleagues of the leader of the Green Party allow him or her to put questions in their name, the leader is free to do so and would not fall under the one question or one statement per week limit.
This explains the second element, which I introduced at Mr. Hill's request:
For the purposes of Standing Order 31.1(1), members of political parties not officially recognized in the House are not considered independent members.
They would therefore have that right.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make sure I understand in my own mind what Monsieur Guimond is proposing.
If I'm right, I think I agree with what you're saying. You're saying that currently--let's use exact terms--we have three independent members: Madame Thibault, Monsieur Comuzzi, and Monsieur Arthur. The way it's been working, if I understand it correctly, is that when you do the math and figure out the allocation, it allows for one question per independent per week. But since normally Monsieur Comuzzi and Monsieur Arthur have not been requesting questions, the Speaker has been allocating their questions to Madame Thibault. So she ends up sometimes getting three times as many questions as one would think.
What you're suggesting, then, is that the Standing Orders be changed so that under the current situation Madame Thibault or any member would only get one question every three weeks, right? You can't bundle the questions.
:
As things now stand, if Ms. Thibault rises on Monday, on the Tuesday, if Mr. Arthur has not asked a question... I asked how many questions Mr. Arthur has put since April 6, 2006, in other words since we have been sitting here. He has not asked a single question. Mr. Comuzzi, however, is a model...
An honourable member: ... of discretion.
Mr. Michel Guimond: He is a model of discretion, so much so that I even told him, jokingly, that he was not the member for Thunder Bay, but the member for Tampa Bay.
Some honourable members: Oh, oh!
I do not want to insult my liberal colleagues. They will vote against my motion.
An honourable member: He is no longer liberal.
Mr. Michel Guimond: On Monday, Ms. Thibault rises. She asks a question. On Tuesday, if Mr. Comuzzi does not ask the Speaker permission to ask a question and if Mr. Arthur does not either, then the Speaker will once again recognize Ms. Thibault who will be wanting to ask a question.
:
Thank you. I'm aware of that. I'm good with that.
On the other hand, where we're saying that the members of political parties not officially recognized in the House would not be considered independent members, I believe what Monsieur Guimond is suggesting here.... Let's take the example of the Green Party and assume they elect some members to the next Parliament, but not more than 12. For the purposes of the House, they're not considered to be an official party because they have fewer than 12 members, but Monsieur Guimond is saying they should not be considered merely independents; they should still be considered to be a political party for the purposes of question period.
So would they get as many questions as the number of members they have? It might be one or two questions a day. I'm just trying to figure out what Monsieur Guimond is suggesting here.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I agree with the idea of changing the Standing Orders. When Mr. Guimond — and I think you will agree with me — brought up the issue of the independent members, it was not to remove from the Speaker the discretionary power of determining the number of independents who are entitled to rise in the House during the course of a week. One person cannot be allowed all of the questions decided upon by the Speaker. If the Speaker has decided to allow two questions from independent members during the course of a week and the member chooses to not put his or her question, the other person does not get to put the two questions. I simply wish to have the assurance that this is what we are discussing here.
What I am rather hearing is that there was one single question per week and if the member took the question this week and that the following week she took it again, then the other member would not be entitled to one. I do not agree with that. The Speaker allows more than one question per week to independent members.
In the previous government, there was the Bloc member, there were two independents, Ghislain Lebel and Madam Venne. If they each wished to rise and put a question during the week, they were entitled to do so. That is not the problem; the problem is rather when there are three or four independent members and only one person gets all of the questions allowed the independents. That is what Michel brought up.
I simply wish to know if that is what you think the Standing Orders say.
:
If there are three or four independent members in the House, the Speaker has the discretionary authority to allow them to ask two questions each week. I do not want to take this privilege away from the Speaker, in the Standing Orders. It is then up to him to decide, among the independents, who will be allowed to ask the questions, but we are saying that any one member will not be able to ask two questions.
The Speaker could authorize Ms. Thibault to ask a question on the Monday, and again on the following Monday, if he so desires. That is not my concern: that is up to the Speaker to decide. However, the member would not be able to ask two questions during the same week. That is what the Standing Orders should establish. And I believe that we have agreed on that.
