SCAL Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON PARLIAMENTARY CALENDAR OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ DU CALENDRIER PARLEMENTAIRE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, February 26, 2001

• 0941

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)): In the absence of this committee having selected a chair, as the first one who arrived I took the most convenient chair, so here I am. You can kick me out if you want to, if I misbehave.

We're here to consider the parliamentary calendar. Our researcher has put together a paper for us. I thought the best thing to do would be to ask him to take us through it, not necessarily all the history but what are some of the issues that have been raised in this and previous parliaments that we might want to deal with. The question of Friday sittings was raised at our last meeting. There may have been others that I missed.

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): Very briefly, this briefing note was actually prepared for the subcommittee on the sittings of the House, which was established at the beginning of the last Parliament and chaired by Mr. Kilger. It had a couple of meetings with the clerk and considered primarily the issue of changing Friday sittings to some other use, or eliminating Friday sittings altogether.

The paper briefly explains the development of the current sitting schedule of the House, it looks at the practices in several provinces and other countries that have studied the issue, and it then gets into a general discussion of the options: basically, the four-day week, eliminating Friday sittings, and reallocating the time lost to other days, alternatively turning Friday into a special sitting day in terms of either dealing exclusively with private members' business or dealing with other matters such as special debates. Again, that would involve either rescheduling the business currently conducted on Fridays to other days or, alternatively, adding sitting weeks equivalent to the Fridays missed.

Those are the general issues that are being discussed. The Clerk of the House, at the time Mr. Marleau, did provide to that subcommittee various scenarios, some proposed weekly schedules. I did not circulate those for this meeting because we have a new clerk and until the subcommittee met it would seem better to get a general discussion before we get into the specifics. I'm sure Mr. Corbett and the table research people would be more than willing to come up with some proposed scenarios for dealing with elimination or changing the Friday sittings.

The other issue that arose in the last Parliament with respect to the calendar of the House was primarily the March school break. The concern that was expressed by various members is that the current break in March does not correspond to some or all school breaks. The current break is set on the House returning after the Christmas-January break. Depending on when Easter falls, the March break falls sort of in-between. That does not always correspond with the March school break.

We did some research a few years ago to ascertain when different school boards across the country hold their March school break. We are going to update that information at the request of Ms. Catterall. My recollection was that there was no consistency. Some provinces do it on a provincial basis; some of them delegate it to the school boards. In the school boards there is quite a discrepancy, either because different school boards have different priorities or, in some cases, in major urban centres, they prefer to have the school breaks spread over two or three weeks to avoid all the children being off at the same time, for purposes of day care, museums, and other things. Even within the province of Ontario there are significant differences in terms of when schools have their March break.

• 0945

However, this is something we can address. I think the March break, and how and when that fell, was the major issue that was raised in the last Parliament in terms of the calendar of the chamber.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Madam Chair, I have two general comments to make concerning what Mr. Robertson has just said. First, I want to emphasize once again the quality of the document prepared for us in 1997, which is still just as relevant today.

Of the two questions that concern us at this time, Friday sittings and the March break, I would say that the most problematical is the issue of Friday sittings. That is the matter we may have to spend more time on.

As for the March break, a solution had been proposed and considered. That proposal would be easy enough to implement, I believe. We could have a two-week break in March rather than a single week and begin the winter session one week earlier. Rather than beginning in very early February, we would begin at the end of January. I don't think this would cause too many problems for my colleagues and this calendar would cover a wider range of possibilities for the members from various provinces insofar as the March school break is concerned.

As far as I'm concerned, this problem seems easy enough to resolve. Unless certain things escape me, I think that this could be a feasible solution, one which would be easy enough to implement.

The other issue we are faced with, that of Friday sittings, is more complex. Of the five of us, I'm probably the only one who had the opportunity of working on the previous subcommittee and I am in a position to tell you that whatever scenario we chose, there are choices to be made, some of which are agonizing, as to the way of redistributing, over the year or weeks, the hours that would be lost on Fridays, should we decide to abolish Friday sittings. If we do not decide to eliminate Friday sittings but to change them, some things can be done more appropriately.

