:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks everyone.
I will be making my presentation in English, but I am certainly prepared to answer any questions in French.
[English]
I'd like to thank you all for inviting me. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to address this committee, and I'm very pleased that the government has decided to move forward in this area.
I think some of you are familiar with the paper I did. It has been referred to. I've looked at the transcripts of some of your previous discussions, so to the extent that I have influenced progress in this area, I'm very pleased.
Obviously I can't deal with the entire issue in five minutes. I hope we have enough time during the give-and-take for other more specific aspects to be raised.
From what I've seen of the discussion and from what I've read of the background papers, my feeling is that some aspect, perhaps the wider aspect, hasn't been given the attention it deserves. Too much attention has been given to the technical constitutional aspect. The real reason why fixed elections are a good idea has disappeared in this discussion, and I'm going to try to emphasize that.
I'm not a constitutionalist. My specialty is comparative politics, looking at institutions and how they work in various countries, including this country, where I teach every year. I come at this from that perspective.
My general feeling is that the Constitution has been used to unnecessarily narrow the proposal both in its content and also in the way it has been presented and discussed. To some extent, at least, the real reason behind moving toward fixed election dates hasn't been given the attention it's due.
I realize there is a constitutional aspect. Some people argue that in order to do anything more than what's in the current bill could require a constitutional amendment. My suspicion is that that's not the case. We've seen movements in Westminster systems—in Canadian provinces, in four Australian states, and in the assemblies of Scotland and Wales.
Frankly, I don't see the need for the escape clause that has been put right at the beginning of this bill, namely that nothing shall affect the powers of the Governor General, which has been interpreted as allowing the Prime Minister, even in a majority situation, to call an election if he or she so chooses. The only constraints, therefore, are not written constraints. But the fact is that since there is an official normal election date in the law, this would place a greater constraint on the ability of a majority Prime Minister to act.
My feeling is that the law should be very explicit about these constraints so that the Prime Minister in question will be more bound by them, and also because it sends out a very important message to the people. Obviously a minority government normally presents unusual circumstances. In a majority government, the normal case is that the election will take place as set by law, and only in unusual or exceptional circumstances could it be otherwise. The law has to be extremely clear on this.
The point I want to make—and this is a very general one—is that the discussion has so much focused on, in Parliament, the concerns of parliamentarians. Elections should not be focused on the concerns of parliamentarians. They should be focused on the concerns of voters.
The basic idea of fixed election dates—and that's why we have them in most countries like Canada—is that the normal voter or anybody involved with the election—journalists, potential candidates, civic education teachers, anybody interested in getting people interested and involved in the electoral process—is able to do so under very simple and clear conditions that cannot be manipulated by politicians. That's the whole principle. The election belongs to the people. One, it should be clear that way, and two, people shouldn't think otherwise. We know how powerful cynicism is about politics, about partisanship getting in the way of what politics should be about, and we shouldn't invite that unnecessarily.
I would argue that the government is taking a step in the right direction. It's moving by certainly announcing that there will be a fixed election on a given date. But the law should be much more explicit in terms of sending out a message to Canadians that this is the normal way we will proceed: under normal circumstances, you can count on elections taking place on this date, and no one is going to change that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to read my initial comments to facilitate the translation process at this point. I will try to keep my comments brief, to the point, and touch on the three areas I was told the committee wished especially to hear about. I look forward to more detailed discussions with your questions.
In my view, the bill largely preserves the status quo ante, with the major exception of shortening the maximum life of a parliament to four years. As with the three provincial measures dealing with the same subject, Bill sets a maximum life of four years for the legislature, while explicitly preserving the Governor General’s power of dissolution.
Legally the Governor General’s power of dissolution must be exercised in tandem with the Prime Minister. Both the proclamation issued under the royal prerogative to dissolve Parliament and the actual election writs issued under the Canada Elections Act must be done by and with the advice of the Prime Minister. As I can explain in detail later, the law gives the Governor General the upper hand in this process, while convention ensures that the Prime Minister usually, but not always, is the actual decision-maker.
The decision to dissolve Parliament is normally made by the Prime Minister, and the Governor General must act on his or her advice to sign the proclamations and writs. However, constitutional conventions also provide the Governor General with the power, in certain circumstances, to refuse the Prime Minister’s dissolution advice. This refusal is most widely supported for a minority situation where an alternative government could be formed by another Prime Minister.
In theory too, the Governor General may personally decide that Parliament should be dissolved and demand that the Prime Minister comply. However, this would be very controversial, indeed, and it could only be considered in the most drastic of circumstances, such as when Parliament is paralyzed and apparently beyond the control of a cabinet determined to cling to power.
In its current form, Bill neither alters nor is directly affected by the confidence convention. I can briefly summarize a difficult topic by noting that modern constitutional authorities generally agree on three types of votes involving a test of confidence. These various confidence votes can be grouped into three broad categories. The first two are relatively unambiguous.
The first is any otherwise ordinary motion that the government has designated in advance to be a matter of confidence.
