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Mrs. Sherry Romanado (Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, Lib.)

Jun/2/22 5:06:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned something that piqued my interest, because I too am in agreement with respect to committee membership and chairs, and I like the idea of having a secret ballot for naming committee chairs. One aspect of committee work that I found quite surprising when I first got here is that it is very adversarial given the way that committees are structured. We have an issue before us and want to study it, but we are sitting on opposing sides instead of having a workgroup that sits together so we can say, “Here is the issue. What do we think about it?” There is no interchange, really, between committee members. We sit on opposing sides, we have witnesses at the end of the table and we have little time to ask questions, but we are not actually speaking to each other and trying to figure out a solution to whatever issue we are debating or whatever study we are doing. I would like to know if the member has any comment on how we can be more collaborative in committee when trying to find a solution we can all agree with.

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Mr. Pat Kelly

Jun/2/22 5:08:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question with great observations. I am not so fussed about the room layout and the adversarial nature of committee. It only becomes a problem when things become personal. If we meet in the same room rather than over video, we have the opportunity to get up from our opposite sides of the table and maybe go over to the coffee machine to have a quick, private word off the record to gain some understanding. We could walk together to the office afterward or maybe even go for a quick bite before question period. It is during these informal opportunities that members of Parliament can engage with each other in a non-adversarial way. The adversarial system works when it is strictly about ideas and is not personal, and that is why I think it is so important for members to be forced by daily routine to interact with each other.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Jun/2/22 5:09:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for his speech. I believe that there are some things we agree on with respect to the hybrid Parliament. I found the points he raised to be very interesting. I would like to ask him a question about constituents. We often hear about the advantages or disadvantages for elected members of voting from home, as though it were a video game. At the same time, we are accountable to our constituents. In his opinion, what are the disadvantages of the hybrid Parliament? I know he mentioned a few of them. The disadvantages of the hybrid Parliament may be unintentional, but we could address them. How can we better serve constituents by being in this place rather than at home?

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Mr. Pat Kelly

Jun/2/22 5:09:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we represent our constituents when we are in this place. Our action in this place is what we are accountable to our constituents for, so I think it is critical that we spend the time in this place to do our jobs representing them in Parliament. Now, one needs to be in touch with constituents. That is why we have lengthy constituency breaks to interact with our constituents. However, we cannot represent our constituents when we are in our constituency. We represent our constituents when we are in Parliament. That is where the votes take place, that is where the debates on ideas take place and that is where we can advocate for and represent our constituents.

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP)

Jun/2/22 5:10:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague made some interesting points. What I found interesting was the point about switching the 10-minute speech with the five-minute question period so that people had more time to ask questions, although I will note that he used his full 10 minutes to get his point across, which I find a bit ironic. In terms of the expansion on questions, one of the things I found interesting as a new member in hybrid Parliament was the ability to ask questions during question period but in the way that we do it during committee of the whole, with a five-minute period of time. It allows for more debate. In terms of the expansion for questions, would the member be in favour of changing how we operate during question period to more of a committee of the whole type of debate?

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Mr. Pat Kelly

Jun/2/22 5:11:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, indeed I would. The committee of the whole is a much better format for getting real answers. However, I am sorry; I have to say it: Since 2019, there has even been a marked decline in the quality of that forum. I have participated in several committees of the whole and have watched the ministers. They have a whole group of officials in front of them and binders of information. Those officials would have spent hours and hours preparing, but when we ask questions, the ministers simply recite talking points as if it was question period. There is some responsibility on the government to ensure that they act responsibly and answer questions. To the member's point about question period, yes, absolutely.

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Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches—East York, Lib.)