There are two schools of thought, and both of them can indeed be found in Mr. Robertson's document. There are those who think we should concentrate private members' business in a single day to avoid dispersion and a lack of cohesion in the debate and speeches, and to avoid having topics debated at impossible hours, early in the morning or at the very end of the day, when we no longer have the interest of the House, television viewers or the media. According to that school of thought, the fact of concentrating activities in a single day would mean that the debate would be more focussed, coherent, less dispersed, less scattered, and would benefit from more focussed attention from parliamentarians, the media and the general public.

On the other hand, the argument against that is that if we concentrate debate in a single day, there is a risk that members may be even less interested, and they could say that this is a day off for them, and not come at all. But we all know that the hours devoted to private members' business have a very low attendance rate in any case.

So, perhaps in the interest of a more coherent, more interesting debate which might draw more attention from the media, we should concentrate the hours devoted to private members' business in a single day, i.e. on Friday. At that time we could, so to speak, give the government the hours devoted to private members' business during the week to offset the hours of work lost on Friday to advance the government's legislative program.

• 0950

There is another possibility for Friday, if we want to get the media's attention, as well as that of members and the public in general. As we might lose question period if presence was not mandatory, we might consider distributing the minutes lost on Friday among the other days of the week, but we could also decide to create a special debate on Friday, which the previous procedure and House Affairs Committee referred to in 1993; at that time it was known as the Standing Committee on House Management.

This is mentioned in Mr. Robertson's document on pages 12 and 13. It refers to special subject debates during which, each week, particular issues could be dealt with in a more in-depth manner. They would also provide an opportunity to question certain ministers in a more systematic and more in-depth manner. There is an example of that in Canada, and I want to correct an impression left by Mr. Robertson's document. It says that the Quebec National Assembly does not sit on Mondays or Fridays, which is partly true since the National Assembly does sit on Friday, but it sits for a special debate known as "interpellation", during which questions are put to ministers.

During the previous Parliament, the Parliamentary Centre held a symposium on the parliamentary calendar which attracted a great deal of interest among my colleagues. An alternative to Friday sittings was sought. One of the ideas that was put forward by the Parliamentary Centre was indeed that of a special debate like the one held by the Quebec National Assembly on Fridays, which in part meets the wishes expressed in 1993 by the Standing Committee on House Management, which had referred to the possible introduction of a special debate.

If all the members of the committee wanted to do so, perhaps the five of us could go to Quebec, to the National Assembly, to sit in on one of these special debates and meet with a government member and an opposition member who could explain the ins and outs of their special debate sitting, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, so that we might develop some informed opinions on what we would have to gain, as a Parliament, from the introduction of such a formula into our parliamentary procedure.

I could discuss with some of the members of the National Assembly the possibility of allowing us to attend one of their special debates to give us a chance to see how things are done, and to discuss the desirability of integrating such a debate into our procedure.

That being said, some might say that such a change might bring about major consequences. Perhaps we could propose a year-long pilot project, an experimental project, in order to see how our colleagues and Parliament would adapt to this new reality. As Mr. Robertson pointed out about Australia and the United Kingdom, the imperatives our colleagues were dealing with in other British-inspired parliaments, in particular in the United Kingdom, were approximately the same as those we are grappling with here in Canada.

I think that the situation is even more serious in Canada. In the United Kingdom they introduced a four-day week, because their members have work to do in their constituencies, and their families increasingly require their presence. There is also the issue of travel. If the United Kingdom felt it was expedient to introduce a four-day week to facilitate travel in a country which is much smaller than Canada, then Canada should—all the more so—consider introducing a different work week. I'm not in favour of eliminating Friday sittings. I am in favour of changing Friday's sitting and the rest of the work week so as to provide greater flexibility to our colleagues on Friday.