The second group of confidence votes relates to motions to approve broad government policy, and defeats on these motions clearly demonstrate lost confidence. These votes include the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne and the main budget motions. Most commentators also include the main budget implementation and supply bills in this category, which involve confidence, but we should note that other money bills do not.
The third set of confidence votes are the problematic group, occurring on motions worded to convey a lack of confidence in, or the serious censure of, the government or members of cabinet. The key for categorizing either stand-alone motions or amendments as confidence votes must inherently hinge on their wording. The problem is just what wording makes a motion a test of confidence.
Some examples are unmistakably clear, such as the one that precipitated the last election: “That this House has lost confidence in the government.” But a review of motions over the past century reveals that motions with much more varied and convoluted wording have been considered tests of confidence. As a result, motions become tests of confidence because their wording conveys a loss of confidence, a condemnation of the government, a call for resignations, or a declaration that the government is not fit, or has no right, to hold office.
Constitutional conventions have a limited legal status, but the courts have made use of them in various contexts. There are a few possible ways in which conventions might arise in judicial consideration of Bill 's current provisions, and I do not believe judicial consideration of conventions will significantly alter the bill’s current provisions.
However, the courts would be called upon to adjudicate the confidence convention if the bill were amended or a constitutional amendment proposed to prevent premature dissolutions, except when a government has lost confidence. In my view, this is highly undesirable for two reasons: one, the confidence convention currently has vital flexibility and room for evolution; and two, a confidence vote is a supremely political act that should not be subject to either judicial interpretation or enforcement.
Currently, the Governor General is the ultimate enforcer of the confidence convention. Although she is an appointed official, convention requires that either the current Prime Minister accepts political responsibility for her actions, or a new Prime Minister is appointed who will.
On the constitutional issue, it's not a question of if it is possible in our parliamentary system but it's a question of which process should be used. And in my view, the current provisions of Bill are achievable through ordinary legislation, but constitutional amendment may be needed to achieve its supposed objective of precluding early election calls not resulting from a loss of confidence. Amendment may well be required in the latter case, because changes substantially affecting the Office of the Governor General require a unanimous amending formula.
On a more optimistic note, the proliferation of similar legislative measures at the provincial level may raise citizen expectations for majority governments to last the full years. In B.C., for example, common discussions of elections are already premised on the belief that four-year cycles are required. Ironically, this proposed legislation may best achieve the government's stated objective by generating a new constitutional convention to limit a Prime Minister's election options.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me.
I am familiar with Bill and the debates that took place in the House of Commons at second reading on September 18 and 19.
I will be making my presentation in French.
[English]
I can make an audible noise in English, enough to teach in an American university, so I'm willing to answer your questions in either language.
[Translation]
In the debate of which I am aware, I believe I was able to discern a reasonable consensus among the participants with respect to the nature and scope of the legislation. It is commonly referred to as the fixed election date bill, but everyone seems to clearly understand that in reality, the election calendar will not be as definitive as it is for our neighbours to the South, for example.
To paraphrase Mackenzie King, what Bill offers us are elections at fixed dates, to the greatest extent possible, but probably at dates that are not fixed. The Prime Minister will still be able to ask the Governor General to hold an early election, and not only if the government loses the confidence of the House. This is an interesting compromise.
A totally rigid election calendar is extremely rare in parliamentary systems. In that regard, among sovereign countries, Norway is the exception that confirms the rule. However, it is common to restrict the right to dissolve Parliament. In practice, election dates are more predictable under other parliamentary systems than in Canada.
That being the case, the temptation is great to suggest that Bill will change nothing; however, giving into that temptation would be a mistake. With this bill, a prime minister will not be able to request and secure the dissolution of Parliament as easily as before. In that context, it will be much more difficult to call an election simply to make it easier for a government to be re-elected. But one should not underestimate the climate, and thus a potentially negative public reaction to that kind of decision. It would definitely be starting off on the wrong foot for a prime minister to have to spend the first week of an election campaign responding to accusations of political opportunism, or even of having broken the law.
So, I endorse this bill. I must say that some of the arguments made in support of this legislation are not as convincing as others, but in my view, the strongest argument relates to equity. Giving a party leader the privilege of choosing the date of the next election, without any guidelines, gives that party an exclusive advantage, which may be a less decisive factor that some may say or believe. In my opinion, the general thrust of the Elections Act is clearly to put all the players on the same footing. That is an argument we hear over and over again in the debate and there is a good reason for that: it's a valid argument.
Where I did get the sense that there is a difference of opinion among MPs was with respect to the desire of some to take advantage of this bill to explicitly set out in legislation, and perhaps even in the Constitution, the conventions governing responsible government. As far as that goes, I'd say that it's quite a nice idea, but I don't see it as being urgent.
There has been a tendency to do that in Continental Europe. In France, they call it “rationalized parliamentary government”. It's clear and has more of an educational thrust. You have a short paragraph laying out exactly when a government is defeated and when it is not. I'd say that our practice in this area, which for the last century and a half has been to rely on conventions that I personally am quite familiar with, having studied parliamentary tradition, has served us quite well. There have been some ambiguous cases. Mention has been made of the May 2005 vote, but as you know, the debate did not last long. Ultimately, the House of Commons clearly reaffirmed its position. The lesson I draw from the May 2005 episode is that technicalities do not allow a government to prolong its existence indefinitely.
