PRHA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 21, 1997

• 1100

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Good morning, colleagues.

Everyone has the agenda. You'll notice that we have one principal item of business, and we'll get to it in a moment. The matter is the report of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business.

Perhaps I could mention now—and we could deal with these matters under “Other Business”—a couple of things. One's already been raised by a member, and it's the question of this room and our room allocation. I would suggest that under “Other Business” we deal with room allocation. It's something that's being considered by the whips now. Our mandate includes room allocation, but specifically I'd like to deal with where we meet. We've decided, I think, more or less, when we meet. Is it okay to do it under “Other Business”?

That's all right.

Also under “Other Business”, as instructed at our first meeting, I sent a copy of the summary of the questionnaire on private members' services to the services commission. I would suggest that if there's anything to discuss about that, we deal with it under “Other Business”, too.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Is that in the recent...?

The Chairman: No, we mailed it to the commission, and I think each member of the committee received a copy.

Mr. John Solomon: I didn't get one.

The Chairman: We have some copies with us. I'll pass it over so you can look at it while...and that's the correspondence. Perhaps I could have it back, John.

If anyone else would like to see it.... We'll come back to it under “Other Business”. It's on its way around. Okay?

There are some other items.

Is it okay, rather than deal with it in “Introduction”, to go to our main item of business and deal with those matters and any others that are of interest to the members under “Other Business”?

I'll introduce the main item of business, which is the report from the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business on the selection of votable items.

Perhaps the chair of the subcommittee could introduce this item and we could discuss it and then move to the motion.

Mr. Charbonneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, the sub-committee is now ready to submit its report. We began our work prior to the one-week recess, at which time we invited available members to present to us their bill or motion.

I would like to mention at this time the readiness of our colleagues that we invited here, particularly the first ones to appear. Although we did not give them much time, they came through and were able to present their bill or motion.

I would also like to say how very obliging and cooperative my colleagues on the sub-committee were when it came to dealing with these issues quickly and effectively. As a result, we are now in a position to recommend that you accept the four bills and four motions listed in the document distributed to you.

As is customary, the report will remain confidential until such time as it is tabled in the House of Commons. I won't bother to read the titles of the bills or motions as you have them in front of you.

Our current rules stipulate that we can select a maximum of five motions and five bills.

• 1105

We proceeded by consensus and were able in short order to unanimously decide on the bills and motions.

Initially, we were asked to choose from among 30 motions and bills, that is 15 motions and 15 bills that had been randomly selected. Our choice came down to the four bills and four motions that you have before you.

Each member was allotted several minutes to present his bill or motion to the committee and we then asked all of the necessary questions. We have selected these four motions and bills to be votable items, if our committee so decides. The remaining 19 items could be deemed debatable. Three members withdrew their bill. This leaves us with a total of 30.

That concludes our report, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

[English]

I also thank all the members of the subcommittee for their work. Are there any questions?

Mrs. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I have just one comment. We've had difficulty—and I won't name the bill—with one bill. One member did not give unanimous consent, but merely withdrew from voting on it on moral grounds. He's not here today. I suggest we want to make sure people know...for his own conscience...he was basing it on whether he thought the bill should pass rather than on whether it should be votable or not. What we got out of him yesterday was that he abstained from voting on it.

I just want to make it clear to you that there was a bit of controversy over one that's on there.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: He was part of the consensus, but he abstained from voting. He indicated to us that he would be abstaining, but he did not want to break the consensus. I'm referring to the third motion.

[English]

The Chairman: Are there any other comments?

I understand—and I'm new, but I know there are very, very experienced people here—votable items now get three hours. They get an hour first run through, go back to the bottom of the list, get an hour, and go back to the bottom of the list. After the third hour, they're votable. Is that right?

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Yes. I might have missed this, but usually we have five votable items. I see four on the private member's bill.

The Chairman: Four each.

Mr. Randy White: Four each? I didn't get the other ones yet.

Did you cover the reason why the fifth was...?

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: There's a maximum of five. We agreed on four by consensus. To reach an agreement on the fifth one would have taken more time, more deliberation, and we would not have been able to submit our report today. So since it's not an obligation or requirement to reach five, we think with a menu of four of each, the House will undertake its work and our colleagues will be satisfied with the process at this stage.