These are two interesting proposals, the one concerning private members' business and the one concerning the special debate which could make up the core of our new Friday sitting. I think that it would be worthwhile to examine them and to make an interesting recommendation in that regard to our colleagues as a whole.

[English]

The Chair: There are some particular concerns of the government party, and it would be for whatever party was in government...but I'd rather hear from everybody else before I lay some of those on the table.

Rick, you're next.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): I think Stéphane has certainly laid out a lot of the pros and cons about the parliamentary calendar. I guess the first issue, Madam Chair, is the Friday sittings. I would like to know if the other parties and the other members particularly are prepared and have the political will to look at not sitting on a Friday. There's no sense going through this whole exercise on the pros and cons.... I think Mr. Robertson did an excellent job of his brief. However, if there is no political will there, then we're just spinning our wheels and wasting our time, quite frankly.

• 0955

I've canvassed my own caucus, although they haven't come back with their suggestions yet, but I think in general they would, as Stéphane has indicated, not support giving up the Friday sittings, for any number of reasons. I think they would like to be here. However, in saying that, there's a bit of hypocrisy there, because it's very difficult to get our people to come and sit on a Friday.

The Chair: They don't want us to be here on Friday when they're not.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Exactly. My preference would be to try to make Friday into a special sitting. If we talk about private members' business, then obviously those people who have private members' business and want to debate it, as Stéphane has indicated, would have an opportunity to have a full three hours at one time and could do the private members' business. However, the only downside to that is that as whips we would have to have sufficient numbers of our members in the House so that it is in fact seen as being productive. I would hate to have a private member speaking to some very important issues with only three or four people in the House.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's already the case anyway.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Well, then let's change it. Let's say there has to be a quorum. A quorum of twenty, by the way, is silly in itself, but we won't get into that detail. Let's say that if we do have the Friday sitting and it is for private members' business, then in fact each party will be responsible to have a certain number of members sitting in the House.

I think it's only courteous to the people who are debating the private members' business. To talk to three members in the House on a Friday is defeating its purpose as well. So I'd like to see Fridays, but I'd like to see it in a different fashion. Certainly private members' business is one option we could talk about.

Perhaps what we do is dispense with question period on Friday. Perhaps we don't have a question period on Friday and we just simply have four or five hours of private members' business and debate so that that in fact can be dealt with.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Or a special debate.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Or a special debate. Well, there was an emergency debate just recently, which the Speaker gave me the opportunity of putting forward, that went from seven until midnight. If that's in fact the case, we could run that on a Friday from ten o'clock until three o'clock in the afternoon, or two o'clock, so we could keep that emergency debate open. But again, there would have to be a real effort by all of us to make sure we have people in the House so that not only the emergency debate can go on, or the special debates or the private members' business, but, as I say, to at least be courteous to the members who are speaking so that they can have some sort of a response from the other parties.

If we want to get rid of Fridays, so be it, but we have to know that there's the will there to do it before we even go any further than possibly this meeting.

The Chair: Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Canadian Alliance): I'd like to hear what the government has to say.

The Chair: Yvon, did you have anything to say first?

Mr. John Reynolds: We can all debate whether we want to be here on Fridays or not, but if the government says no, we're going to stay Fridays, then we're going to stay Fridays.

The government House leader has indicated that he's going to come forward sometime, possibly even this week, with a recommendation for a special committee on parliamentary reform. If he's going to do that, really what we're doing is wasting our time here this morning, other than just maybe opening the discussion.

I'd love to see some changes. I'm like you. If you're going to do it, though, let's make sure we have more than three people here.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Madam Chair, can I just jump in? John has a great point. We sat at that House leaders' meeting. Unfortunately, you were not there, and that's not pointing fingers; I know you were someplace else. Mr. Boudria at the time suggested that he take over the parliamentary calendar and the changes to the House. It was my suggestion that he talk to you, because my preference would be that it stay at this table as opposed to going to a special committee developing some sort of a white paper, because then it gets lost. I'd like to hear your position on that.