The other idea that has come forward is that some would like to amend one of the existing conventions by abolishing the prime minister's power to make any issue a matter of confidence. Let's just clarify what we're talking about here. This refers to a situation where a prime minister says to members of Parliament: “You may not like every detail of the measure I am proposing but, in my subjective opinion, it is fundamental. So, I am going to put you in the position of having to either accept or refuse; I am putting my head on the block. If you reject this measure, I will consider that I have lost your confidence and will advise accordingly. ” That is what happens when a prime minister asks for a vote of confidence. Some would like to see that abolished.
I do not agree. This practice is a feature of pretty well every parliamentary system, and there is a very important reason for that, which has to do with the very nature of the parliamentary system. A parliamentary system is not just one based on a legislative assembly of parliamentarians where the government does nothing more than fulfill the will of the House of Commons. Under a parliamentary system, what is known as the Executive does not just carry out orders. The strength of the parliamentary system is tied to the government's ability to show leadership, subject to the House of Commons' power to defeat it and the ultimate power of the electorate to arbitrate a fundamental disagreement that may have arisen between the government and Parliament.
Basically, Mr. Chairman, I endorse this bill both because it reduces the possibility of a prime minister abusing his power to dissolve the House of Commons, and because it maintains that power while at the same time increasing the chances that it will be used more appropriately.
In closing, I would just say that it is quite rare for a government to propose an institutional measure that it does not benefit from in one way or another. Now that this opportunity has arisen, I believe you should take full advantage of it.
Thank you.
Welcome, witnesses. Thank you very much for making yourselves available to us, one in person and two in different time zones.
Professor Milner, on behalf of all of us, I'd like to thank you for your very insightful paper for the Institute for Research on Public Policy. It has given us a great grounding and framework by which to discuss this important project. I think you're right in your reading of both our discussions in this committee and in the House, that there is general agreement that going to a more fixed system is a good thing.
I'd like to just raise a few issues for each of you, with reference to points that each of you have made.
I hope I haven't misunderstood you, Professor Milner, but you've suggested that we need to be explicit about the constraints on the right of the Prime Minister to request a dissolution, and only in exceptional circumstances—I think you used the word “exceptional”—should that be permitted in a majority government. If I could just leave those “exceptional circumstances” for a moment, I would look to Professor Heard's comment that this bill in front of us does really nothing in terms of convention other than to shorten the maximum length of a parliament.
Then I go to Professor Massicotte's reflection that in fact, as a matter of equity, this is a good thing—that's the key reason—but also, when there was a majority government, it would be seen as an act of electoral opportunism. Therefore, there would be a sufficient constraint against a Prime Minister seeking a dissolution in a majority situation.
My question is this generally. If it's only in “exceptional circumstances”, how do we define them? If we define them or however we define them more explicitly in the bill, do we then keep the courts out in the situation of Professor Heard's third situation? And I agree with him that it's wise to try to keep the courts out of parliamentary issues of this sort.
The final question is on the equity position that has been mentioned by Professor Massicotte. There's equity between parties, yes, but there's also an issue of equity within a party, which I wouldn't mind your reaction to. The Prime Minister, as leader of that party, may actually threaten to dissolve Parliament and call an election, threaten his own caucus with such an action, in order to block any attempt to overthrow his leadership. I wouldn't mind the experience of any of you with that sort of situation.
:
There are two points I'd like to address on the issue of exceptional circumstances.
Should you try to specify in a constitutional provision or in legislation when exactly and in what kinds of circumstances an early election could be called? Henry has mentioned the experience of Germany. I'm glad he did, because I happen to know that experience very well .
The Germans in 1949 had a negative prejudice against dissolution--the constitution signers. The constitution makers in 1949 had a negative view of dissolution because of the way it had been used during the previous republic and so on. They created not only federally, but in the various Länder, a setting where elections would occur at very predictable dates unless it were very necessary to call an early election. And they made that very difficult .
Three early elections have been held since 1949. The three circumstances were utterly different. In 1972 it was because the majority of Chancellor Brandt was slipping away and he decided to clear the skies and to call the election early by engineering his own defeat, which was not a very elegant way of getting what he wanted.
The second case occurred 11 years later after a motion had toppled Chancellor Schmidt and put Mr. Kohl in place. Mr. Kohl, having acceded to power without a vote of the population, thought it fit that the people have an opportunity to pronounce on the issue, so again, he engineered his own defeat, which, incidentally, caused a constitutional challenge through the German Constitutional Court.
The third case occurred very recently. I'm sure it's fresh in your minds if you have an interest in German news. The chancellor again engineered his own defeat, and the circumstances are very interesting. He was only one year and three months before the end of his term, yet he had come to the conclusion, which was warranted, I think, that he had totally lost the confidence of the country. Provincial elections, which in Germany are a test for federal governments, had been extremely negative, and so he decided to, again, engineer his own defeat and an early election was called. What struck me, incidentally, is that everybody agreed with it. There was wide consensus within the Bundestag about the elections.