Mr. Randy White: I'm not so sure our colleagues would be satisfied, when in fact the committee could have picked one more each. As those are dispensed with, you'd get more all the time, so to speak.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Our response to that would be that it could have been feasible, but with one more week. So the time we have at our disposal now would have been wasted for our colleagues.

• 1110

An hon. member: There were too many Reform bills.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I don't wish to disagree with the chairman, because he did a fabulous job, and the first draw is always very difficult because of the numbers, but we wouldn't have gotten a consensus. We operate in there on consensus. Most of the other bills and motions that came through had three out of six supporting. A consensus was not possible.

In the past we've always chosen the ones by consensus that generally wouldn't get agreement around the table with some debate and give and take. I don't think any more could have been chosen. I think Mr. Epp would agree. We sort of hit the point at which we had agreement amongst the six of us and that was as far as we could go.

There will be another draw. There will be more bills and motions drawn shortly, when we run out of these.

That's the way we've always worked. Sometimes when they say it can take five, we've come back with two.

Mr. Randy White: I realize that, Mr. Chairman. I guess the supposition is, without consensus in the future, you will not be making them votable.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That's right.

The Chairman: Mr. Charbonneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: So that everyone understands, the sub- committee also agreed to continue at a later date its discussion of the rules governing the selection of bills and motions so that all members of this Parliament can be involved in the debate.

At this stage, we wanted to move quickly to get things rolling. There is not much time left until December 12. We have to move forward, but we will take up our discussion of the these rules again at a later date. We are going to look at the findings in last year's report and see if it is possible to improve the selection rules.

The new members of Parliament in particular will have an opportunity to help improve the process, if necessary.

[English]

Mr. Randy White: I might add that I don't think haste is a necessary criterion for the selection of good private member's bills and motions.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Ref.): I would like a point of clarification. It's my understanding that the subcommittee is independent when it decides which of these bills and motions to declare as votable. It was basically conceded that it would be by mutual consent, with basically every individual having a veto.

I wonder whether this committee is in a position to give the subcommittee instructions on how to do that in a different way or whether we have to hammer it out ourselves.

The Chairman: I'd be glad to take advice on that. At the moment we're dealing with this particular.... Do you mean for the future?

Mr. Ken Epp: Obviously we're not going to go and revisit this one.

The Chairman: No. Perhaps I can comment on that. I'm going to suggest that we have a steering committee meeting relatively soon. Perhaps the steering committee could look at it as a possible item of business.

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. In response to that question, one of the best vehicles to achieve anything is to develop consensus. I think here we have an example of the duty.

So I would suggest, Mr. Chair, we allow this process by way of advice. We are free as the mother committee to review it from time to time at our discretion. So at this point I will not answer a hypothetical question, because one alternative is to impose a majority rule.

I would suggest we do that.

The Chairman: Thanks. Is there anyone else? Mr. Charbonneau?

Yes, go ahead.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Ref.): I'm not dealing with the technicality of the report. I'm just wondering if you had an idea when you were going to table it in the House.

The Chairman: It seems to me it would be tomorrow. This would mean that private members' business would start the following day, which is Thursday.

[Translation]

Mr. Charbonneau, are you ready to move the motion?

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I move that the report of the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business be adopted as the committee's Fourth Report to the House and that the Chairman present the report to the House.

[English]

(Motion agreed to)

• 1115

The Chairman: Perhaps we can move to other business. For those who came late, I did mention two or three items. I will now repeat them.

One of them—I circulated it—is the summary of the questionnaire on private members' services, which we discussed at our last meeting. I was instructed to forward it to the commission. Someone has my correspondence and my report right now. I'm just reporting that I did that. Is that okay?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I have a comment. I think it is useful, and not only for that commission. The whips are also studying things like members' office budgets and so on. I think the circulation of that is very timely. It's a good idea.

The Chairman: Are there any other comments on that?

The other thing I thought I would mention to you all, because it's a chance—

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): Should we have received a copy of it, or has it not yet been circulated to members? If it has been, I think I can say that I have not received it, unless of course I'm late checking on my mail.

[English]

The Chairman: My understanding on this is that all members of the committee received it. It has not gone to members of Parliament yet.

[Translation]

The Clerk of the Committee: I will look into it. I was told that it had been done. I will check and get back to your office.