Jun/2/22 5:12:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to speak to an idea that I think most would agree with, in general terms at least: We ought to modernize Parliament to enable all of us to better represent Canadians. What does that mean specifically? Well, many of us have proposed very specific examples, and I want to tackle this at a bit of a higher level because there are three general ideas we should be grappling with. The first is about flexibility. I heard what my colleague from the Conservative Party said. By the way, we have worked together on committee, and I think we were a pretty independent committee, even in a majority government context, but I heard a dismissal of flexibility. I take the point that for a serious vote, we should all be there, potentially, absent emergency circumstances. I was certainly in Parliament in person yesterday when we were voting on the bill for evidence-based drug policy. I thought it was really important to be there in person. I do not think it is important to miss my five-year-old's first baseball game at 6:30 p.m. in East York, this summer at least. I do not think it is important for a procedural vote. I think we can accommodate different votes in different ways, and have different flexibilities for different families in different contexts. I do think the voting app continues to remain of utmost importance, particularly if people care about young families engaging in Parliament. By the way, I probably will not even consider running again, frankly, if we do not have greater flexibility in this place. I also think of colleagues with loved ones who, in their circumstances, need care as they are sick, or members themselves who are ill. I do not think vote pairing is the ready solution there. I think we need to accommodate members in order to ensure that we are representing our constituents in full and that there is flexibility there. I do not want to be dismissive of the point, by the way, that we need to be there in person to build relationships. I value the time I spent in person between 2015 and 2019 in particular, when there was a full in-person Parliament. I have relationships across party lines too, and I have been able to build on those relationships even in a virtual environment. In building those relationships at first, certainly being in person meant a lot. When we look at our 26-week sitting calendar, it may be that in certain weeks there is no flexibility, and then there is flexibility at other times. Maintaining some definite in-person component and allowing flexibility in other weeks may be the solution as far as that goes. Regardless, that has to be looked at seriously and the voting app should be there to stay. The second broad point is we ought to look at these rules first for flexibility and second for empowering parliamentarians. I have heard some conversation today about the frustration with the arcane nature of Private Members' Business. It is frustrating. I have been lucky, actually. I have effectively won the lottery three times. I am a lucky man, much to the chagrin of the government I think. In winning the lottery, I have also seen others who are so far down the list they will never have their bills or motions debated and voted upon. I want to quote a former Conservative colleague, Bruce Stanton. I think he was one of the most thoughtful individuals regarding the Standing Orders and our parliamentary work. He wrote, “On the whole, a parallel chamber for the House of Commons would strengthen the democratic process in Canada’s Parliament by giving MPs greater means to legislate and challenge the Executive Branch of government. As such, the idea deserves our careful consideration.” This is not a new idea. It exists in Australia. It has existed for many years in Australia and also in the United Kingdom. This is from the chamber in the U.K.: Since 1999 the House of Commons has held debates in a parallel debating chamber, known as “Westminster Hall”. This chamber is used for debates on issues raised by backbench Members, for debates on select committee reports, for debates on subjects selected by the Backbench Business Committee and for debates on e-petitions. Before I got into this business, a friend of mine from law school gave me Samara Canada's Tragedy in the Commons. It almost scared me away, frankly, because it is a lament. Every single exit interview is a lament to say, “I wish I had done more.” We should be empowering parliamentarians via a parallel chamber or some other means. Every single measure we look at should be looked at through this lens of empowering parliamentarians. Adjournment debates could be held in these parallel chambers as well. We ought to be looking at these changes through the lens of empowering parliamentarians, and a parallel chamber is certainly one of the ways to do that. If we do not want to think of a physical space, then perhaps we can think of a virtual space for that parallel chamber. It happens to already exist. Before I get to the third point, I want to reference the idea of the independence of committees. This is one place where rules can matter. I want to emphasize my agreement with the idea of electing committee members and chairs via secret ballot as a chamber, but I emphasize to colleagues that it is also about the way we conduct ourselves. This is about culture too. There are ways of ensuring committees are more independent if we act as we ought to act in this place and we embrace a different culture, so let us change the rules but let us not forget our own place in changing the culture. The third point is related to the second one. As we look at changing the rules, we ought to look at flexibility, number one; two, empowering parliamentarians; and three, at decentralizing operations and reducing party control. Others have already spoken to this point about the role of the Speaker and have said that the power of the Speaker needs to be returned. I do not ask questions particularly in question period, because it is wrought and it is a theatric exercise, to put it politely. It does not need to be that way and it ought not to be that way. I think in two different ways about empowering the Speaker. One is that it would encourage those on the government side to ask more pointed questions. Second, it would ensure decorum on the opposition side. That is critical not only in relation to questions but also for S. O. 31s. Finally, I am not going to use my full 10 minutes, but I want to make this point, a point related to what my Conservative colleague just put forward. We should not be restricted to five minutes as far as our speeches go, but I do think we should be able to use five minutes or two minutes or eight minutes to give our remarks and that the remainder of that 15 minutes should be for questions. It should be our decision how much time we use to speak, and the remainder of the time should be used for questions and answers. Sometimes I just want to speak for one minute and would love to have 14 minutes of questions. With that, I look forward to questions.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Jun/2/22 5:20:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the evening is getting short, so I want to offer the member an opportunity to comment further on pairing. Like the member who spoke before, the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, I also have not liked the fact that a hybrid Parliament has allowed for a reduction in accountability and transparency in this place. I have seen things get worse. I was elected in the same year, in 2015. I would like to hear from this member how we could perhaps use pairing more to achieve the flexibility so that members in this House could go to family commitments or take care of dependents who are seriously ill while also ensuring that we are able to perform the duties that our constituents sent us here to do. Pairing has been around for hundreds of years. In fact, it was during World War II that hundreds of members sometimes would be paired for particular votes because they had duties outside of this House.