So my point would be, when it comes to exceptional circumstances, try to define this. Try, if you wish, but I don't think it would be very easy to do so and I don't think it would be wise either to do so.
:
Well, as I said--and I won't try to repeat myself--I assumed that this would be in the bill, and when it wasn't there, I found myself in a quandary, because it's not the sort of thing.... I'm not experienced at drawing up laws. Something that would say that elections in Canada take place under the following conditions unless a government loses the confidence of the House, at which time the Governor General, on advice, will call an election at another date struck me as a natural way to set up the law.
If there were major constitutional concerns, I would have liked them to be addressed in a different way than they were addressed here. I find that given the way the law is worded, with the first item being a negative one, certainly anyone reading this law would say that it doesn't really change anything. Before you actually announce in the law the new situation about election dates, the first item literally, physically, says that nothing will change the ability of the Governor General, on advice, to call an election at any time.
So pedagogically, at the very least, if it really is a major obstacle--and frankly, I haven't been convinced of it, and I'd like to be convinced of it--to doing what I've proposed, surely the law should be written in a way that makes it very clear that the intent is that this power of the Governor General be used as little as possible. If you can't specify the specific circumstances, at least specify the intention.
So that's where my real disappointment is.
Ultimately, if it is true that you cannot do this under our interpretation of the Constitution--which I don't see being the case--and it turns out that the constraints we are capable of imposing prove to be ineffective or are expected to be ineffective, then we can actually change the incentives, as I said, by moving the date, by not allowing the date of normal elections to be fixed. That would be perfectly constitutionally viable, and it would certainly change the incentive situation, even under minority governments, to make premature elections less likely.
I think that's what Canadians would want, but it is an extreme measure, and I'm not necessarily advocating it at this point. I think it's incumbent upon the politicians, the people behind this bill, to persuade me, if I'm representing Canadians in this case, that this bill will change normal ways of holding elections and calling elections. That's what I want to be persuaded of. That's what I think the people of Canada have the right to be persuaded of. The way it's drafted, and the discussion that I've seen, and the reasons that I've seen, frankly, have not done the job.
:
Thank you, Ms. Jennings.
I am a political scientist, but I am neither a constitutional expert nor a lawyer. However, I myself have studied this carefully. I worked on Parliament Hill for seven years. I was there when the Constitution Act, 1982 was passed. As regards the formula for amending the Constitution, I have in fact studied it quite a lot, and this is what I have concluded.
When you ask what the federal Parliament can amend in the Constitution through a simple Act of Parliament, I believe you are referring to Section 44, which stipulates that the Parliament of Canada may amend any and all provisions of the Constitution of Canada related to the executive and the legislative branch. It is a very broad power.
Section 42, which stipulates that the approval of seven provinces is required to do certain things, is a provision that limits a general power. That limitation should itself be interpreted in restrictive terms.
In the specific list of subjects listed under Section 42, which requires the consent of seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the total population of the provinces, I see no mention of the term of Parliament's mandate. I'm sorry, but that simply is not there. Consequently, I believe the term of the House of Commons mandate very clearly falls under the federal Parliament's legislative authority.
Some will say this interferes with the powers of the Governor General, but I think we have to be careful here; what requires the unanimous consent of the provinces has nothing whatsoever to do with Her Excellency because, as you know, the entire Government of Canada is lead on behalf of Her Excellency. It is the function per se that is at issue, and not each of the royal powers. Indeed, if you wanted to change that function, you would need everyone, even though in my humble opinion, that could have been included in the Constitution Act, 1867.
I want to return to the question that we were examining before, starting maybe with a statement and then a question.
If we're looking at the democratic deficit, one of the concerns people have had over the last number of years has been the concentration of power within the executive branch. As I said before, it's not a panacea, but my hope is to at least spread that power a bit more. One way you can do that is to not give all the cards, if you will, to one person's hand, but to share them.
One of the aspects of this is the issue of confidence. I don't want to beat this to death, which means I'm going to subtly beat it to death, but when we're talking about issues of confidence—and I was interested in the comments that were made—we're under the understanding that, yes, it's up to Parliament to decide. But I was referencing something in committee before, when the Prime Minister said the vote on Afghanistan was going to be a vote in Parliament and then it turned it into a confidence vote. The notice for that was problematic, and I'm simply suggesting that ultimately we should have some boundaries around what is confidence, understanding that we're in an organic system, if you will, and if I can use that term, that is based on convention.
I would agree with the idea that it is a complex system, but in the nature of something that's organic and flows, you can influence it and have confluence. I was simply suggesting that. Are there not some criteria that could be set, if not in this bill then in some other manner, to talk about issues of confidence? Quite frankly, as Mr. Milner has said, this is about the participation of citizens, not for Parliament to play parlour tricks. If we're talking about the executive branch having that ability, in and of itself, and not about Parliament having the same ability, then we don't have an even keel.