[English]

The Chairman: Did all the members get it?

John, when you finish could you let members of the Bloc look at that copy?

As the Chair, I apologize if members have not received it. A mailing was done and for some reason it was partial. Some members have received it and some have not.

Mr. Ken Epp: I may have received it, but I have not yet seen it.

The Chairman: Okay.

Colleagues, this is not a matter for discussion; I'm simply reporting it. I'm glad to take any comments on it. I'm reporting the fact that I've done it. The commission has seen it. It has not gone to members of Parliament in general because it was not supposed to. It has simply gone to the commissioner. There is a covering letter from us to the commission.

We're dealing with private members' business and Mr. Charbonneau and the committee have done good work on it, but for our colleagues, our members, there will be a seminar this Friday on private members' business. All MPs have received it, but House leaders and whips should know of this and can convey it to the caucuses tomorrow if they have not already done so.

It's from 9 to 10.30 a.m. this Friday, October 24. Our researcher, Jamie Robertson, and others are involved in it.

Jamie, where is it?

Mr. Jamie Robertson (Committee Researcher): I believe if they call the member at the bottom they will get that information.

The Chairman: The number is 996-3942. This has gone to all members of Parliament.

Mr. Jamie Robertson: If you call that phone number you can get the room number. If you want people to register, you can.

The Chairman: The number is 996-3942 for information on the seminar from 9 to 10:30 a.m. this Friday on private members' business.

I mentioned earlier that we have to consider—and I'd be glad to discuss it now if that's your wish—what the committee will be doing in the coming weeks. I would suggest that we operationalize the steering committee as soon as possible, and that this committee be given some topics.

We already heard about one from Ken that it will consider, and we'll set our own agenda. Is that a reasonable course of action?

We need names for the steering committee. The steering committee was set up at the last meeting, but we don't have all the names yet. So can I ask all parties for names for the steering committee?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Do you want the names right away?

The Chairman: Right away if possible, otherwise...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I will be representing the Bloc Québécois.

The Chairman: Fine.

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[English]

The Chairman: Okay. I would suggest that another item that committee look at is the report of the Chief Electoral Officer. All members of Parliament received copies of it and have a letter from the Chief Electoral Officer, and that is within our mandate. We have to deal with it and I would suggest the steering committee, when it meets, consider how we deal with that report.

For example, perhaps we could invite the Chief Electoral Officer here.

Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in preparation for that meeting, I would like to take a longer view of where we're going on committee work. I would like to ask our researcher to prepare a fair bit of it within our briefing book, from which it could be extrapolated. What are the things that we routinely have to do over the course of the year, things like dealing with the estimates, the supplementary estimates and the performance report? What's the timing of those in our schedule? Obviously, we have to schedule some time for things like the report of the Chief Electoral Officer, but what are the larger issues that we as a committee want to ensure we deal with over the term of this Parliament?

Some of those were works in progress or waiting to be done by the previous committee—things like looking at completing implementation of the Electoral Reform Commission report. There were a number of those major topics. So I'd like to have a framework of the things we have to do and then we can start plugging in the things we would like to do, starting with the major items first.

The Chairman: Are there any comments on that? The idea of this meeting and of the steering committee is to come to grips with the sorts of things Marlene is talking about.

Another that I noticed in our briefing book was this matter of the long-term renovations on the Hill. There are people who are up to speed on that, but given our responsibilities I think we should all be up to speed. One of the items I would like to see is that at some point we take time to be briefed again on what's happening on the Hill.

Is there anything else on that?

So I would propose that the steering committee meet, discuss future business and report back at the next meeting of the committee, if there isn't one before the steering committee meets.

Is there anything else on that?

Okay, another item of business.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: All members were circulated correspondence from people who were just writing. We got a copy of letters from Harb Dhaliwal to the Chief Electoral Officer and so on.

Are they dealt with in any way? Are they dealt with by you, the committee or the clerk in any way, or are they just circulated for information? I want to make sure that somebody is responding to them. I'm not sure if somebody responds on behalf of the committee. I don't know what you would say given the text of these letters, but I'm interested in how that correspondence is handled.

