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 28, 1997

• 1122

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, I welcome you all here again.

I think everyone has received the memo about the meeting and the suggested agenda. Our topic is the future business of the committee. The agenda is based on the meeting the steering committee had the other day. We had a fairly long and, I thought, interesting meeting. We didn't get to the end of all the topics left hanging from the last Parliament, but we dealt with a good many of them. I propose, if it's okay with you, that we stick to the agenda and we come to any other business at the end.

For your information, under other business, I have the letter we received from Charles Caccia about election of the Speaker; the letter we received from Randy White—I think you have all received it—on the standing orders; a letter I have received from the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on room allocation; and a matter about the summary of the questionnaire on members' services, which we received and we passed on to the members' services committee. Those are topics I have, just so you know.

We'll go to Randy first.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, on other business, I have a matter arising from the transcript of the previous meeting. Do you want that covered under that?

The Chairman: If it's okay with you, Randy, it's something we can go through then.

Chuck.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Ref.): The other two things I would like to see on the agenda refer back to the memo on the future business of the committee. They deal with the request to invite Jean-Pierre Kingsley and deal with the estimates. We should probably have some kind of motion to get those two issues rolling.

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The Chairman: The first item we have on the agenda is Kingsley, but let's see if we've missed something.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I was looking at this agenda. It's not on the agenda; it's on this.

The Chairman: On the memo.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Is it on the agenda?

The Chairman: Yes. To be confirmed, item 5.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay.

The Chairman: Your point about the estimates...?

An hon. member: You confused Chuck because you said it was first.

The Chairman: I'm sorry.

It might be useful if I quickly go through the memo you all received.

Your steering committee discussed the matter that has just been raised, and it was suggested that Mr. Kingsley be asked to appear before us. By the way, the suggested date is now November 20.

I will go through the memo just to make it clear. It's been suggested that the Speaker appear on November 4 with respect to his part of the supplementary estimates. My understanding is that he will need to appear before us again with respect to his annual report, which all members of Parliament have now received, but I understand that is another matter.

The Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business, the next item in the memo—that is what we're dealing with this time, both A and B. This is page 2 of the memo. We're dealing with the scheduling subcommittee today. The re-establishment of the subcommittee on members' services—we're dealing with that today.

Next is that a meeting be scheduled with Ms. Catterall, as long as she's agreeable to it—I don't see her here at the moment, but I assume she is—to discuss the business of supply as it was dealt with in the last Parliament.

The next item is that a meeting be scheduled in which we will all be briefed on the renovations on Parliament Hill. That will be done.

The last paragraph of the memo mentions a number of things, but one of them is the Referendum Act. We didn't get to a final decision the last time, but my sense is that there was interest in a review. What do you think about the idea of asking researchers to conduct a review of the Referendum Act so we can get that started? They could present a paper or something of that sort to us and we could work from that.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: As I understand it, and as we talked about in our subcommittee, it is a statutory requirement. So we really don't have an option. We're probably the committee that has to deal with that. We could have an overview of what we're expected to do and the act itself, but I think we have to deal with it. It doesn't have to be the first order of business, but we do need to get on with it.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): I have a technical question. Is it a statutory requirement for this committee to review the Referendum Act?

The Chairman: Yes. Chuck just said so.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, but are we really legally required to review the Referendum Act?

The Chairman: Yes.

[English]

Mr. Jamie Robertson (Committee Researcher): I'll just read from the briefing binder.

When the Referendum Act was enacted by Parliament in 1992, it contained a provision that it should be reviewed after three years of operation. That came on June 23, 1995. So there is a requirement that the act be reviewed by Parliament, by either the Senate or the House or a committee of either house or of both. That was commenced in the last Parliament, but it was not completed, primarily because of other business. This committee was designated by an order of the House to be the committee to conduct that review.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I understand that this law will have to be reviewed by Parliament three years after its coming into force. I also understand that other priorities have interfered with the conduct of those reviews. I understand as well that the agenda now proposed is very heavy.

Therefore, I would suggest given the fact that the review of the Referendum Act is not urgent, it be postponed to a later date so that this question does not monopolize the resources of the committee. We will have several other issues to deal with in the next few months.

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[English]

The Chairman: Would the idea of the researchers doing a paper be acceptable?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I consider, as I said earlier, that we must not allocate resources from this committee to that question for the moment being. It is certainly a question that deserves the attention of the committee but having been a member of the Sub- committee on Agenda and Procedure, I know very well that we will have several points to cover in the coming months. That is why I would postpone this question until later.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): I think it might be useful to do research on that. I don't think that it would be in the committee's interest that this be presented in the coming weeks or indeed in the coming months, but it is something that could be handed to us at the beginning of the new year, maybe when we come back in February. This would give the researchers enough time to do that study and we could ask ourselves when the time comes if we still want to present a paper. I think that it would be greatly appreciated if we could do that in the meantime.

[English]

The Chairman: Chuck.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: The only thing I have is a technical question. Does the House need to assign it to this committee in this Parliament, or is the last referral good enough?

The Clerk of the Committee: Because of dissolution, I don't think the last referral would be good enough. But it was referred by way of order of reference from the House. I think the Standing Committee on Procedure would be the committee to which any question in relation to the Referendum Act would be referred.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: So it doesn't have to go back to the House; or does it?

The Clerk: It was done that way in the previous Parliament, so my understanding would be that yes, it would need to be referred.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: My question, Peter, is why don't we do the research immediately or for February or for somewhere down the road? I'm not sure what the statutory requirement is. It seems to me once it's in statute it has to be done. If we want to put it off, we can decide collectively to do that, but it just seems to me that from a government point of view the government should want to make sure this base is covered. If it has to go through Parliament, be referred to this committee, be put on the back burner, if that's what we decide to do, that's fine. It's just that I would think we should do it, that's all.

I wouldn't want just to say we ignore it. Let's do the statutory requirements, unless you want to change the statute, which is another issue again. Otherwise, let's follow through the laws of the land.

The Chairman: Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We might be putting the cart before the horse if we go ahead without first receiving a definite order of reference from the House of Commons on that subject. Personally, I would wait for an order of reference from the House on the one hand. On the other hand, if the committee from the last Parliament considered that there were many more urgent issues to solve in the meantime, I submit to the attention of this committee that the memorandum before us indicates that there are in fact loads of issues that the committee must deal with urgently. Consequently, I suggest that we wait for the order of reference from the House before doing anything. We must not presume that we know the intentions of the House of Commons before it has made its expectations and its preferences clear. That's my point.

[English]

The Chairman: I would like to make a suggestion, and again, I'm open if anyone else wants to speak to it. As is indicated in the memorandum, we had a lot of stuff to deal with in the steering committee. This general reference to items at the end... There were several items.

Perhaps we could leave this. At some point, such as at the next meeting of the steering committee, it will come up. We'll get something definitive on the legal or future requirements or whatever it is, and we'll bring it back. Okay, colleagues?

I'm glad I went through the memo. Are people comfortable with where we are with those items?

The purpose of today's agenda is to implement some of the things that are in the memo and that were discussed at the steering committee. If we could proceed to the first item of business arising from the steering committee, it's on the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business. Mr. Charbonneau, the chair, is here. You can read it and someone can move it, and it's to report no later than that date.

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Can someone move that?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I move that the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business be instructed to review the first report of the Sub-Committee on Private Members' Business tabled before the committee during the 35th Parliament in regard to procedural changes to private members' business, and that the subcommittee report to the committee no later than, I would say, the first meeting in December.

The Chairman: I'm sorry, what was the date again?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The first meeting in December, whatever that is.

It's a pretty thorough report. I don't think we will need a lot of time to review it.

The Chairman: Is there any discussion on that?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Does it need to be that far off? As Carolyn said, I'm not sure how much time will be required to go through that.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The only reason I say that is the first committee had only three parties on it: Reform, Bloc, and Liberal. We have more parties now and they may need some time to get their heads around the recommendations and answer a lot of questions.

Motion agreed to

The Chairman: You'll notice from the memo that there is a second item. It says:

Because of concerns that have been raised regarding the failure to designate five votable bills and five votable motions, the Sub-committee be requested to see whether another bill and motion could be made votable.

Is the fact that the steering committee has asked that question and that we've conveyed it to the chair of the committee sufficient to deal with that item?

Mr. Randy White: Mr. Chairman, that's from the list that was originally presented, isn't it?

The Chairman: Yes, there was a discussion of it. We discussed it at the last meeting of this group too.

Again, I'm in your hands. That is the request of the committee. I hope monsieur le président would consider that and they could decide.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): Given the fact that having four instead of five poses a problem, there is enough to go until February.

The Chairman: Stéphane.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The question was raised, by my friend Chuck in particular. The reason given by the committee not to designate five was that, because there was not enough time, to allow the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business to go ahead as quickly as possible, you had decided to choose only four. This was the understanding of several of us. A clarification might be in order. It seems that it is not the case. For my part, I'm only trying to convey the understanding of several of us at that time. If we need to clarify the point, let's do it, and let's decide the matter.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: We will discuss the matter and pick the bills and motions on the Monday in order to be able to report to the standing committee on the Tuesday. The committee will then be able to report to the House on the Wednesday and get things going as quickly as possible.

Evidently, we have concerns, but during Monday's meeting, we did not succeed in choosing five. We did not get past four: four motions and four bills. The selection of a fifth motion or of a fifth bill could have taken hours and hours of discussion. We tried several things. I went around the table several times but there was no way.

So we decided to get things going and we told ourselves that if four were enough until Christmas, it was not necessary to wrack our brains in order to find a fifth as there wouldn't be enough time to deal with it.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: This is my understanding exactly. This was to allow us to proceed as quickly as possible with members' business. Not having enough time to go up to five, you settled for four.

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Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Not having time to do it and considering that it would be impossible.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's another thing.

Mr. Bob Kilger: I was simply going to add that Mr. Charbonneau has stressed once more this morning that it was also a matter of reaching a consensus on a fifth one.

[English]

Not being able to arrive at a consensus on the fifth votable item, obviously they tabled a report with four, which I think was the responsible thing to do.

The Chairman: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Having chaired that committee for two years, many times when we were given an option of picking five we'd only pick two. The criteria that govern votable bills don't change from meeting to meeting, whether you're in a hurry or not. You have to try to get the best bills. Sometimes you get a batch where the group agrees that none are votable, but very rarely does that happen.

What I can say with definitive certainty is that we picked the four best bills. We had consensus on them. As for the fifth one, we could have stayed there for three days and I don't think we would have come up with a fifth one. So the idea of haste shouldn't be brought into it. The idea was that those were the four best bills that we all agreed on. Next time it may only be three when we have a limit of five.

The Chairman: I have four speakers. I don't want to interfere with the debate, but I think we're discussing whether the committee can consider this request. The committee operates by consensus, and it would think it through and then simply come back to us.

Madeleine, Randy, Stéphane, and then Mac.

[Translation]

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): It was my first time on that committee and what I found very interesting is that the themes chosen give us something useful and worthwhile to think about regarding the proceedings of the House of Commons.

Like Carolyn said, I don't think that we would have been able to agree on the fact that one thing or another was fundamental and would have been really worth the debate. We can continue to reflect upon the matter. Even if we could find five items, a change might prove better. Reflection will tell. It might be a good thing if the maximum number of ten items did not necessarily have to be divided between five motions and five bills. Some motions might be very very interesting. We could then have seven motions.

[English]

The Chairman: Randy.

Mr. Randy White: Mr. Chairman, I have the unedited copy of the recording of the October 21 meeting in which we talked about this. I have several questions. One of the comments on page 3 of the transcript was that there were too many Reform bills. Quite frankly, I would have to ask the members of that committee whether that was the case or whether consensus couldn't be arrived at because there were too many Reform bills as opposed to those of other parties.

This is a serious issue. I was on that committee for two years, and there are times when one party, whether it's NDP or any other party... I know the NDP has quite a few motions and bills. I certainly hope no party will be prejudiced on that committee by having a long list of bills and motions in it. If we're looking for equity within private members' business, then we have to take bills at their face value, the same as we do motions. We should not have to worry about whether there are lots in one party or another.

The Chairman: I found the item you mentioned. I agree with you, by the way. I had a feeling that might have been a question.

Mr. Randy White: Well, that certainly is a question in my mind. This committee has an obligation, regardless of which party has a lot of bills or motions on this table, to look at content and not whether some get more than others.

The Chairman: Absolutely.

Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I only wanted to point out that the intention of the Sub-committee on Agenda and Procedure, given the fact that there had not been enough time to agree on a fifth item, was to ask the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business for a little more time to try to reach a consensus on a fifth motion and a fifth bill.

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If a fifth could be found, it would be the best, like Madeleine said. If not, too bad. The suggestion is that you study that request. Look at it and judge its value. If there's no way to reach a consensus, so be it. All we ask for is that we go through the exercise.

[English]

The Chairman: Okay. Mac, then Chuck.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): As a backbench MP, I have quite a concern that the rules are not clear in terms of what would be considered here an agenda item or a bill or a motion that would go before Parliament, and once that is done whether or not it would be votable. I think we have to have some unequivocally clear guidelines for the subcommittee. If they don't have them, they have to be developed sometime soon so that if I have a private member's bill referred to the committee, they will know, according to the ABC rules they have, that this bill has to be votable.

I don't know whether or not they have that set of rules. If they don't, I would say we'd better very quickly develop those guidelines for the sake of all of us who are not members of government or parliamentary secretaries.

The Chairman: Okay. Chuck.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Mr. Chairman, I'm hearing two conflicting stories. One is that we had to get going quickly, and because we had to get going quickly they came to whatever they could agree to quickly, which was four bills and four motions, I think it was. They tabled that report quickly, which is what we needed them to do. But that's different from the story that we could never have agreed to more than that anyway, because four was the most we could ever have agreed to, even if we met for three more days.

So there are two stories. One is that we did what we could do quickly and hustled through four that we all had pretty good consensus on. But that's a different story from “That's the most we could do”. Those are two separate stories. That's the way it's coming across to me.

The other thing is that this originally...[Editor's Note: Technical difficulty]...which is, ask the subcommittee to get together again and talk it over. Is it the case that there are no more bills to be agreed to, or could they look at them again to see, now that there is no pressure and they have time to think about it, if there is anything else here that you want to consider? Maybe there isn't.

The other point I want to make is that this is the first draw, as has been mentioned in the minutes. It is true that 13 out of 15 private members' bills drawn were Reform. From the Reform caucus point of view—I mentioned this in the subcommittee and I want to repeat it here—there's more than just a little concern that when you luck out on the draw and then they say, well, you lucked out on the draw but we can only pick four, and agree on that... The caucus says, wait a minute, the process is that you draw it.

I realize that you have to narrow the selection, but the feeling in the caucus is that I hope this isn't a trend-setter such that the next time the NDP draws 13 out of 15 we say, too bad, we can only agree on a couple.

The other feeling gets back to what I mentioned earlier—that is, is this a time-sensitive thing or did they just truly hit the wall?

The Chairman: Yvon and then Ken.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I am trying to understand what Chuck said earlier about page 3:

[English]

...there are too many Reform bills; I do apologize. If one can find a meaning in this whole page anyhow, you are lucky.

[Translation]

I am absolutely not saying that there are too many Reform bills. You have to look at the context within which the discussion took place. I don't understand exactly the meaning of all that.

What I mean is that I heard Chuck say

[English]

that there are two conflicting versions.

[Translation]

There is a slight difference between what Ms. Parrish says and what I'm saying.

Ms. Parrish says that there would be no way to come to an agreement even if we were to discuss the matter three days or seven days.

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As chairman of the sub-committee, I cannot be as categorical. I don't know what she thinks of each bill nor of each motion. She might think deep down inside that no other would be acceptable. Therefore, if we go by way of consensus, she knows ahead of time that there will never be any agreement, even after three or seven days.

As chairman, I cannot be as categorical. I cannot say that after two or three days of discussing, on account of tiredness or better arguments, we will not be able to reach a consensus. One cannot say straight out that it is impossible.

One thing is certain: it was impossible under the circumstances of the time, If you want to give it another try, we shall see. If after two or three hours of discussion, the door remains absolutely closed to all bills and motions, I will report to you accordingly.

At first sight, it appears extremely difficult given the consensus rule. If the majority rule applied, something could be done, but we have to obey the consensus rule. This seems difficult to me, but if you want us to give it one last try, because it appears necessary to you for reasons that I don't understand but that I am ready to consider, let's do it.

[English]

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Ref.): It ought not to surprise us that the bulk of the bills done were Reform, because the bulk of the bills submitted were Reform. It's like any other lottery; if you have 17 out of the 20 tickets, chances are you're going to get 13 out of 15 drawn. That's just how it happens. I don't think it was a statistical fluke at all. The reality is that our guys had that many bills in.

Second, we do have a set of guidelines. There are 11 points we use to evaluate. The question was raised here that we should have them and I think all of the committee members were aware of that. I certainly was. However, I find it difficult because we do not have a consensus among all our committee members as to what weight each one of those categories bears.

For example, one of them is whether the government could deal with this in another way. Yes, it could, but would it? You immediately get into that political question. If you say it could, some of us might rate this particular submission as a zero and somebody else might rate it as a ten, if you had a scale of zero to ten, based on your political point of view. I don't think those are very good criteria to use. I just used that one as an example.

There's another thing I think we ought to do instead of demanding a consensus. It's a matter of just straight, pure, brutal lottery chance as to whether or not you get drawn out of the pot. Then why do we now suddenly have some sort of intellectual exercise to go through with those that are drawn? It seems to me if you're going to use chance, why not just use chance? Just draw them out of the barrel, and bingo, whichever gets drawn gets drawn.

I think as a committee we ought to draw up some criteria with weighting on them. Some would be all or nothing, obviously. If they don't pass these criteria they wouldn't be there. Others would be variable. The points would have different weighting. Some would be worth maybe five points and some would be worth maybe twenty.

I added another one for my own evaluation of whether it would generate interest in the House and among Canadians. Are Canadians interested in this particular topic? I used that as part of my evaluation, over and above the 11 criteria that were given.

The last concern I want to mention here is this. You have a bunch of bills, and if they're rejected now they will be out of the loop. It's very likely that some of the bills that are rejected on one draw are better than others that will be submitted in a future draw, and they can't be resubmitted.

We should really seriously look at that. Over the lifetime of the Parliament maybe we should build a large number of bills from which to draw. We shouldn't take them out of the loop if they didn't win the last time because they may be winners of the group that appears the next time.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Many of the issues that have been raised this morning are addressed in that private members' report I slaved over for months. I would respectfully request we do the review process and come back and look at it again, because much of what is being said here today we've already addressed. We've come up with what we think are reasonable solutions.

The other point I'd like to make is that in the previous government we had two Liberals, one Bloc and one Reform. This is the first time we've done it with four opposition party members and two Liberals, and it's been difficult. I thought we did a very good job. Madeleine would agree with me.

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I think we're going to have to give ourselves a little leeway here to find our way and see how this system is going to work, because it's a radically different system from what we had last time. The government is not weighting that committee by putting four Liberals on it. So far we have two Liberals there and four opposition members. You'll just have to be a little patient with that committee. We have a new chair, and I think the criticisms will be addressed in that report. With slight modifications I think we can come back with a better system.

The Chairman: Okay. The subcommittee has been asked to review that report. We've done that and it's in the memo. I would simply ask Mr. Charbonneau if the subcommittee can think about this question and come back to report to us.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Yes, certainly.

[English]

The Chairman: Is that okay?

Mr. Randy White: Is that item (b)?

The Chairman: That is item (b) now. It came in, Randy, because we dealt with the—

Mr. Randy White: So they're going to do that.

The Chairman: It came to item 1 and they're going to do it.

Mr. Ken Epp: Did you pick up what he said? We're talking here about the review of the committee and we said that item (b), which says we're going to come back with an attempt to get another votable item in—

The Chairman: Exactly. We've done agenda item 1, that they're going to review the report that Carolyn mentioned. Then I went back to the memo, and, Randy, you're referring to item (b). I picked up the memo so they would ask.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure.

The Chairman: Now we'll go on to this question of a subcommittee to deal with the sitting schedule of the House. You'll remember this was discussed again at our last meeting, and it was discussed at the steering committee meeting.

You have the motion before you. Mr. Kilger, would you care to read it into the record, please?