John, thank you for bringing that up. I meant to mention that to the chair.

The Chair: Can I deal with the issues one by one?

One, on the March break, I think if we can give our members more opportunity to be with their families when children are on the March break, we should proceed with that. I've had my office look at the next four years to see how it would work out. Next year, frankly, is a problem. We'd virtually have to sit six weeks to get to a two-week March break, and then it would come just the week before what would normally be the Easter break.

So there are some practical things, and I think we might want to develop some rules that would leave the flexibility in the hands of the clerk to do it on a year-by-year basis. In the interim I think we might want to ask Jamie.... If we could solve this, it would enhance the personal and family life for so many of our members.

• 1000

We might want to ask Jamie to proceed with updating our information on when school breaks happen across the country. We'll never hit everybody, but if we can hit a large chunk of members, so much the better. As well, he could look at how it might work out. I think there is general agreement that if we come back a week earlier after the break, we want to work from that basis. That would be acceptable to everybody. In other words, the idea is not to lose any parliamentary time but to see if we can accommodate a two-week break in March. That might involve shortening the Easter break or, in some year, not even having one perhaps, except beyond the long weekend.

If they could look at the next four years and see how it would work, I think we'll have a better idea of what we can recommend. If possible, and there seems to be agreement about this, he could suggest what is the best way to do it procedurally—a change to the Standing Orders or a change that simply gives guidance or whatever. Let's dispose of that, and we'll hopefully have something concrete in front of us in a short time.

On shortening the parliamentary week, whether it's getting rid of Fridays or changing Fridays—and by the way, nobody has mentioned Mondays, but that's another possibility as well. The government's concern obviously is losing legislative time, and I don't know how we can get around that, frankly. You guys never want to have your opposition days on the short days of the week; you always want the long days of the week. We rely on Friday to get a fair bit of legislation through. That would be the main concern, frankly.

Are there changes we could make to accommodate what you're proposing without interfering with the government's business ability to get legislation through? Often Fridays, as you have probably noticed, are kept for less contentious bills. We will often get two or three bills through on a Friday, simply because they're not contentious.

Are there ways of accommodating that if we had either a modified Friday...? I think it would be fair to say that there wouldn't be a lot of support for just cancelling one day of the week. If we can deal with that prime concern of the government, which has to be its job—and in fact Parliament's job as well is not to unduly impede the government in carrying out its legislative agenda. If anybody has some suggestions on how that could be accommodated.... But given that all our procedures are by parliamentary days, losing one parliamentary day really curtails it. It cuts by 20% our ability to introduce and pass legislation.

John.

Mr. John Reynolds: I can understand that. As much as we probably have a number of members who would like to have a Friday so that they don't have to be here, so that they can work in their constituency.... I think if we look at moving private members' business to a Friday—not all Fridays but Friday, period—that gives the government those hours earlier in the week to keep up with the hours of government business.

I like the suggestion of Stéphane's on the interpellation. I'd love to go to Quebec and have a sit-down and see exactly what that means. Maybe there could be one or two of those a month, as well as one or two days for private members' business. The whips could then say, yes, we have to keep 20 guys here. Say you're in opposition. We have 66. We have to keep 20 here on Friday—maybe it's 15, whatever that number might be—and you're going to keep 4 to 12, and you're going to keep 10 out of 30, because it's private members' business and you want people here listening to that. We could make sure that votes were never held except on Tuesdays.

Interpellation would probably be...maybe it's a justice day, so our whole justice team would want to stay, and other people related to that. Everybody else could go home. You could plan your Friday so that certain people would have to be here. It would be a good working parliamentary day, and the government could make up all of their business earlier in the week with the hours we took from the private members' business.

The Chair: Just so we understand each other, it isn't the extra hours of debate. That doesn't help us one bit. It just means an extra hour of debate on the same bill. It doesn't help us at all in terms of the number of parliamentary days we have to deal with legislation.