The Chairman: The clerk acknowledges receipt on our behalf. I looked at these and couldn't see any sort of action that was involved in them, but my understanding is that she would pick up.... At least I hope so. I will look at them. She would pick up on something that needed to be brought to the committee. But we all received them for information.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Some of them are asking for specific things. You say they are not actionable but some of these letters would like to change the Elections Act and recognition of official parties. That is an actionable thing, so is it dealt with in some way other than “we got your letter, thank you”, or does it say we will be dealing with it, we'll have the Chief Electoral...? I'm not sure how much of this correspondence will be coming, so I want to know how it is going to be handled.

The Chairman: Can I get some advice on that from either side here?

The Clerk: If the committee decides to take action on the letters or the subject matter, usually we keep track of the letters we receive and we either send a copy of the report or we let them know that the committee is undertaking a study. We do follow up, because sometimes the correspondence is circulated but members don't necessarily raise it, because we have other matters to deal with. So if the committee deals with some matters, we do follow up with the people who write to the committee.

• 1125

Mr. Chuck Strahl: So if somebody within the committee wants to answer it on their own, that's their prerogative, I guess.

The Chairman: In other words, Chuck, if you and others—

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm not looking for more work.

The Chairman: I was looking for more work for you, actually.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Chairman: I read them, but now that you've mentioned it, I'll read them more carefully. I hope all members will, and that members will raise it where it's significant, either here at the committee or, if it's technical, with the staff.

I have one more item of business, the question of room allocation. I was asked why we were meeting in here before. My understanding is that this is not a room that we can control. It's a room from which we can be bumped by PCO and some others. It's my understanding that the whips are looking at room allocation. Room allocation comes under this committee.

It seems to me—and I carefully read the minutes of the last committee—that we previously met in 112 north, and that was because it was extremely convenient for the House of Commons. Our composition is such that we have many members who simply have to be in contact with the House itself. My understanding is that 112 north will not be available for some months. Given that, and given that apart from 237C the other room is the television room and we don't particularly—there are committees that deserve to, and should, be on TV—I would suggest we reserve 237C for ourselves at 11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, our regular meeting times, and that the whips, when they produce their report on room allocation, recognize that fact. Because if we don't we're going to be taking offices of the House of Commons away, and we simply won't be able to function.

Again, I'm a new Chair so I would welcome comments on that.

Marlene.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I think it's an excellent idea until 112 north is available again. We don't need as large a room. We don't often have big delegations, we don't often have the media interest, but access to the House is extremely important and will get more so as we get close to Christmas, I suspect.

The other thing you might want to consider is that subcommittees of this committee might require the same kind of proximity to the House. At times when I was chairing a subcommittee that went on for some time, it was difficult to go over to the West Block for meetings and then get back here for a vote or something.

You might also want to consider—and I guess the steering committee can deal with this—whether we want to meet twice every week. It will depend on our agenda, I think. One thing that seemed to work when we had a number of subcommittees going was leaving the Thursday morning for subcommittee work.

The Chairman: Marlene, at the moment I'm thinking in terms of slots rather than in terms of.... I agree with you that the steering committee should decide what we're going to do, how often we should meet and so on, but I thought we could reserve these two slots and this room, if the whips are willing. By the way, those slots and the room will be available for our subcommittees. Again, we're often dealing with the same people, so as long as we know that it's 11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays that we will be meeting, either as a subcommittee or committee member.... At the moment that would move it along.

Is that agreeable? The whips are here. I don't know when the whips are likely to come up with their report on room allocation.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): As soon as we go back into...I'll look into the availability.

The Chairman: Would it then be appropriate for this recommendation to be in the report on room allocations? I assume the whips are going to produce one.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Do you want us to provide a report on what rooms we're using, or what?

The Chairman: Are the whips not considering...? The committees are getting organized now, aren't they?

Mr. Bob Kilger: They're up and running today. What's the content? What are you looking for?

The Chairman: I would like confirmation that we have that room at those times.

Mr. Bob Kilger: That particular room?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Okay.

The Chairman: As long as colleagues agree with the reasoning.

Mr. Bob Kilger: We'll attempt to. I'll check with management people.

The Chairman: Okay.

Is there any other business?

I think the next meeting is at the call of the Chair, but I suspect it will be the steering committee. I would like to see the steering committee meet as soon as possible, and then we'll have our agenda set out. Is that okay?

• 1130

Thanks.

This meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.