I was just curious. Is it not important to at least acknowledge the issue of confidence when you're talking about a law like this, whereby you're hopefully setting the parameters around saying that if Parliament is to fall and there's lack of confidence, then it had better be for a darned good reason, and not just when you're trying to whip your own backbench? Quite frankly, that is what happened with other prime ministers, right? It was a threat to keep your folks in line. Clearly, that's not to the benefit of Canadians, it's to the benefit of the ruling party.
:
The point is whether we can come up with a list of items that would be matters of confidence. We have such a list at present, informally. It's pretty clear that we are not in complete ambiguity. A government is defeated if a motion of no confidence is passed. The motion must say that the government is blamed or that the government does not enjoy the confidence. This is clear. If the House wants to get rid of the government, it can do so.
Secondly, it can do so by rejecting supply—not by voting against any financial measure, as some people say, because this is not correct. You can reject the whole taxation bill and the country can work nevertheless, because there is already a taxation bill in force. The state can work. If you reject supply, this is another issue, because you deprive the government of the money it needs to pay its civil servants.
And there is a third area. If a Prime Minister has said that something is a matter of confidence, that he leaves if he loses, then if he loses he will have to leave.
So these are clear, but if you try to specify which ones are matters of confidence, I'm struck by one thing. Is it the wisdom of nations? I don't know, but I know pretty much the practice in other parliamentary systems, and I still have yet to see the country where everything has been specified, that this is a vote of confidence and this is not. They all say that if the house passes a motion of censure against the government, then they are out, but they don't go further.
Try to imagine all the kinds of circumstances that can arise. In some contexts one issue is absolutely basic in the minds of some people, and in other circumstances it is not. For some members of this House, I suppose the definition of marriage is something that absolutely strikes at the heart of the human condition. Other people say that's an issue on which we may disagree, that it's not as basic as you say.
I would come back to that theme. Plenty of constitutional lawyers have tried before us to regulate the political dynamics in detail, as much as possible. The outcome has not been very satisfying. It's probably better to keep the flexibility.
We've talked about something on the theoretical level that those of us who were elected in the 38th Parliament got to experience in reality, which is the question of what constitutes a confidence vote and what happens when there is a difference of opinion as to what constitutes a confidence vote.
I recall quite distinctly that in the spring of 2005 the government was defeated on something that we in opposition regarded as a confidence matter. They chose to regard it not as a confidence matter, and ultimately, after much delay on the part of the then government House leader, there was a confidence vote on a very clear question, which the government won. Subsequently, about 11 months ago, there was a further confidence vote, and a very clear confidence vote, which they lost. And that was the end of that.
To me, these things are not necessarily all that difficult to resolve, given that we've all lived through something within the past 18 months—and have gotten to live through it, actually, over and over again over a period of some time.
I want to come back to a question. This relates to Professor Heard's presentation at the very beginning of his testimony.
It struck me, Professor Heard, as you were talking—and you can correct me if I've misunderstood this—that what you were saying in so many words was that while this is a law, what it's doing in practice is moving toward the establishment of a new convention, and that as with all conventions, this will be regulated ultimately by public opinion. If the public is prepared to accept that an action has been taken by a government that causes an election to occur prior to the expiration of four years, and public opinion judges it to be legitimate, then effectively the convention is established that this is within the bounds of a reasonable early election call. If the public rejects that essentially, by punishing the government and replacing it with a new government, effectively that is a demonstration that a new line in the sand has been established by convention.
I'm not sure I've captured what you said correctly, but I am interested to know if you agree with the way I've just characterized it.
:
Let me try to answer with a very concrete example about which we now have more information. This begins with something that began in the United States, was taken up in Canada, and I've now heard they do this in Sweden as well. That is, they run mock elections in the schools at the time of the regular elections and they use it to inform young people about the elections. They report the actual votes in the media and they use it as a form of political education, civic education.
We now have some pretty good data on the Americans, who have been doing it for a long time, that it actually does have an effect in terms of greater political knowledge and a greater likelihood to vote in the first real election that these young people confront.
In Canada we did this--something called student vote--in the 2004 federal election. I think it was also done in 2006, but I haven't had a chance to look into that. It was also done in several provincial elections.
What happened in 2004? For the 2004 election it worked badly. It worked badly compared to when it was done in British Columbia at the time of the last provincial election. Why did it work badly when it was done in Canada in 2004 and work so well in British Columbia when it was done in the last British Columbia election?
It's very simple. You will remember--you were all part of this--that in the 2004 election in Canada, the government waited until June 28. We were expecting an election and we waited and waited. Finally on June 28, it came. The student vote people had been preparing and by the time of June 28, many of the schools were already either completely out of session or students were on their way out and so on. So in many schools, nothing happened. And even in the schools where it did happen, in many cases the results were not very useful.
That means that the learning experience...and there is an important learning experience, because you have to prepare, you bring politicians in, the civics education and the history teachers get involved--it's a big process. And yet the process was aborted because Mr. Martin had decided it would be a good idea to wait until June 28 to have the election.