In other words, we now have five days to introduce bills, five days in which to give notice of bills, and that sort of thing. In other words, moving private members' business to a Friday doesn't help us at all. We need to create an extra day.

• 1005

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I don't agree.

Mr. John Reynolds: But you could still have your opening of Parliament every day. You could still introduce a bill that morning. You can still do those types of procedures. We wouldn't be debating those bills that day, and yet you have the same number of hours.

The Chair: But we don't have the same number of days, and basically all of the rules of the House are based on days.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It doesn't change anything.

The Chair: It does. If you look at last week, we would not have gotten the two bills we got on Friday because we wouldn't have had the Friday for the introduction of bills and the debate of bills. We would simply have spent an extra hour every day debating the same bills we did.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: With your permission, Madam Chair, we will have to agree to disagree on that assessment. If we keep the same number of hours for government business, the government could very well during a longer day introduce two or even three bills rather than a single one. If it is understood at the outset that the first two bills of the day will be non-controversial ones, they would be brought in at the beginning of the day and the more controversial bill would then be introduced.

Before, you needed an hour and a half or two hours to pass two non-controversial bills. What would prevent you, given an hour and a half or two hours more a week, from passing these same two non-controversial bills? They will still be uncontroversial, and opposition parties will not want to have more members speak if the purpose is to pass these bills quickly and if everyone is in agreement to do so.

When this argument is raised, I am given to understand that the government shows bad faith or ill will. To my way of thinking, this is not a relevant argument. If the bill in uncontroversial, whether it is passed during the hour allotted to debate on Friday or during an additional hour devoted to debate on Tuesday, changes virtually nothing.

The only argument that could be relevant is the one you raised earlier, when you said that your problem is that you manage to pass bills on Friday because opposition days usually fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays, and if we extended those days, you would stand to gain nothing, if we kept those days as opposition days. It is an argument that must be considered by the opposition parties, but when we say that the government has one day less to pass its bills, period, that is not quite accurate. If the bill is uncontroversial, it would be introduced early in the day and passed quickly, and we could then move on to more controversial bills. The government would have the same number of hours to pass its bills.

[English]

The Chair: There are two parts of the argument, Stéphane, since we're trying to understand each other here. One is the number of times you have to give either 24 or 48 hours' notice. You'd have 20% less days in which to do that. So something that might come in during one week under the current calendar might have to be delayed until the next week or, if we have a longer break, until after the break.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, Marlene, but if those bills are not controversial we would get it by unanimous consent. You won't need that 24 or 48 hours' notice.

The Chair: But I ask you to look back over the last four weeks as well and see in fact what was in Parliament. Wouldn't we in fact have just had an extra hour of debate...? In other words, the government has no assurance under what you're proposing that there wouldn't simply be an extra hour of debate in the same day on the same bill. If you can find a way around that, there might be more sympathy for listening to what you're suggesting. If we had the EI bill, an extra hour of private members' time would not have been used for another bill. It simply would have been used for another hour of debate on the same bill.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It depends. If you introduce another bill at the beginning of the day, you might get rid of this bill in a very short time and then go on with the more controversial bill for the rest of the day.

The Chair: But you're asking the government to consider giving up a whole legislative day with no assurance that it could make that up in any other way throughout the week.

Put your minds to that and see if you can resolve that for me.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Indeed, there is no point staying here much longer because...

[English]

The Chair: Is the opposition prepared to give up one-fifth of its opposition days?

[Translation]

I doubt it.

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Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Well...

The Chair: Exactly.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The government wants to have its cake and eat it too.

[English]

The Chair: But you are suggesting that the government give up 20% of its legislative days.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I don't agree.

The Chair: Look over the last four weeks and see. That's the practicality of it. Is there another solution? Do we still end the legislative day at 5:30 and have an hour in which the government can start another bill? I don't know.

Mr. John Reynolds: If you're going to change Fridays and add hours—and you are, because you're taking the private members' business out between 5:30 and 6:30—you are going to sit until 6:30 on government business.

The Chair: That's right, but it would still be on the same bill, John.

Mr. John Reynolds: What stops you from passing that bill at four o'clock and going on to the next one?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Unless that's negotiated—and we don't want to talk about time allocation or closure—

The Chair: No.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: But the point is we could certainly negotiate on certain bills the length of time they're going to be debated, and if in fact—

The Chair: Right. We do that now.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: We do in most cases, except for those that are controversial, and then you bring in time allocation.

The Chair: That's when you guys have said “We're not going to let it pass, so you're going to have to use time allocation”.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do we want to think outside the box here? If you're just going to think exactly the way it is right now, then you're right, Stéphane, there's no sense being here. If you're going to think outside the box and try to get things so that they work better, then we have to negotiate or at least put down on paper some other options.

The option on the majority of non-controversial bills is that we simply put up a limited number of speakers so that we know what the timeline is going to be for those bills, and then we get on to the government's business for another bill, which can come in at five o'clock or six o'clock or be tabled at any point in time, and with limited debate. That's what we're talking about here, limiting the debate, limiting the number of people who are going to talk to it, and then getting on with business. If we're not prepared to look at that aspect of it, then we're wasting our time. We just go back to the way it is, and we look at time allocation on a regular basis.

With regard to time allocation—and this isn't chastising the government because you do it for a reason, and I'm not going to get into whether it's good or bad—the fact is that it seems to be almost a standard operating procedure now. If that's the case, then let's get out of the box and say forget that as being a standard operating procedure. It's still available to the government anytime they bloody well want to use it.

So let us, as five parties, now suggest there's going to be a more workable debate to legislation so that we can work the Friday into whatever else we want to work it into. If we don't have that political will among the five of us, then we're just spinning our wheels again. You're right, Stéphane.

Are we prepared to do that? John.

Mr. John Reynolds: Yes.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Are we prepared to get outside the box?

The Chair: I am. Are you prepared to occasionally have some of your opposition days on short days?

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Just a second. I would like to provide some input, too, if you don't mind.

The Chair: Sure. Yvon.

Mr. Yvon Godin: It's not just a four-way discussion.

The Chair: I didn't see your hand go up or I would have called on you long ago.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I put it up three times.

The Chair: My apologies.

Mr. Yvon Godin: The next time I will stand up. That way you will be able to see me, rather than just my hand.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: On the table.

Mr. Yvon Godin: And if I need to get on the table, I'll get on the table.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Don't fall off.

Mr. Yvon Godin: No. I used to be a miner.

[Translation]

First, my party is concerned because it is going to lose 20% of its questions. That is an aspect that involves question period. We have never hidden that aspect. In opposition, in the fourth row, we are entitled to two questions a day. If we lose Friday's question period, that means we lose 20% of our questioning time.

Moreover, even if we extended question period to offset the lost Friday question period, automatically, our turn would come around practically at the end of question period, which means that if the parties started shouting at one another and there were a lot of interruptions in the House of Commons, we might lose that third question even if it is allowed at some point during the week to offset that loss. That is one thing. I don't want to say that my party isn't willing to examine the calendar to find solutions, and so on. We don't want to close the door. I simply want to say that as far as we are concerned, for us, the loss of 20% of our questions is considerable.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: But you would have two additional questions per week, as well.

Mr. Yvon Godin: It might give us two more, but it would depend on... If it gives us two more questions with a guarantee that we really get them, if we have our two questions, that is fine. When a party has to ask questions at the last minute, it's not so bad if the party has, for instance, 10 questions to ask because all the media are still in the press gallery when it asks its first, its second and its third question, but when the third question...

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Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In any case, on Friday, there aren't very many reporters or ministers present.

Mr. Yvon Godin: That isn't the point. In spite of everything, asking questions on Friday has been very worthwhile for us. We have no complaints about Friday sittings. There are members who sometimes do not have the opportunity to ask questions during the week and they can do so on Friday. They have the opportunity of reading their press releases and they are raised before Parliament. I have to tell you that that is important.

The second thing I would like to say is that we should settle the matter of House leaders. Mr. Boudria wants to get involved and so do we. We can talk about it as long as we like this morning, if he decides otherwise of if he cannot convince the others that this committee should be the one to deal with it, I think that we will not get anywhere. We are also the ones who sit on the other committee. So I think that we should decide who deals with the matter and once that is settled we can then work on finding a solution.

The Chair: I would like to ask you if you're interested in Stéphane's suggestion about the "interpellation", the special subject debate. This is similar to what is done in the British Parliament, where the ministers are given notice of questions to be raised during a question period. It is like a special question period with a minister and a given topic, but after the first topic is dealt with, other issues can be raised, or something to that effect...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: No, the questions are always addressed to the same minister.

The Chair: The same minister.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It is the special subject debate. That is exactly the formula they have in Quebec.

The Chair: Yes, yes. This might possibly give the smaller parties more time.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I'm willing to examine all solutions. If Stéphane says that such and such a thing is done there, or if someone else says that something else is done somewhere else, I am open to going there to see what goes on. I am open to looking at that and to attempting to improve Parliament if there is room for improvement. This has just been raised, and I'm being asked if I am for it. Yes, I am open to looking at it; I am open to all suggestions.

Afterward, we will have to decide as a committee where the best course lies for Parliament and for the members, and consider everything. I'm not closing the door on anything. I'm simply saying that there are some problems that will have to be solved if we make changes and we will have to be flexible to resolve those problems, otherwise we are not part of the process. If we are part of the process and want to find solutions, everyone wants something, but in a negotiation, when you want to obtain something, you also have to be willing to give. That is part of negotiations.

There aren't very many of us and we have two questions a day, which isn't very much, but we still represent people from all over the country. Even if there are parties who have more members, we still have members in six provinces, which means that as an opposition party we are entitled to have our say. Canadians want us to have a voice in Parliament. We aren't willing to lose ground, that's for sure. We have to have a guarantee that we won't lose anything with this.

The Chair: That is also the government's position. The government doesn't want to lose anything. But if there is some way of accommodating both concerns...

Mr. Yvon Godin: That's it.

The Chair: ...that would be perfect.

[English]

Where do you want to leave this? I think you're asking what's the point of having any discussions if the government isn't open to any possibilities. You've told me what you want. You haven't offered me anything I need in order to sell this idea, if that's what you're in fact asking me to do.

Mr. John Reynolds: We've all indicated we want to cooperate. We realize there needs to be change. I think Boudria's idea of having a committee he would chair is a good one, because he is a government minister and he will obviously be able to sit there at the table and negotiate properly on behalf of the government. I think it's very important we get to that stage as quickly as possible. All of us would hope to some day be the government, so obviously we don't want the government to give up things we ourselves would want to have if we were there.

The Chair: That's good thinking, John.

Mr. John Reynolds: There are concerns I can understand, such as the smaller parties want to make sure their questions....

But I think the interpellation thing will be great on a Friday, because we could sort of treat them like opposition days to some degree and work together on how we're going to question the government. So there are some benefits there.

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I have to go to another meeting, but I suggest we advise Mr. Boudria that we're prepared to sit on this committee he's talking about putting together, and the sooner he does it the better.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Madam Chair, the debate has gone off on a bad tangent. You just presented things to us from a certain perspective; you said what you wanted to say to me, now let me tell you what we want. We aren't telling you what we want as opposition parties. We are telling you what individual members want, because they have, individually, a riding they must take care of. There is no day in the week that is allotted to constituency work. Individually, the members also have a family they must take care of, and generally, when they are in their ridings on weekends, they don't have any time for their family.

Individual members often come from very remote regions of Canada. Of course there is no problem insofar as you and Mr. Boudria are concerned; you are both close to Ottawa. In fact, your riding is in Ottawa. But for colleagues who come from British Columbia and Newfoundland, it is not easy to be here five days a week and to return to their riding for two days. It is not a demand opposition parties are making against the government; it is a request from all members of all political parties, including government members.

So I find that the direction the discussion is taking, which is that you take that, but you will have to give us this, and if we give you that... Of course, we will have to see what the impact will be on the government and on the opposition, but as political parties, why don't we try to think about the interest of our parliamentarians.

Of course, this does not concern Ontario, but we have to understand that throughout Canada, most of us represent ridings that are bigger than those of provincial members, that are geographically more widespread than those our colleagues from provincial legislatures represent. And we spend more time in Ottawa than they do in provincial legislatures. So, they represent fewer people and they are in their riding more often than we who represent more citizens in bigger ridings. We have less time to spend with our constituents. Increasingly, our constituents are asking us to take care of their affairs in the riding as well, and we don't have time to do so.

The parliamentarian's work should not be reduced only to what he does here in Ottawa. We also have a role to play in our constituencies and the government should be aware of that and not try to limit the topic simply to a matter of negotiations between the opposition and the government: I give you this, you give me that, and so on and so forth. That is not all that is at stake. At this time, we are trying to make you understand—and as government whip, you know this full well—that this is a need felt by the members of all political parties.

You can't present this to us here as though there were a monolithic position of the government against the opposition. There are members in your own political party who are pressing you to change the formula a bit in order to give all of us more flexibility, both to them and to us, as whips. I don't like...

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, give me a moment to reply, if you please.

[English]

You put some pretty strong opinions on the table. The whips here asked me what the concerns of the government are about this, and I told you what they are.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's all right.

[English]

The Chair: I have to be able to respond to those concerns or you have to be able to respond to those concerns if we are going to have a change in this.

I will take no lecture on being a local member. I'm in my constituency every night because I have no choice. I can't comfortably take time off in Ottawa and go out and have dinner with my colleagues.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Some say they wish you were—

The Chair: On the weekends I'm here doing government business because nobody else is in town to go to the national conferences. From the time I was elected I have worked five-day weeks to help out my colleagues who have to travel to their ridings. I also came into Parliament when there wasn't a one- or two-week break every three, four, or five weeks. So things have improved a lot.

I don't want to turn this into a personal thing, but if you ask me what the concerns of the government are, I'm going to tell you. It's not a question of blackmail, but it is a question of give and take here. The government has to be concerned. It is its responsibility to ask how we can continue to achieve our legislative agenda with a modified parliamentary calendar. So I'm asking you to address those questions.

Whether this eventually gets resolved through the House leaders' committee or is thrown back to us, these are the kinds of issues that do have to be resolved. I personally think there are some ways of resolving them.

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I put on the table what you ask me to put on the table, so don't then turn around and criticize me for it.

What I would suggest is that we ask Mr. Robertson to do what we have suggested in terms of the March break and improving that situation for members of Parliament.

I will report back to Mr. Boudria that if he is setting up a committee on parliamentary procedure, we think that's where the issue of the House sittings legitimately belongs, although I think it's going to get lost in a whole lot of other issues. That would be my concern

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That is why I would like the work to be pursued here. Otherwise, it will be lost.

The Chair: I'll discuss it with my House leader, and you can all discuss it with your House leaders. We'll be coming back to look at the March break issue right after the break, I presume. We'll have a second look at this, and if any of you have had any other thoughts on how we might accommodate each other, then that's what we can deal with at that time. If there is going to be a special committee set up to deal with parliamentary reform, if we have some useful suggestions to give them and we can all agree on it, that might be the quickest way to resolve some of these issues. Is that satisfactory?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I have a question.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Are the members interested in my making arrangements for an eventual visit to the National Assembly?

[English]

The Chair: John, are you interested in a visit to the National Assembly in Quebec?

Mr. John Reynolds: Yes.

[Translation]

The Chair: Certainly.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, yes.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

The meeting is adjourned.