We are not going to start asking the Speaker if he has examined the list to see who came first and telling him that he can allow a member to ask a question on the Monday, but that given that the other member did not ask to be recognized, he or she will have to wait until the Thursday. Independent members have the right to ask two questions. But they will not have two questions in one and the same week. We have agreed on that.
:
I have discussed this with the Speaker. He is taking things day by day. On the Monday, he looks to see which independent MP has put forward a question. He slates it in at the end of the Oral Question Period at 2:59 p.m. If it is the member who asked to put a question, he will grant him or her leave to do so. The following day, he goes through the same exercise. As a matter of fact, he repeats the exercise three times. When the other two members do not ask questions, then it is the same member who is allowed a question.
The Speaker told me that if we change the Standing Orders so as to give him a framework in order for him to be able to allow independent members to put one oral question and make one statement per week, then he would respect the Standing Orders, but he would retain his privilege to balance things out between independent members.
Therefore, if he has recognized Mr. Godin as an independent member during the week of September 17, then the following week, if Mr. Godin once again wishes to ask a question and another independent member also wishes to put a question, he would be free to tell Mr. Godin that, since he granted him the floor the previous week, he will this time recognize another independent member. But if the other member never asks to be allowed to put a question, then he will once again recognize Mr. Godin the second, third, and fourth week.
The Speaker wants to have a framework. According to what you are saying, Yvon, if there are 17 independent members, each one of them will want to be recognized. Perhaps you will in the end lose your opportunity to ask questions, as a fourth party. You should give serious thought to this matter.
Mr. Yvon Godin: At 2:59 p.m.
Mr. Michel Guimond: It will perhaps always be at 2:59 p.m., or perhaps at 2:58 p.m., for independent members wishing to put questions. That is not at all the spirit, when a second independent member wishes to rise one week to ask a question. If you have decided to not rise this week and another member who is there decides to rise, the following week, you will rise and you will put your question.
:
Let me make sure everybody understands that Mr. Guimond has changed the wording of the motion--just so that everybody has it, Mr. Godin. We've changed it already, but we're recommending that this be only once a week.
Does everybody have a copy of this motion, with the wording down?
I want to read it, and then we're going to go to Mr. Owen: “Only once a week, pursuant to Standing Order 31, the Speaker may recognize an independent member.” The second part there is: “For the purposes of Standing Order 31.1(1), members of political parties not officially recognized in the House are not considered independent Members.”
For the most part, the wording is identical with respect to questions in question period. For section 37(1.1)(a): “Only once a week, pursuant to Standing Order 37(1), the Speaker may recognize an independent Member.” Again, the wording for proposed Standing Order 37(1.1)(b) is as you have it in front of you.
I just wanted to bring us up to date, because the discussion is carrying on.
I have Mr. Owen and I have Monsieur Guimond, but I appear to be recognizing you as need be, because this is your motion. Let's try to keep it to Mr. Owen, Monsieur Proulx, and then Madame Picard.
Mr. Owen, please.
First of all, let me apologize for not knowing the scope of the other standing orders, because they may clarify what is unclear to me at this point. Even with the changes to each of the motions, it's not clear to me, the way it's worded, whether it means each independent member only once a week may be recognized or that only one independent member per week may be recognized. That's the first question.
Second, I wouldn't want Standing Orders 31.1(2) and 37(1.1)(b) to be interpreted to mean that members of a political party, even though it wasn't officially recognized, would have even fewer rights than an independent to ask questions. I think I heard that the Speaker will work out some formula that's fair.
Does it say that anywhere? I think this is capable of being misconstrued to mean that you have fewer rights as a member of an unrecognized party than you have as an independent. It's really just a matter of interpretation.
:
It will probably be tomorrow. It might be today after QP, but I'm going to suggest to you tomorrow. That's something I can more likely keep as a promise, and we like to keep those.
Do I have that permission?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Colleagues, I think that ends our business for today. We will set up as best we can on Thursday, just so that you know and as a reminder.
I want to thank our witnesses for coming. It's always helpful having you here.
We will be having witnesses on Thursday to deal with Bill C-54. As well, there will be time, hopefully, to deal with the subcommittee's report on the Conflict of Interest Code.
Is there any further business?
Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned.