HAFF 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]

Wednesday, June 6, 2001

• 1541

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): I call the meeting to order.

Colleagues, we are continuing our consideration of Bill S-10, an act that would create the position of parliamentary poet laureate.

Today, colleagues, we have a quorum sufficient for the purpose of hearing our evidence. You will recall that yesterday we had to adjourn early because of a problem with our translation in the sound system. We'll complete the gathering of our evidence, and we may or may not be able to get into clause-by-clause consideration today. We will just have to wait and see what happens in the House of Commons, which is now sitting in committee of the whole. This is not a procedure we're accustomed to.

Let's proceed now. We have with us Senator Jerry Grafstein, the original mover of the bill in the other place, and Marlene Jennings, the member of Parliament for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Could we begin where we left off—or perhaps shall we begin from the beginning? We can now confirm that we had no transcript recorded yesterday, so I think we should start from the beginning.

Ms. Jennings.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): As was the case yesterday, I would like to ask Senator Grafstein to speak first since he is the author, or creator, of this bill, so to speak. I am merely the bill's sponsor in the House. Therefore, I'd like to turn the floor over to Senator Grafstein.

[English]

Senator Jerahmiel S. Grafstein (Metro Toronto, Lib.): Thank you, Chairman.

Again, colleagues, thank you very much for your indulgence. I know that this is a very busy and hectic week, and I appreciate the time to address this committee.

I have a short essay to read and then I'm open to questions.

In the beginning, honourable chairman, was the word, and then came poetry. Poetry lies at the heart of creativity, at the heart of darkness and brightness. Yet how strange, in the government's recent substantive financial declaration, to reinforce the sinews of culture and fail to reference poetry. Why so? Why this oversight? Is it because poetry, which nourishes the deepest roots of culture, is not understood, or is it that the mention of poetry provokes fear—fear that its qualities are so delicate or sensitive it's easier to evade than to inspire?

Why does poetry provoke such skepticism and even scorn? Perhaps because poetry appears so accessible on the surface that it becomes the easy object of mirth.

• 1545

Poetry is both a transparent and a hidden art. An intense interest in poetry in Canada is vibrating beneath the media screen and cannot easily be covered by the electronic media.

Poetry requires quiet. Poetry requires depth. Poetry requires contemplation for comprehension. Stretched just below our vast cultural surface lies a rich, largely undiscovered vein of poetry in every aspect of our complex multicultural society—in French Canada, in Acadia, in English Quebec, in multilingual Ontario, reaching across the west from Winnipeg to Vancouver and in the east from Toronto to St. John's, in every language imaginable, from practically all the aboriginal tongues, from of course French, a long glorious history of French poetry in this country, English, to Mandarin and Cantonese, to Ukrainian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Czech, Norwegian, Finnish, Yiddish, Icelandic, Swedish, Japanese, and many more, all poetry sprouting through the crevices of our culture.

We have more published poets per capita in Canada than practically any place in the world. And we have a long, glorious history of poetry in Canada: Jacques Cartier, General Wolfe, and on the wall here, Papineau and Riel and Howe and Bourassa, all were poets. Our prime ministers, we are told, from Macdonald to Chrétien, read poetry for reflection. The British poet Blake, we are told, has been quoted more often in the English Parliament than even the Bible.

Honourable colleagues, I present for your consideration this minimalist bill to establish a parliamentary poet laureate, appointed for a two-year term by the speakers of the Commons and the Senate from three nominees selected by the heads of our major cultural institutions: the Library of Parliament, the National Library, the National Archives, the Canada Council, and the Commissioner of Official Languages.

In time, because of the two-year term, every sinew of our poetic culture will be promoted and published.

In Parliament, all we do here is take sovereign power and inject it into words. By the force of that sovereign power, your words, our words, Parliament's words are transformed into law that binds together our civil society. Yet Parliament can be accused of debasing the spoken word. If one debate, just one debate, rises to a higher level of literacy in each session of Parliament, this bill will have been justified. It can do more. It can inspire our youth to regain the respect and love for the spoken and the written word in this digital and amorphous era.

The duties of the parliamentary poet laureate are meant to be minimalist and self-defining. The poet, in effect, would decide the extent of his or her duties.

Randall Jarrell, a foremost American poet, a poetic historian, an American poet laureate himself, and an eminent critic of poetry, argues that the public sets up criteria to judge or condemn art. The criterion in the case of music, he says, is melody; in the case of painting, it is representation; and in the case of poetry, it is clarity. In each case, he points out, one single aspect has made the test of the complicated whole, and this rather surface method is singularly utilized by judges and critics to both degrade art and to diminish it.

Randall Jarrell argues that poetry requires having to perceive, enter into, and interpret words that yield new works of art. Simple criteria or principles allow critics to evade the complexity of poetry as an art form. In poetry, Jarrell argues, these pseudo critics overlook the telling details: the pronouns, the punctuation, the spaces, which subject goes with which verb. To savour poetry, Randall Jarrell argued, one needs an attitude—that is, a mixture of sharp intelligence and emotional empathy that is at once penetrating and generous. When we read a poem, he says, you are entering into a foreign country whose laws, language, and life are a kind of translation of your own. But to accept or reject because it is familiar is an equal mark of want of imagination.

Poetry teaches us to bind the power of the state to the wisdom and grace of the poet, who more often than not appears as an unsung prophet or a navigator on a roiling sea of change we encounter in the turbulence of every age.

Colleagues, I await your questions and hopefully your support for this most modest measure, which could have a larger impact than anyone here can simply imagine.

The Chair: Thank you, Senator.

Ms. Jennings, please.

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[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to summarize very briefly this bill and to tell you what the role of an official poet laureate would be.

As Senator Grafstein mentioned, the purpose of the bill is to formally create the position of Parliamentary Poet Laureate. The primary responsibility of the Parliamentary Poet Laureate would be to write poetry for use in Parliament on occasions of state; to sponsor poetry readings and to give advice to the Parliamentary Librarian regarding acquisitions which would enrich the Library's cultural holdings.

[English]

Mr. Chair, Senator Grafstein said it: great ideas start with a majority of one. In this case, the great idea was Senator Grafstein's. His is a modest proposal, but it could trigger a quiet literary revolution to increase awareness on the role of the poet and of poetry in our society.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now we go to questions. Monsieur Guimond.

[Translation]

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

Senator Grafstein, since yesterday's meeting had to be adjourned for reasons with which we are all familiar, I took it upon myself to carefully read through the proceedings of the Standing Senate on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, paying particular attention to certain passages. First of all, I'd like to know what motivated you to table a bill of this nature. Is the sole reason the fact that the British Parliament has had a poet laureate for over 400 years and that therefore we should have one as well? I'm curious as to what motivated you to take this initiative.

[English]

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: My motivation is supported by a poet laureate in England and also in the United States. So there's support for this idea, particularly in the United States, where the poet laureate is connected not to the government per se, but to the Library of Congress. That's why the idea here was to make this a parliamentary poet laureate, as opposed to something else. So there is historic support for it, but that wasn't the rationale.

The rationale was that I discovered some time ago that we have more published poets per capita in this country than practically anywhere in the world—more published poets, yet nobody knows, and they are practically unread. Why is that? Then you ask yourself the next question: Why isn't the written word or the spoken word as respected as it once was, before the electronic age? I came to the conclusion, after looking at a lot of studies, that the written and the spoken word have been lost to a great extent because now we get our information not from print. Our kids do not get their information from print; they get it from television. Some 75% to 85% of all information now is received and perceived through television. Essentially, we've lost a balance for the written and the spoken word. This very modest idea, in my view, will be a modest counterweight, enticing people to get interested.

Below the surface in Canada and in the United States—and although every once in a while you'll get a story in the press, it's not covered in the press—as almost a counter-revolution to the digital age, there is an interest in the spoken and the written word. So you find in Ottawa, in a couple of bars here, 200 or 300 people coming out once or twice a month to read poetry. By the way, this is a wild idea right across the United States—in San Francisco, in Chicago, in New York. It's not covered by the media, and it's not covered by the press, because the press don't know how to cover this. It's not like they are a singer. They don't know how to cover it, so they don't cover it, so we don't know about this. Yet it's there.

All this will do, I hope, will be to tap a rich vein of activity that exists and give it some prominence. What it will do for a poet laureate himself or herself will be to draw attention to his or her words.

• 1555

Quite frankly, this might hurt the passage of this bill, but I want to speak candidly to you. I read the Hansard very carefully. I read our own Hansard very carefully. Quite frankly, the level of debate in both the Senate and the House of Commons I think has fallen to an all-time low. I think a lot of this has to do with the media, because it's easier to do a 30-second clip than it is to make an intelligent 10-minute statement.

I think we owe it to ourselves as parliamentarians and we owe it to our public to try to elevate and be careful with our use of words. I think the poet laureate.... The essence of poetry is to be very careful with every word; every word counts. Around here, every word doesn't count, quite frankly, yet that's what we do: we spend our time turning words into laws.

My view is that if this is a very modest measuring stick about how we can each improve our public duties through the spoken and the written word, it will be well worth the money.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Senator Grafstein, I'm sure by now you've guessed that I am not overjoyed or overly enthusiastic about this bill. I know that some of my colleagues seated here at this table, or some of the people listening to our proceedings on the radio, because our proceedings are being broadcast, or some of the people who may read the committee transcripts will think that I am simply indulging in demagoguery, but let me assure you that that is not my intention in the least.

I'm simply saying that I question the advisability and usefulness of this expenditure, however modest. In your lengthy response, you mentioned three or four times that this was a “modest idea”. Obviously, there will be expenditures associated with the creation of this position. Your bill makes no mention of any remuneration. Would this be a volunteer position? Would there be related expenses in terms of staff, support and travel abroad? Nothing is free in this world. No doubt there will be costs associated with the creation of this position.

It's a fact that in Canada today, 1.5 million children live below the poverty line and leave for school without eating any breakfast. Maybe this represents a mere drop in the bucket, but if we combine all of these little expenses, perhaps we would have a large enough sum of money to do something positive for these children.

Therefore, I have some serious reservations about spending this money and about the principle behind this initiative. However, I'm not against poetry or various art forms. On the contrary, I was involved in theatre for five years and I am also a member of a choral group set to perform this weekend. I have a deep appreciation for the arts.

I beg to differ with your contention that a poet laureate will help to elevate the level of debate in the House. Unless this individual is capable of exercising a tremendous amount of influence over Members, like the Holy Spirit who interceded with the 12 apostles, as recounted in the scriptures, I rather doubt that this will happen. There are countless other ways we could enhance the role of members of this House.

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Guimond, the imagery of your prose certainly has caught the attention of all of us around the table.

Senator Grafstein wants to reply.

• 1600

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: I thank you for that. You've softened my original reaction to what you were saying, because you're a member of a choral group. My mother is a hundred years old, and she still goes to choir every week, which keeps her alert and alive and well. So I'm very impressed by anybody who attends choir groups as an inspirational method of keeping fresh.

This is a very modest bill. In the United Kingdom, the poet laureate is a member of the Queen's household. By the way, the present poet laureate in England, Andrew Motion, is a republican. He believes in the abolition of the monarchy, and he was named to the Queen's household as the poet laureate. He gets 5,000 pounds a year, plus he gets a case of claret, a case of wine, once only. That's his stipend.

In the United States, the poet laureate is attached to Congress through the Library of Congress and gets $30,000 a year.

When I say modest, this is really modest, because this would be less than a plumber, less than a school teacher, less than a mechanic, less than a dental assistant, less than a lot of junior staff in your office. I think it's a very modest bill. The office is already available in the library, so we're not setting up a new regime. The cost of travel in Canada.... I doubt it would entail any cost to travel in Canada. I think the overall cost is minimal in terms of what it could do in terms of promoting poetry, the written and spoken word in this country.

It's not just to inspire parliamentarians. Two or three weeks ago there was a picture in the Globe and Mail of the Prime Minister sitting at his home at 24 Sussex reading a book of French poetry. I didn't know until that moment that the Prime Minister was interested in poetry.

In my view, it is such a modest bill, and it's meant to be modest. It's not meant to have the trappings of bureaucracy; it's to be anti-bureaucratic. He or she will have an office here, and it will be for a short term.

The benefit to the poet laureate, quite frankly, will be that their published work.... I assume that nobody would be appointed to this position unless they were a well-recognized poet. There would be an inspirational push to their work.

I spoke to several poet laureates in the United States. The last one was Mr. Pinsky, who just stepped down in the United States. He was appointed for one year and continued his term. It wasn't the money; it was the fact that it gave him power to go into the classroom, to go across America, and to inspire people in poetry. The project he did for the millennium was magnificent: he went across the country and got a thousand people, from every walk of life, to read their favourite poem.

I hear you. I'm concerned about people who feel this is a heavy cost. I don't think cost is a question. For this modest cost, I think we can do wonders. We're going to spend half a billion dollars for culture in this country, and not a five-cent piece for poetry. Half a billion. It strikes me that this modest counterweight, which will be very well received in every classroom in your riding, every classroom in this country, is a modest gesture to restore some sort of equilibrium between the electronic word and the written word.

The Chair: Ms. Lill has some questions, and then Monsieur Asselin.

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you.

I would like to thank you so much for coming before the committee.

I would like to give my endorsement to this bill, because I think it does what you say it's going to do in terms of bringing attention to the beauty of the spoken word and the value of the spoken word.

I guess I see some commonality between the jobs of the member of Parliament and the poet: we're communicators. We are trying to bring the hopes and dreams and the reality of the lives of people from across the country into this place, and communicate those realities to one another.

To me, poetry is all about the human condition: a person sitting in a quiet room or on a subway or wherever, penning that same kind of human condition and bringing that to people's attention and letting us reflect on one another's human condition. So it's all wonderfully interconnected and I think it's a wonderful idea.

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I must say that when the bill came out I thought this was something whose time had come. It certainly has come in other countries around the world. It's an idea that has elegance and eloquence and it will put us in very fine stead internationally, as a country that has a fine appreciation of culture.

I think some of my questions have been answered. I guess I was going to ask you the cost, but really it sounds like we're talking about an honorarium that is quite minuscule. It sounds like it's under $15,000, even.

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: Well, in the United States it's $30,000, but again it's minimalist.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Okay.

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: It's more an honorarium than it is a payment.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Right.

I've gone through these questions on this sheet, and most of them are answered. It's a two-year period....

I like the selection process. The people who would be involved in the selection are widely respected in all of the different cultural institutions.

I don't have questions. I guess I just wanted to give my support and say that it looks complete.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Lill.

Monsieur Asselin.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin (Charlevoix, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator, I'm somewhat surprised to see this kind of legislation before the House of Commons given that we members were not elected to dream or to meditate. I think we've moved beyond the meditation stage. Now is the time for action, at least in the House of Commons.

Senator, I'm totally opposed to this bill. In my opinion, it is utterly frivolous. The Senate may have time to waste on consideration of this initiative, but let me say that in the public's mind, once again the Senate will be looked upon as consisting of a bunch of dreamers who meditate on things to pass the time.

As Members of Parliament, we need to act and by that I mean we need to address many issues, including cuts to social services, violence against women, poverty, as my colleague Mr. Guimond mentioned, the shortage of social housing for low-income families, the rate of unemployment which continues to grow even as the government dips into the EI fund surplus, alarming school dropout rates and education and health care systems seriously weakened by cuts to provincial transfer payments.

If I were to support such a bill, I would be going against my basic responsibilities as a Member. I can't see myself appointing an intellectual to write poetry or songs or even speeches which in all likelihood will be drafted by his secretary when he lacks the time to write them himself.

I don't want the debate to get sidetracked or for you to respond only to my latter comments. Bloc members have other priorities. Even though we're talking about a modest budget, every single penny spent on this initiative would be wasted. We should be focusing our attention on priorities such as violence against women, poverty, social housing, unemployment, school dropouts, health and education.

I've also read the Senator's paper and the proceedings. The bill is already dead on the Order Paper. I hope it will not make it past the third reading stage. You can be assured that I will speak out publicly against it. I won't resort to poetry when I speak out in my riding against the money and time wasted by the Senate and House of Commons on the passage of this kind of legislation.

That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: You didn't have a question, Monsieur Asselin? You did not have a question for the senator?

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: They were excellent comments and I trust my message got across to people. I can only hope that after listening to what I had to say about how the average person on the street thinks, you will decide to withdraw your bill.

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[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Asselin, perhaps we'll take your statement as rhetorical.

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: No, no, I'd like to respond, just briefly.

First of all, I agree with him, in part. I agree that the educational system is underfinanced, not properly attended to. The question is, how do you inspire children to read or write? How were you inspired to read or write? For me, poetry was a very important part of that learning curve and that process. So to my mind, if we're interested in the education of our children, if we want to teach them how to read and write and have respect for the written word, respect for poetry lies at the very core and the very heart of what they do. And the kids do it today. What do they enjoy? They enjoy the lyrics of the great songwriters of Canada, which is poetry in a different form.

So I agree with you. I think we have to spend more time and attention to education. The question is, how do we do it cost-effectively? I think this is a cost-effective measure to inspire a higher and different level of education.

Now, as to support in your province, the press reports have been overwhelmingly in favour of this. Across the country, particularly in Alberta and British Columbia, they raise exactly the same issue that you raised on radio phone-in shows—and I've done a number of them. That was a problem. That is, when there's a poor mother, how can you afford a $30,000 bill for something? How can you do that, as a parliamentarian? But if you listen to all the other questions and answers, while that was a view, it was a minority view. The overwhelming support on cross-Canada check-up in Alberta, in British Columbia, in Ontario, and in Quebec is support for this particular measure.

So I don't think we're being irresponsible or foolish. I think we're doing something that's really smart and sharp. We're doing something that's cost-effective and that can have a much wider impact right across the country. And I think it can bring our cultures together.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): As a former English teacher, my first reaction to it was it's kind of frivolous. But while you were talking, I was thinking back to when I got to the poetry unit in grade 12. What I did was I put on Simon and Garfunkel records and I had the ballads all typed out and the kids went, “Oh, this isn't poetry, this is music”. I said, “No, it's actually poetry”. So you get them used to that and then you take them into D.H. Lawrence and talk about snakes and they just had a great old time with it.

One of the things I find in my riding, which is very multicultural, is that particularly people from Southeast Asia come with full cultural stockpiles of poetry with them. I think they kind of find us barbaric.

If this gives us a start in speaking metaphorically and speaking with a little bit more flow to our styling.... I'm not the best speaker in the world, but I find kids today kind of grunt sentences out at you, even the really bright kids. I think we have to put poetry back into people's lives, and I think we have to hold up our own with the immigrant groups coming in, because I think they think we're barbarians—I really do.

So congratulations, you've swung me around. I walked in here with a bunch of stuff to sign, and I thought here's goes Jerry, and I'll listen politely, but you got me. I'll vote for it.

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein: Could I just tell you one anecdote? And this is to my colleague from Quebec.

I was born in London, Ontario. About 60 miles away was Brantford. The Six Nations were there, and, quite frankly, it could have been a different world. I didn't even know it existed, and it was only 60 miles away. It was right on the highway between London and Toronto. I had relatives in Toronto, and we used to travel back and forth, and there was Brantford and I just didn't know.

Then in grade 10 we studied Pauline Johnson. Pauline Johnson was born in Brantford, of aboriginal background. Before the First World War Pauline Johnson was a huge star in Canada and in Europe. She travelled around to read her poetry. And that's the first glimpse I had of even knowing there was an aboriginal community 60 miles away from my home. After that I visited there, and I became familiar with it, and so on.

As we just heard, it's a tremendous cross-cultural experience. You get involved in another person's culture and you get interested and it draws you in. It is, as Gérard says, a foreign country. It draws you into something you just don't know. And you're not aware of it.

I can tell you, as a learning tool, it taught me all about the aboriginal community. And I learned that when I was 12 or 14 years old. I spent time there and I came to see what this country was all about. That was 60 miles away from my home. All this was through the poetry of Pauline Johnson.

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The Chair: Colleagues, if there is no further discussion, I would point out that at this juncture we would normally entertain the move to clause-by-clause consideration. For reasons explained earlier, we're not in a position to do that, regrettably. So we will schedule the clause-by-clause consideration for the very next available opportunity. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will be meeting tomorrow, but the witnesses are the Speaker and the Sergeant-at-Arms, I believe, on planning and priorities.

Is that correct, Mr. Clerk?

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes, and the Clerk of the House as well.

The Chair: So I don't think we're going to have an opportunity tomorrow, but we may. We'll collaborate around the table and see when we can do this. It appears as well that the House will be continuing in session into next week. It appears that we may well have our usual Tuesday meeting opportunity. So it looks like we have lots of opportunity here to complete the clause-by-clause.

Having said that, if there are no further interventions, questions, or points of order, we will adjourn.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I have a question, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: We have a question. Ms. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Do we have a motion tomorrow from Mr. Fontana to reverse a motion of last week?

The Chair: Mr. Fontana has apparently shopped around.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Stacked the deck?

The Chair: No. Mr. Fontana and others believe we should be gathering together information about electronic voting and preparing a report for that purpose for consideration of this committee in the fall, however it is constituted.

As I understand Mr. Fontana's draft motion, it isn't intended to trigger the actual acquisition of electronic voting but rather to commence the gathering together of a report on specifics.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I have faith that the chairman is ever vigilant on these matters.

The Chair: All right. So having said that, we may now adjourn.