In British Columbia, on the other hand, everybody knew it was going to be on May 17. All the planning worked very well. There were no problems.
If we know that the next Canadian election--at least when there is a majority government--will take place on the third Monday in October of the appropriate year, the next time there is a student vote it will certainly be much more effective. That's a very specific example of what we can do to mobilize a particular group that needs mobilization. There is a great deal of data about young people not voting and so on, so here's a very concrete example of where a fixed election date would make a difference. We've experienced that in Canada, and at the very least, it seems to me that if we're not going to do something like that and do it in a very clear way, one has to explain to the people who've worked hard to organize these student votes why not.
I must say that in everything I've heard and everything I've read in relation to people who are skeptical about moving in this direction, I've never seen a good answer to that.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Chairman.
This is one of those moments in my parliamentary career that I find the most disturbing. For anybody who happens to be listening to the proceedings of this committee and for all my colleagues, I'll explain this in some detail, Mr. Chairman.
I have had the distinct honour and pleasure to serve in a variety of roles, as have most members of Parliament, during the 13 years I've been an MP. Many of those roles were in a caucus officer position. I think I speak with some knowledge of how this place, this Parliament of Canada, this people's House, operates.
It's been my understanding, whether it's a majority government or the minority government we're presently faced with that Canadians have elected to represent them in the House, this place can only work through mutual respect, trust, and honour. While only members of Parliament who have been admitted to the Privy Council have the term “honourable” in front of their names—and I'm very privileged to have had that bestowed upon me in February—I've always believed that every member of every party, and even independents, operate honourably.
I believe that while this motion in and of itself would be viewed by members of the general public and probably by members of all political parties as somewhat innocuous, on the changes to the Standing Orders that were negotiated during the last Parliament, all four parties were involved in the negotiations and discussions. They came into effect on February 18, 2005, in the last minority Parliament. They had an expiry date at the time they were put into place.
I'll read the section: “That these Standing Orders come into effect at 11:00 o’clock a.m. Monday, March 7, 2005 and remain in effect for the duration of the current parliament and during the first sixty sitting days of the succeeding parliament.” That was the 38th Parliament, which was the current Parliament.
As I've said, during my tenure in the House I've had the pleasure, and some might say the advantage, of being in various caucus officer positions. I was the opposition House leader at the time these came into place. I'm well aware of and was privy to the discussions that took place at that time. There would normally be six people sitting on this committee who were privy to the discussions and conversation that took place at the House leader and whips meeting, the regular weekly House leader and whips meeting that took place on Tuesday, September 19, when this was discussed.
Mr. Chairman, getting somewhat advanced in years, my memory isn't always perfect, but I think I have a pretty good understanding of what was agreed to at that meeting of House leaders.
As I said, and I'll relate back to my first comments during this intervention, I strongly believe this House has to operate on honour, trust, and respect.
As I recall, the conversation surrounding an extension of these standing orders went something like this. The government House leader, Mr. Nicholson, raised the issue. It had been raised previously, I think by the Bloc Québécois, if I'm not mistaken, at a previous meeting. They had indicated that they were concerned, as I think all parties were, that given what I'd read earlier, there was an expiry date built into the House order or the motion when the standing orders originally came into existence. There was this expiry date looming, and we had discussions at a couple of meetings.
On Tuesday, September 19, the House leader raised the issue, and we had a pretty good discussion about it, and we came to an agreement. That agreement was that we would temporarily extend the standing orders so they wouldn't come up against the 60-day expiry date and just kind of fall by the wayside somewhat inadvertently, one might say. So we agreed to extend it.
Furthermore, we had some concerns about some of these standing orders. We felt that most of them could be agreed to, probably unanimously agreed to. But what was eventually agreed to by all parties at that meeting was that we would ask our senior parliamentary assistants to meet, obviously sooner rather than later, to see if there was agreement on those standing orders and on which ones we suspected we could have unanimity relatively quickly.
The House leader, , was prepared, subsequent to that, to move the necessary motion in the House and get it adopted quickly. Once the staff had met, if there were some who felt it required further discussion, each of the parties could formulate an opinion and do some research on it and on any possible ramifications, either intentional or inadvertent, that would come about because of the permanent adoption of those standing order changes. And we would proceed with further discussion on it.
I well remember that some of my first discussions, Mr. Chairman, at the House leader level or the whip level, were under the chairmanship of Don Boudria, who no longer is a member of Parliament here but who served the Liberal government--in fact, I think successive Liberal governments--as their House leader. I do not recall one single instance, in all those years, despite having a majority, when Mr. Boudria broke an agreement that was made at a House leaders' meeting. He believed so strongly in the fact that the management of the House, and the discussions and negotiations that take place every day in this place to try to further the interests of Canadians at large, is so reliant on the trust and respect and honour of members, that he would never break his word. And I never saw him break his word.