Mr. Bob Kilger: I would move that, pursuant to the committee's mandate under Standing Order 108(3)(a)(iii) in relation to the Standing Orders, procedure and practice in the House, a subcommittee be struck to review and report on the sitting schedule of the House of Commons, to develop recommendations for consideration by the committee; that the said committee be composed of...

The Chairman: Do we have any guide as to the number of members for a committee like this? Is it one from each party? I think that's what we have on the other subcommittee. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The formula used by the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business seems totally appropriate to me.

[English]

The Chairman: Okay. So that becomes six. It's two Liberals, including the chair, and one from each of the opposition parties. We clearly need the names here.

Mr. Ken Epp: Do we need the names right now, how soon they want to be on the committee...?

The Chairman: Okay. We agree the whips will submit names for this committee.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could we have the name of the chairman of the sub-committee right away?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If the committee agrees, you will take on the responsibility of chairing that.

The Chairman: Alright.

[English]

The suggestion is that Bob Kilger be the chair. We should actually change the form of this motion a little, because Bob moved the motion and I suspect he can't move that part of it. Is all this one motion?

Stéphane Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I will move it.

The Chairman: Stéphane Bergeron moves the motion

[English]

and that includes the fact that the chair of the committee will be Bob Kilger and it also includes the fact that there will be six members, two Liberals including the chair, and one from each party, and their names will be submitted by the whips.

We're continuing down, Stéphane, because I think it is all one motion here: that the subcommittee be granted the same powers as the committee and so on.

[Translation]

Is that okay?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I move that the sub-committee be granted the same powers as the committee has and enjoys pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)a), except the power to report directly to the House and that the sub-committee report to the committee no later than... Does our chairman have a suggestion to make?

• 1200

Mr. Bob Kilger: We could use the same date, that of the first meeting of December.

[English]

Motion agreed to

The Chairman: We go on to the third one, then. It deals with member services. Can we just look at this motion before someone moves it?

My understanding is that the chair of the committee in question, which reports by consensus from time to time to this committee, was a member of an opposition party the last time. We might give some thought to that. I assume the number would be the same as in the previous motion: six, including two Liberals.

I would like to repeat that. There would be one member from each party, plus the chair. That's slightly different from the last motion.

Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: And the chairman has to be a member of the opposition?

[English]

The Chairman: I don't think he has to be, but I think he was the last time.

[Translation]

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: That would be a good idea.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Would you allow me to propose the nomination of Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral to the chair?

The Chairman: Mr. Kilger, you have the floor.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Mr. Bergeron beat me to it. During the last Parliament, a member of the Bloc Québécois, as member of the official opposition, chaired the committee. I therefore nominate Mr. Randy White for chairman of the committee, with all due respect to Madeleine.

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I am sure that you like me anyway.

Some hon. members: Oh, Oh!

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I withdraw my proposal.

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I thought that there would be no mention of the parties in private members' business. It made sense to me.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We will be as chivalrous as usual and withdraw to give our seat to Randy.

[English]

The Chairman: Randy, are you willing to accept the nomination?

Mr. Randy White: Yes.

The Chairman: Are there any other nominations? We can deal with this all together. I assume the names will be submitted by the whips. It's going to be a member from each party, plus the chair—who is now Randy White. Would someone care to move this motion and read the appropriate parts? Chuck, would you go ahead?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I move that the subcommittee on members' services be struck, composed of six members to be named by the whips; that Randy White be appointed chair of the subcommittee; that the subcommittee be charged with carrying out the responsibilities of the committee under Standing Order 108(3)(a)(i) in relation to the provision of services and facilities to members; and that the subcommittee be granted the same powers as the committee has and enjoys pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), except for the power to report directly to the House.

Motion agreed to

Mr. Ken Epp: I have a question. We have one member from each party. Does that mean the Reform Party has Randy as chairman and then no other member?

The Chairman: No, another. You'll have two.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: You just talked yourself into a job there.

The Chairman: Good luck.

Can I proceed to other business?

Stéphane.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure that I understood the question and the answer that was just given. There is only one member of the Reform Party on the sub-committee?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: There are two Reform members on that committee?

The Chairman: That's right.

[English]

Let's go to other business.

You have received copies of a letter from Charles Caccia referring to the way in which the Speaker is elected, and a letter from Randy White. I think everyone can see that the second refers to various parts of the standing orders. I've discussed this with the staff, and it's my understanding that at some time in the new year, we have to have a debate in the House of Commons on the standing orders. We're required to do so. In these two letters we have aspects of that and it might be worth the committee's while—as someone said earlier, we have a lot on our plates—to do something about this.

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Does anyone have any thoughts about how we would handle either one or both of these items? I have some thoughts about it.

Would it be better if I said what I was thinking of, Randy? I'm looking particularly at you. What is your reaction?

Mr. Randy White: I recall that when we first came here in 1993-94 the whole committee went through the standing orders. It took a long time to do it.

But I'm not sure a subcommittee would really be the answer to this, because once you get the recommendations from the subcommittee to the main committee, it goes through another set of debates. We really might as well take the specific issues of standing order changes and debate them here.

The Chairman: One thought I had was that it has come to this debate in the House of Commons, so (a) we should do it because you referred it to us, and (b) we have to do something about it.

Because in this committee we meet for an hour or an hour and a half, I was wondering if we couldn't perhaps have a mixture of this and a sort of seminar or forum, which would really be intended for this committee but to which other people would come and at which we might have some expert witnesses—for example, past Speakers or authorities on standing orders or something like that. Those occasions would not be official meetings of this committee, but they would be designed for this committee and for some of our colleagues. As that gets going, we might then occasionally have a meeting of this committee, one of our typical hour-long—or an hour and a half—meetings, which would address the matter directly.

Again, I have no experience on how the committee operates. You do. I wonder what you think of that. This would happen before the debate required in the new year.

Mr. Randy White: I'm open to whatever is most efficient. I'm sure the other parties have concerns about certain aspects of standing orders. I just put in our list, which is about 20 points long.

The Chairman: You raise a number of points.

Colleagues, again, I don't think we have to absolutely decide it now, but we should follow that sort of course of action, I think, because my sense is that we have enough for the committees and we should get them going for a while before we start another one... Can we leave it at that? I'm sure Randy will raise it again and other colleagues will as well. Will we leave it at that? Can I go on to—

Mr. Randy White: So we'll bring this back.

The Chairman: We're going in that direction, and if I can get my thoughts together, perhaps you and I could talk -and we'll try to come up with some sort of decision.

Mr. Randy White: Sure.

The Chairman: Is that course of action okay? Can I get some nods around the table? Okay.

The third thing is a letter we have here. I'm sorry that we don't have copies of it yet, but I've only just received it. I did say that when I receive correspondence I will report it. It's from the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. It's with respect to room 237-C, and they have an argument about accessibility and things of this sort.

Here's my suggestion. I've received this—and it's a very plausible argument—so I will refer this to the whips. They can take this into consideration and perhaps report back to us on the room allocation matter.

Mr. Bob Kilger: There are other rooms. I'm sure we are all very sensitive in terms of access, but keep in mind that there are a number of rooms that lend themselves equally well and are appropriate for access for people with disabilities.

With regard to the other matter of room 237-C, it is one of the few resources we have that can also be used for televising committee work. There's a greater interest, I think, in this Parliament—which has grown out of the last Parliament—in televising more committee work. It's a very valid request. It will be given serious consideration. I'll be glad to discuss it with my colleague whips, and we'll certainly be very sensitive to the request being made as to whether 237-C remains the only option. Let me simply add that other rooms also lend themselves well to meeting the needs and requirements of this committee in particular.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'd like to add to Bob's comments. The argument they use in their letter certainly could be valid for some meetings that they have. Of course, the thing about that committee, which has changed, is that it has such a broad scope now that at times it'll be dealing with issues that specifically involve people who want access provisions when they deal with provisions for people with wheelchair access and so on. But let's face it, almost all of our committees are of interest to people in wheelchairs at times. So I agree with Bob. We can look at it but I think it may be very difficult to fulfil that.

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The Chairman: From the perspective of the chair, formally we're referring this now to the whips and all members will receive a copy in due course, as you do with all the correspondence that we receive. Okay?

The fourth item I have is the summary questionnaire on members' services, which we received as a committee and we all saw. Then we referred it to the commission that is looking into members' services and that has to report in the new year.

I did notice that there was an article about this in the Hill Times giving considerable detail about it, which of course is kind of an unfair commercial advantage to one outlet compared with others. And it seemed to me it would be appropriate simply to make that a public document, because it's not technically a public document at this time. Again, I take your guidance on it.

Mr. Mac Harb: When we filled out these forms, Mr. Chairman, we filled them out based on the confidentiality of this document. I don't think I would want to release it, but I would want to find out how one outlet ended up getting it.

I'm going to think 15 times next time before I fill out a questionnaire, because I don't know whether these people got the specific questionnaires that we filled out as individual members of Parliament and found out how we filled out those questionnaires.

So I'm not for releasing it. We'll follow through with it. We know there was a leak or that someone leaked it. I hope they leak forever until someone plugs them somehow. But I think we have to make sure we don't get ahead of ourselves. It's not a public document until we complete the study, so we can hand it over to the commission as a confidential document and they can deal with it, out of respect to our colleagues.

The Chairman: The commission has it and has had it, of course, for some time. It's just that the Hill Times now has it, Mac. It seems to me, by the way, that the question of confidentiality referred to the questionnaires and the names, and what you have here are summaries such as averages and totals and stuff like that.

Is there any other comment on this? I'm in your hands. Carolyn Parrish and then Chuck Strahl.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I think he just made a point. I haven't seen the Hill Times, but if we assume they have their hands on this blue-covered thing I think it's public now. I think it would be unfair not to put it out, because there are other MPs who haven't seen the results and they're reading it in the Hill Times.

So I think that makes it more difficult. I would be very concerned if they got the original surveys, but I doubt that could even be possible. Getting this document is probably not that difficult. But other MPs don't have what the Hill Times has. So that sounds a bit bizarre. I think at this time it should be released.

The Chairman: It's Chuck Strahl and then George Baker.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I share some of your concerns, Mac, about wanting to make sure that the individual reports aren't being leaked out. But I don't think that has happened. There is something about the format of that summary, which is, because of the nature especially of the last Parliament, when you summarize people by parties and you say the Reform Party said the following, the Liberals said this, the NDP said that and the Conservatives said this, you can say it's made in confidence but the summary... It was quite an eye opener to see it broken down by party, because then it starts getting into the politicizing of it.

If you just have averages, that is one thing. But when you produce a document and say the Reformers are very satisfied with their MOBs, it's those doggone Liberals who are the problem—if that's the summary, then it becomes a political thing. That was never meant to be. It was meant to be an averaging, which is that this is what we all collectively think. This is not a partisan effort. My concern when I read that document was the partisan nature of it. If you summarized the NDP in the last Parliament you can narrow it down to nine people.

An hon. member: Or two Tories.

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Mr. Chuck Strahl: Yes, it's pretty selective, and I was kind of surprised that the summary didn't reflect my concern for confidentiality, which was not that I'm afraid of the net results or overall averages but I was not pleased that it detailed per party. Then it starts to be a political document and not what it was supposed to be.

The Chairman: I deeply regret it's out there. That's my point.

I've been assured, by the way, Mac, that the original documents are still in a safe in the researcher's office.

George Baker.

Mr. George S. Baker (Gander—Grand Falls, Lib.): The only thing to keep in mind is that if you release it, then you start a whole...and everybody carries the news story right across the country. Now, if it's to our advantage, generally speaking, to have this out in the public domain...I mean, the Hill Times is hardly well distributed. It's not the Evening Telegram.

So that's the chief consideration. To use the argument Carolyn uses, that some MPs haven't seen it, why not send it to the MPs? Do you give it to all of the media in Canada?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I thought that's what we were talking about.

Mr. George S. Baker: Oh, is that what we're talking about? I'm sorry.

An hon member: I was told it was making this a public document.

Mr. George S. Baker: No, he's talking about making it a public document.

The Chairman: Thank you, George Baker.

Rey Pagtakhan, and then Randy White.

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I think at this point we should ask ourselves why we would be doing it confidentially to begin with. If our reasons for doing it confidentially are valid to begin with, then we cannot let a leakage be the instrument for it now to be made non-confidential; otherwise in the future all one will have to do is to leak a document to make sure it becomes public. Then we'll be caught.

So if our reasons for it to be confidential to begin with are valid and remain valid, then despite the leakage, such as it is, we should not proceed to make validity out of that leakage.

The Chairman: Randy White.

Mr. Randy White: Rey made my point exactly.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. John Richardson (Perth—Middlesex, Lib.): Could I ask one question? Chuck made a good point.

If there's going to be an apolitical approach, why in the name of goodness did we start putting party labels on it? Whose idea was it to make it a party label thing? It just makes for a labelling that could be contentious, and that's not what we want to do if it's to be a valid study.

Mr. Randy White: That shouldn't have happened. Individual members were thinking that it would be all confidential.

An hon. member: I put Tory on mine just to...you know.

The Chairman: So I'm assuming you don't think we should act on it at all. We leave it there, and that's where it's at.

Are there any other comments? Does anyone disagree with that? Then we're going to leave it.

John.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I believe it would helpful that the committee that's reviewing members' expenses and benefits and salary get a copy of it, if they haven't already.

The Chairman: John, we referred it to them, and that's how it flowed.

Mr. John Solomon: Secondly, I really don't think it's a problem if other MPs are aware that it's not that particular document, maybe an executive summary of it. I know the new members really don't have a perspective or understanding of what some of the problems are with respect to members' services and budgets, and I think it might be worth while to send an executive summary. If you're concerned about the political breakdown, we can delete that part of it, but maybe the general responses would be helpful.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I think that might be a good compromise. What John has proposed is that the only thing in the executive summary—

An hon. member: No parties.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Well, you need to be selective on your information. I only say that because when we deal with members' office budgets, all kinds of stuff, if that document is widely distributed, everything in there will be... If somebody proposes a $5,000 increase in some kind of budget, then they will say, okay, let me see, the NDP thought that was inadequate. So are you still unhappy about that, John? Then you guys thought it wasn't nearly enough, and then the Reformers thought this way.

The story will become the juxtaposition of the parties, and no matter what you agree on, it will be all referred back to that document. I would urge you to take that kind of stuff out of there.

The Chairman: An executive summary—

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: For the same reason, not even an executive summary. If you run this executive summary, to me the natural question would be is this summary actually...of the raw data from which it has come? If you are not able to provide me with the raw data, it will generate a lot more questions. So it is either pregnant or not pregnant; it is either to be released or not to be released. My position is for it to not be released at any forum. It might be creating a bad precedent for the future.

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The Chairman: Mac Harb.

Mr. Mac Harb: We made the submission to the commission. Your commission report eventually is going to be public anyway, so the data will be part of that report. They will take from the data whatever they feel is necessary. When we did the study, we were planning at one point in time to let the people know about the results of the questionnaire in one way or another. In my view, since we have made the submission already to the commission, leave it in the hands of the commission and do nothing.

The Chairman: And you realize that we did say in our submission that it is submitted as a confidential document.

Mr. Mac Harb: So I propose we do nothing.

The Chairman: Okay, do nothing.

Mr. John Solomon: Go with an executive summary.

The Chairman: An executive summary?

Mr. Ken Epp: Did you want a motion for us to do nothing?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: No, Ken. Thank you very much. I can manage that by myself.

I would remind you that it's a confidential document, but it might be worth our while to communicate with the commission again that it is a confidential document. The covering letter said that, so we'll do that.

The next item of business was yours, Randy. It had something to do with the transcript.

Mr. Randy White: They were all given that transcript.

The Chairman: I understand you're not comfortable with it, but I understand your point. It's a good one, and I appreciate that.

The next item we had was under other business. Chuck, you're comfortable with the way in which we're dealing with the chief electoral officer.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: The only point of clarification on that is that we are going to invite the chief electoral officer. To deal with his estimates, do we need a separate meeting? There's nothing in the supplementary.

The Chairman: There's nothing in there for the chief electoral officer.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Not on the supplementary. Do we want to invite him for the main estimates, or did he already appear before the last committee?

The Chairman: He appeared last spring, I'm told.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm not privy to your conversation.

The Chairman: He appeared last spring on the main estimates—

Mr. Jamie Robertson: And the committee reported back to the House on the estimates for the chief electoral officer without amendment.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: And there wasn't any supplementary in his? That's what I understood.

Mr. Jamie Robertson: No. We checked after the last steering committee meeting, and only the House of Commons had supplementary estimates. There's nothing in here for the chief electoral officer.

The Chairman: Bob Kilger, and then Randy White.

Mr. Bob Kilger: It's just a point of clarification, Mr. Chairman.

Earlier in our discussions on striking subcommittees, Randy was appointed chair of the subcommittee. We then said there would be two Reform members. On Monsieur Charbonneau's committee, he chairs it, and I think we have one more government member, not two. Is that correct? I'm just wondering, in terms of—

The Chairman: It's the same. It's the chair and one member, Bob.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: There's a total of six members.

Mr. Bob Kilger: All right, but there will be two Liberal members. You'll have seven, then.

The Chairman: My understanding was that we had one Liberal member.

Mr. Bob Kilger: One Liberal member on that committee? Oh, okay. I've got you now.

The Chairman: There's one from each party, plus the chair. The chair is from Reform, so they get two.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Okay, fair enough.

The Chairman: Randy.

Mr. Randy White: The main estimates were tabled in the House in October, were they not?

The Clerk: They were re-referred to various standing committees.

Mr. Randy White: Is your response, then, that the main estimates discussed at this committee were referring to last year's main estimates? I think Mr. Strahl was talking about the current main estimates.

Mr. Jamie Robertson: My understanding is that last spring, after the beginning of March—when the main estimates for the chief electoral officer were tabled in the House of Commons—they were referred to this committee's predecessor. It heard from both the chief electoral officer and the Speaker of the House of Commons, and reported both of them back to the House of Commons. The same main estimates have now been re-tabled because of the dissolution of Parliament. Those main estimates were never adopted by the House.

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An hon. member: No changes?

Mr. Jamie Robertson: There were no changes.

The Chairman: Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I only raised this because I realize there are no supplementaries. I realize that they were given back to the House. I only bring it up for the committee's consideration in that once it is tabled in the House we may want to talk to Mr. Kingsley about the election, about how much it cost and how it all turned out. When we talked to him last, back whenever it was in the previous committee, we dealt with his projections and his budget.

Now, there are no supplementaries, which means he's come in under budget, but there is an opportunity for the committee to consider his main estimates again. Even though they weren't changed, it is our right now to call him before the committee and deal with the estimates, if it's our collective will to do that, because they've been re-tabled in the House and have to be re-passed by the House.

I realize that we have talked to him, but it was pre-election. There is an opportunity here to talk to him post-election on the cost of the new system of electioneering. Part of that will be talked about at this meeting we already have scheduled, but if we want to get into the nuts and bolts of the dollars of it, I suggest we may want to call him back again. I don't know if there's the collective will to do that.

The Chairman: So it's a matter of the design of our meetings with Kingsley. I understand that. I'll think about it, okay?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay.

The Chairman: Does anyone have any other business? Mr. Strahl, one item of other business.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Did we deal with the business of supply? Did we deal with that, with the last order on your briefing paper?

The Chairman: Mrs. Catterall's briefing—is that the item you mean? It's on page 3 of the memo. Is that what you mean, Chuck?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm not sure—

The Chairman: Mrs. Catterall informed the chair she will provide a briefing for the committee on the report. A decision will then be made as to what further action will be required.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: We haven't dealt with that?

The Chairman: We dealt with it.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: She is going to provide a briefing—

The Chairman: The suggestion from the steering committee—Marlene wasn't here at that point—was that we have a specific meeting at which Marlene will brief us on the report of March 1997. A decision will then be made as to what further action will be required with respect to supply.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Right. Do we have a timetable for that?

The Chairman: Not yet. Do you have some ideas?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. I'm not sure what that means. I will do it—

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I will be happy to do it sooner rather than later, but I'll leave it to the chair to work out the scheduling.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay.

The Chairman: Sooner rather than later, is that what you're saying?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: When we briefly touched on it earlier, Marlene wasn't here.

The Chairman: Is there any other business?

We're adjourned to the call of the chair. Thank you very much.