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Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Jun/2/22 5:21:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, pairing has a long history, but it does not have a long history of being used in a very flexible way. When there is a procedural vote and it is more of a last-minute vote, I wish the best of luck to all of us to sort out a pairing mechanism to accommodate the members who need to be accommodated. It is fiction that pairing gets us to a place of flexibility that we need to get to.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Jun/2/22 5:21:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Beaches—East York for his speech. He brought up several worthwhile ideas, especially with respect to private members' bills, for which there is a kind of lottery. I would like to hear his thoughts about question period and the fact that the government asks itself questions. Does my colleague think that this is an appropriate or useful practice? Does he think it could be replaced by something else?

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Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Jun/2/22 5:22:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not certain that I am in a position to say we should replace question period. Question period has existed far beyond my time in Parliament, and for good reason. It can be used incredibly effectively. It can be used to effectively to prosecute a case; it can be used very effectively to put issues on the agenda; it can also be used very effectively to raise specific constituents' concerns. It can be used effectively, but is it used effectively very often? Unfortunately, no. I do not think we should be looking at replacing it wholesale, but I do think we should be looking at ways to improve it. I actually tend to agree with the comments from NDP colleagues in particular, and I think there was even agreement on the Conservatives' side, in relation to the way we conducted ourselves typically in committee of the whole, where it is a back-and-forth. It is not for the cameras but to engage and have a real debate.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill

Jun/2/22 5:23:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry. My question was misunderstood, so I did not get the right answer. Perhaps I could clarify. I was not talking about question period as a whole. My question was about when members of the governing party ask their own government questions.

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Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Jun/2/22 5:23:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in that case, I think I answered in the course of my comments, but I and others would be able to put pointed questions to the government in question period if we were able to be accommodated via the Speaker and not the whip's office.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

Jun/2/22 5:24:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments in support of us doing what we can to ensure that Parliament is inclusive and ensure that we maintain hybrid Parliament in particular. Although there are many involved in parenting, we know that women are often those who are taking on a lot of those primary responsibilities in child rearing, and we know that right now that only 30% in Parliament are women. That number needs to increase. We need to do what we can to ensure that becoming a member of Parliament is successful. We have a lot of skills out there, and we need to do what we can to encourage that. We are still in the COVID pandemic, so we need to make sure we have access to do our jobs through this pandemic. I am wondering if the member could share with us today what actions he will be taking to ensure that his colleagues in the Liberal Parliament are on board with maintaining a hybrid system so women and all those with many skills in our government—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Jun/2/22 5:25:22 p.m.
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The hon. member has the opportunity to answer in 15 seconds or less.

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Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Jun/2/22 5:25:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know many colleagues have seen probably first-hand the importance of virtual Parliament in my own life, because my kids are often on the screen. I am a better father. I am also a better parliamentarian and certainly a better husband. I have spoken to colleagues about this, and I will continue to speak to colleagues on all sides of the chamber, but especially on my own side.

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Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)

Jun/2/22 5:25:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are three reforms to the Standing Orders and procedure of the House and its committees that the House should consider. First, the Speaker's right of recognition should be restored. The Speaker has effectively lost the right of recognition during many proceedings of this House: during debate, during Oral Questions and during other proceedings of the House. That right of recognition has been replaced by the list system, managed by the whips and House leaders, which has effectively displaced the Speaker's authority. During most of the proceedings of this House, in order for a member to speak, the member's name has to be put on a list to speak by the House leader or whip's office, but too often members do not have a voice in the House because they cannot get on the list, which is submitted by the House leaders and whips to the Speaker and the computer screen in front of you, Madam Speaker, to determine who gets to speak. The House should do away with the list system and replace it with a system established and controlled by the Speaker. That system should have two principles: First, all members who wish to speak should get to speak; second, time allocated to individual members who wish to speak should be distributed as equitably as possible to those members who wish to speak. As I understand it, in the U.K. Parliament, members who wish to speak, whether to a bill or during Oral Questions, go through a system established and controlled by the Speaker. For example, all members who wish to speak to a bill get to speak, because the time allotted for debate is divided by the number of members who wish to speak. Those members go to the Speaker, rather than through their whips or House leaders, to indicate that they wish to speak. For example, if four hours are allotted for debate on a bill at second reading and 40 members have indicated to the Speaker they wish to speak, the 240 minutes are divided by the 40 members. Thus, six minutes are allotted to each member to speak. In that system, members who wish to speak get to speak, which is more fair and more equitable than the system we have. I hope all members of this House will take up this idea of restoring the Speaker's right of recognition and thereby restoring a more equitable distribution of time for members in this House to speak. The second area of reform the House should consider is standing committees. In 2002, the Standing Orders were changed, a move supported by then finance minister Paul Martin, to address the democratic deficit by replacing the appointment of committee chairs with their election. Unfortunately, that well-intentioned change has not worked out in practice. While technically committee members can elect committee chairs, they are effectively appointed, 21 by the Prime Minister and four by the leader of the official opposition. That is because the moving of a nomination of a member for chair is done in public, and the whips use that fact to ensure that only the member whom the Prime Minister or the official opposition leader wishes to be chair is nominated for the position, with the result that the member is acclaimed as chair. One way to fix this is to require a secret preferential ballot on which all the names are listed of committee members of the recognized party from which the chair is to be selected. That way, no nominations for chair take place, and the 12 members of the committee decide on a secret single preferential ballot who will be chair. To make committees more effective, a second reform should be considered. The House should consider distributing the 25 chairs of standing committees in a way that is proportionate to the recognized parties in this House. Currently, the ministerial party has 21 out of 25 chairs and the official opposition has four out of 25 chairs. The NDP and the Bloc have no chairs of standing committees. This is not proportionate to the standings of the various recognized parties in the House of Commons and does not reflect the Parliament that Canadians elected back in the 2021 election. The House should also consider a third change to committees so that committee members would be elected by members of their respective recognized party caucuses. These elections on a secret preferential ballot could take place at the same time that the House meets to elect the new Speaker. Taken in totality, a secret ballot preferential election of committee chairs, a secret ballot preferential election of committee members and the proportionate distribution of standing committee chairs among the recognized parties in the House would have the effect of making standing committees much more independent of party leaders, particularly the Prime Minister, with a greater ability to hold the government accountable to a much greater degree. I will add that these reforms were enacted by the U.K. Parliament a decade ago and they had been adopted to a great degree of acclimation. By all accounts, they have been a great success, and they have strengthened the committee system. The third area of reform the House should consider is to take away the Prime Minister’s power to make key appointments in this place. The clerk of the House of Commons should be appointed by the Speaker and not by the Prime Minister. In other Westminster parliaments, the clerk is appointed by the Speaker on the recommendation of a committee of MPs that has vetted various candidates. In fact, in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, that is exactly the process that is in place, as is the case in the U.K. Parliament and in the Australian Parliament. The Sergeant-at-Arms should also be appointed by the Speaker, rather than the Prime Minister. Most importantly, the majority of the members on the Board of Internal Economy should not be appointed by the Prime Minister, either directly or indirectly, but rather elected by the members of this House on a secret ballot. Members of the ministry, as well as officers of the House on both sides of the aisle, should not be eligible for the majority of positions on the BOIE. In other words, the majority of members on the BOIE should be backbench members of Parliament elected by their peers on a secret ballot vote. Those are three areas of reform the House should consider. First, restoring the Speaker's right of recognition by empowering the Speaker to establish a new system whereby members get recognized, a system that is controlled and managed by the Speaker. Second, reforms to committees that will make them more independent of party leaders, particularly the Prime Minister. Third, remove the Prime Minister's power to appoint the clerk, the Sergeant-at-Arms and the majority of members on the BOIE, and giving that power, through an election, to members of Parliament. I have a couple of final comments. It is my view that the rights and privileges in this place are increasingly attaching to recognized parties, rather than to the 337 individual members of this House. For example, members who are not members of recognized parties cannot sit as a regular member on a committee. Another example is that routine motions at committee increasingly divide time among the four recognized parties on a committee, rather than among the 11 members. As a result, some members get way more time on committees than others do. This has created a two-tier system. Those who are members of recognized parties have greater rights than those who are members of non-recognized parties in this place. We have also created a two-tier system within recognized parties in this House. Those who are under the good grace and favour from the party leadership get to speak when they want, get on committees they want, and so on. Up to the 1960s, for over 100 years, our parliamentary conventions attached rights and privileges to individual members elected to legislatures and parliaments across the land, rather than to parties. With the establishment of recognized parties in this House in the 1960s, rights are increasingly attached to the parties rather than to individuals. It can be argued that this has subverted our constitutional order, which was clearly set up to recognize the individual member as the primary organizing entity and the party as secondary. This is an issue we all need to be thinking about as we contemplate reforms to this place to strengthen our parliamentary democracy. Finally, hybrid Parliament must end. We must end hybrid Parliament when we adjourn in June. While we may continue with the voting app, we need to return to full, in-person Parliament when Parliament resumes this September. It is vitally important for this House and its committees to go back to full, in-person sittings to ensure that we, once again, strengthen our parliamentary democracy and ensure that we pass along this institution to our children and grandchildren stronger than we inherited it.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Jun/2/22 5:36:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say I really appreciate the comments from my friend and colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills today. He is a beacon of experience and knowledge in this place, and I know that, of all members of the House, he is always fighting for a more equal chance for all. My questions have to do with two inalienable features that govern all of our lives, and they are time and space. First, I would like to know his thoughts on a secondary chamber for things like late shows and PMBs, creating a menu of options for members to consider and choose from when entering this place for debate. We spend a lot of time in Ottawa, and I feel that would make it more efficient. It is not just June that I am talking about. Second, toward the end, the member got to the point of virtual Parliament. The member and I can drive here. We live close. The member opposite is just one riding north of mine and it is about four or five hours to drive. However, colleagues across this House do not have that luxury, so I wonder what his considerations are for members with young kids and members from places like Yukon, the northern territories and northern British Columbia.

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Hon. Michael Chong

Jun/2/22 5:37:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, which had to do with a secondary chamber, I support the idea of the creation of a secondary chamber. I know in the Palace of Westminster they have Westminster Hall, which is often used for parallel debates that cannot take place in the main chamber. With respect to the House schedule over the year, I do not support reducing the number of days this place sits. If we eliminate Fridays, we have to tack on additional weeks of Monday to Thursday. We already sit fewer weeks than any major legislature in the west. The fact is we sit less today than we did half a century ago. We reduced the number of weeks that we sit to 27 about 40 years ago. The U.K. Parliament sits to the end of the third week in August and then only takes a short three-week recess before it resumes around the same time that we do. The U.S. Congress has similar lengthy sitting times. We cannot reduce the amount of time we sit, because that reduces the accountability of the executive branch of government to the legislative branch, and in Canada that is the only accountability mechanism. Canadians do not directly elect the prime minister or the ministry here. They are appointed based on the confidence convention from this legislature, and we need to ensure that this legislature sits as much as possible in order to ensure accountability.

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Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Jun/2/22 5:38:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech. I am convinced that he was a great artist in a previous life; he really used some very constructive and creative words in his speech. I want to address one of the last parts of his presentation. He would like to see the Clerk, the Sergeant‑at‑Arms, and the members of the Board of Internal Economy appointed by the Speaker of the House. The Speaker still comes from a political party. How can my colleague be sure that this would result in more neutrality and objectivity?

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