I have tried to uphold myself in these various roles I've had over the last number of years in the same manner, despite the fact that Mr. Boudria is a Liberal and I am a Conservative, Mr. Chairman. Set that aside. This place can only operate if we trust and respect each other and if our word is our bond. We can't have everything in writing. When we agree to something, it has to be an agreement, or the place will cease to operate and it will become completely dysfunctional.
Many Canadians, I'm sure, when they watch proceedings here some days--maybe many days, unfortunately--would probably argue that it is dysfunctional. But it would be a lot more dysfunctional if there weren't this trust and respect between members of Parliament. Despite our partisan political differences and our different viewpoints, when we come to an agreement, especially at the level of the House leader or the whips or the deputy House leaders or the deputy whips.... All these positions are key to the ongoing management of the House itself and its committees and the very parliamentary precinct that we inhabit when we're at work here.
I must say, Mr. Chairman, that to me this is a shameful day. As I said, people might look at this and might say, well, what's the big deal? There probably will be general agreement on these changes to the Standing Orders. So if Madam Redman's motion were to be put to a vote at this committee and passed and adopted by the House “forthwith”, as it reads, what's the big deal?
The big deal isn't with the motion, Mr. Chairman. In fact, we don't know at this point in time whether all the parties, including our party, will agree to all the changes. We don't know, because the staff hasn't met yet. Our senior parliamentary assistant fully intended to honour the spirit of what we'd agreed to at the House leaders meeting.
I would challenge anyone to think that the logical time, the best time, for staff to meet to discuss something like this--which isn't pressing, because the deadline has been put off until November 21--wouldn't be next week when the House is in recess for a week, when they have additional time so they can get together and discuss this, as directed unanimously by the House leaders and the whips at the weekly House leaders meeting.
This motion really calls into question the very fact of whether we should continue to have House leaders meetings if an agreement we make there means nothing, and any one of us or any party can just therefore bring forward a motion that what we agreed to isn't satisfactory or decide that we're in a bit more of a hurry. I challenge why, all of a sudden, this is pressing--why we need to have these changes to the Standings Orders adopted forthwith, which runs contrary to the discussion we had and the agreement we had between all four parties.
That's why I submit that this is shameful, and in the 13 years I have been here, and I mean this with all sincerity--this isn't a political statement, Madam Redman, through you, Mr. Chairman because I want to try to keep this respectful--this is absolutely shameful.
And I would ask, through you, whether the official opposition House leader, Mr. Goodale, is aware of this motion. Does he condone that? It is the word of the official opposition House leader as well as that of the government House leader that are at stake here. If those two gentlemen are going to operate this House and try to manage the affairs of this House in concert with all members, all 308 members of Parliament, they have to operate on the basis of mutual trust and respect. So I'm led to believe that not only does Mr. Goodale, as the official opposition House leader, condone this, but he's behind it, since it's his name and his reputation that are at stake.
Now, if I wanted to try to run out the clock, I could filibuster this, because I'm so upset about it. I could filibuster this until the cows come home, as we like to say out west. But there are other members, as you pointed out at the start of this discussion. Everyone gets a chance to debate these types of things under the rules of our committee, and I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say about this.
As I said, it's not the substance of this. We had a clear agreement, and I stand to be corrected if that's not the case. If it's not the case, in fact, I would challenge, Mr. Chairman, that we had better start recording everything that is said and getting in writing everything that is said at the House leaders meetings.
That's all I have to say.
:
Thank you again, Mr. Chair.
Again, if we start getting into an environment in which you can't trust or you can't believe someone.... Most of these agreements are not written down. We all know what we're talking about here; we're talking about approaching another member, saying you're looking for support on a particular issue in committee, and asking if the member will support this initiative--yes or no? If the parliamentarian or one of my colleagues says no, I cannot, for these reasons, that's fine. I don't take it personally, but I take the person at his word. Conversely, if someone says yes, I will support you, or I will support this when it comes to a vote, to me that's good enough; I don't need it in writing. To me, that's the fundamental premise on how we operate in this place.
Ms. Jennings, with all due respect, I was at that meeting, and I do absolutely recall that there was agreement. There was agreement. I don't think Mr. Hill's comments are untoward or out of order whatsoever. I just think that if this motion is adopted, it's the start of a very slippery slope in terms of relationships between parliamentarians and between parties. I know it certainly will be between me and Mr. Hill and other members from our side at the House leader and caucus officer level.
I'm willing to hear Ms. Redmond out on this. I see no reason that this issue has to be dealt with today. If in fact you wish to enact the permanency of these things, what would it matter if we waited at least another two weeks until our senior staff can get together and discuss these items in some detail? Then we can come back and say there is some disagreement about whether we had an agreement to delay this matter until November, but at least our staff has had a chance to get together and consult, and here's the report--here are the items of common agreement and here are the items of common disagreement. That would allow us to hash it out.
But to bring this on, frankly.... I vividly recall it because we had a debriefing. The reason I will place my memory on trial here, Ms. Jennings, is that we always have a debriefing after each House leaders meeting. Perhaps you do the same. This issue was discussed.
Again, to me, as Mr. Hill has said, it is not the issue of whether the motion should be adopted; it is the issue of breaking one's word, frankly, and that's where I have a big problem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
:
Okay. I may take some time.
Let me begin, as I think is appropriate when one is dealing with acrimonious circumstances, by saying that when I look across the way at my Liberal colleagues, I have respect, actually, for all the colleagues I see over there, but I want to mention the respect I have for the individual Liberal members opposite.
I've always enjoyed Mr. Owen's intervention and particularly low-key manner, which he once again demonstrated today. I am of course aware that Mr. Owen wasn't actually in the room at the time and therefore is offering, I think, a very wise general observation.
Karen, I've dealt with you in the past and have always thought very highly of you. I remember, actually with particular fondness, one occasion when you came over to try to assist me in getting something that was out of order in order--the presentation of a petition. I'm sure you don't remember it, but I do, a petition that was not done in the proper manner but by people who had a heartfelt interest in the issue.
They'd submitted a white ribbon, with lots of signatures, on the issue of child pornography. The fact that they didn't know the formal rules did not diminish the fact that they felt strongly about child pornography. In recognizing the fact that they couldn't be allowed, you were very good at saying you were willing to find unanimous consent to allow something to be tabled that would not normally be allowed to be tabled. I appreciate that. I thought that was a very classy thing to do.
I would have gone to you next, Marlene, but since Marcel is seated, talking to Karen--I'm going in the seating order--I'll just mention that I've always thought highly of Marcel as well. I thought him a very intelligent, thoughtful, and gentlemanly person in his conduct, towards me at any rate, and conduct that I've been able to see.
Then, going back to the very beginning of my career as a parliamentarian in early 2001, I'm not sure if Marlene remembers this, but I remember that she approached me and asked if I would be willing to second a bill that was being introduced on an issue of non-partisan environmental concern--okay, Marlene, you do remember that--on non-economic measures of well-being, and particularly environmental well-being, alternative measures of well-being. So in the very first legislative action I was engaged in, in the House of Commons, I was actually working in cooperation with Marlene. I have fond memories of that, and consequentially of Marlene herself.
I say all of that because I'm trying to find ways of keeping the temperature down as we deal with this issue.
I do have an objection to the issue being brought forward in this manner--actually, two objections. I have the same objection as my honourable colleague, the government whip, has about the fact that it was brought forward contrary to, to my recollection, an agreement--and I want to return to that in a second. As a starting point, I have another concern, and I'll return to this in more detail a bit later.
My concern is simply this: the manner in which the motion is presented. It was of course presented without notice. Our rules permit that, so it's in order, of course. But notice could have been given nevertheless, and the failure to give notice suggests--I do stand to be corrected--that the intention is to have the motion adopted, not without debate, obviously, but without amendment. It's hard to see how one would amend this motion and therefore how one would amend any of the standing orders if such amendment were appropriate.
The way the motion is worded right now is:
That this committee recommends that the Standing Orders in effect on October 5, 2006, including the provisional Standing Orders, be made permanent, and
That the adoption of this motion be reported to the House forthwith.
So it's sort of hard to see how you would say, well, they'd be adopted with the following amendments to standing order this or that, particularly when that would presumably involve some degree of discussion and potentially the bringing of witnesses before the committee, that kind of thing. I just don't see how one could do that. This is really a motion designed in such a way as to make amendment practically impossible.
I could see that it's possible to defeat the motion, but it's not possible to amend it. Therefore, we're faced with, effectively, a choice between defeating the motion and saying that what we want is the Standing Orders to revert to what they were prior to February 18, 2005, when the provisional standing orders came into effect or, alternatively, taking them just as written without any alteration, where perhaps alteration is merited.
Truthfully, I don't know where alteration is merited. That was a question I had hoped to look at and consider, as one does with any technical matter of this nature, at a later point in time--during the break, essentially--but certainly as a part of the process that had been laid out in the House leaders meeting.
Having now turned to the House leaders meeting and in so doing I--
For the benefit of the committee, because not all members of the committee were at this House leaders meeting—and I would pose this to Madam Redman, an individual who, as opposite numbers both when she was in government and I was in opposition and now when I'm in government and she' s in opposition, I have a lot of respect for—my recollection is that there was a discussion, as I alluded to earlier, at the House leaders and whips meeting wherein we discussed the possibility of referring this matter to the procedure and House affairs committee, or a subcommittee of that body, to be dealt with further, to be studied further, and to see if there was unanimity on some of the changes to the Standing Orders, all of them or whatever.
If my memory is correct—and that's why I'm asking through you, Mr. Chairman, to Madam Redman, so that she can consider this and think about it—I recall that she herself said that, because at times committees...how shall I put this? I don't remember her exact words, but it was an allusion to the fact that sometimes at committee meetings things can get contentious and partisan whereas, generally speaking, at the House leaders meeting and the whips meeting, when we discuss things amongst ourselves at that level, it's usually easier to arrive at consensus and agreement.
Through you, Mr. Chairman, to her and to the others present here, people like me, and as Tom said, people who have been raised in the belief that your word is your bond, it's very difficult for us not to take a move like this personally.