SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 196 - May/12/23

May/12/23 1:35:05 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the issue of confidence has been studied a number of times. It has been studied in the House and outside the House. The reasons why I chose not to refer it to the procedure and House affairs committee are twofold. The first is out of respect for the work that it is doing currently on foreign interference and a number of important issues, and an issue of privilege, actually, after the last day, with respect to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. The other reason is that I think it is high time we just got this done. I do think there is enough time to examine the content of the motion. I think that this would be a significant improvement on the current state of affairs. I want to make change and one cannot make change without doing something novel. I do not hide from the fact that there are novel ideas in here. I think they are good ideas and I welcome the debate that is to come. I hope that members here will fall on the side of asserting the power of the House of Commons over these decisions and making a change to something that has been open to abuse now since Confederation and that it is high time we did something about.

220 words

Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

May/12/23 1:36:21 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona on his important motion and on the very compelling speech he just delivered. Accountability is important. We need to limit the concentration of power, and I think this motion contributes to that. We know that concentrating power almost systematically leads to abuse. My question for my colleague is about the government's present attitude toward votes taking place in the House. When the House votes on motions or bills, we see that the Prime Minister does not always respect the will of the House when what has been proposed does not come from him. For example, my colleague moved a motion on tax havens. Even though it had support in the House, the government did not introduce the measures that the motion called on the government to introduce. Another colleague had a bill passed to provide 50 weeks of EI sickness benefits to people with cancer. The government never followed through, even though it was the will of the House. A bill by one of our Conservative colleagues was passed about the family transfer of businesses. The government would not implement it. What does my esteemed colleague think of that?

206 words

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

May/12/23 1:37:42 p.m.
Watch

I do believe that all too often, the government does not take the work that we do in the House of Commons and its committees seriously. That is why I think that we as members of Parliament must take measures to ask for that respect. This is about targeting the Prime Minister's important powers and saying the elected chamber should have more say in these decisions. We can get the federal government to take us much more seriously.

79 words

Mr. Chandra Arya (Nepean, Lib.)

May/12/23 1:38:33 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Motion No. 79, sponsored by the member for Elmwood—Transcona, which proposes a permanent change to the Standing Orders respecting confidence motions. Before I speak to the content of the proposal contained in Motion No. 79, I would like to discuss some important principles that should guide our work when contemplating changes to the Standing Orders, especially when the changes would be permanent changes to the rules of the House. There is a long-standing tradition of the House in considering changes to our Standing Orders. This tradition includes two important principles. The first is that any change or suite of changes should benefit from a thorough study by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The second is that any change to the rules that govern our deliberations should be done on a consensual basis. The importance of having changes to the Standing Orders considered by the procedure and House affairs committee seems to be self-evident to most members of the House. These are our rules; they guide all the work we conduct in this place, and any change must be well understood by all members of the House. As a result, the procedure and House affairs committee plays an important role in studying the Standing Orders as they are, as well as proposed changes before they can be considered by the whole House. In fact, Standing Order 51, chapter VII, which deals with the special debates that the House make take up and is the subject of the proposed amendment contained in Motion No. 79, provides a mechanism that requires the House to study the Standing Orders at the beginning of each Parliament. Standing Order 51 provides that the government, through a minister, must designate an order of the day for the consideration of a motion to take note of the Standing Orders and procedures of the House, which has precedence over all other business. The debate on the designated day is then permanently referred to the procedure and House affairs committee for study. Having these debates permanently referred to the procedure and House affairs committee allows the committee to take up studies over the course of the Parliament to review and consider changes to the Standing Orders. The purpose of Standing Order 51 is to allow members to bring forward ideas on changes to the Standing Orders, which can then be studied by the procedure and House affairs committee. During the committee's study of the Standing Orders, the committee can hear from expert witnesses, including the Clerk of the House and other senior procedural clerks, to bring to the attention of the members possible adverse consequences that may result from certain changes. This expert testimony ensures the members of the committee consider changes to our rules by using an evidence-based process. Witnesses may also suggest changes to the proposed standing order changes to ensure consistency and alignment with the Standing Orders and practices of the House. I believe that the procedure and House affairs committee plays an essential role in reviewing the Standing Orders, and I know the members on that committee take this work very seriously and with a great deal of pride. We must always keep in mind that changes to our Standing Orders affect every member of the House, and we not only need to get it right, but we also need to know and appreciate the long-term consequences of such changes. When we make changes in a majority context, we need to appreciate and understand how these changes will operate in the minority context, and the inverse is just as important. I would now like to turn my attention, and that of the members, to Motion No. 79. The member for Elmwood—Transcona has selected, as his item of Private Members' Business, Motion No. 79, on confidence motions. The motion would create a new scheme in the “Special Debates” chapter in the Standing Orders dealing with confidence motions. The preamble of Motion No. 79 states, in part (a), that “(i) it is a prerogative of the Crown to prorogue or dissolve Parliament at its pleasure“, and that “(iv) the confidence convention has never been clearly codified and this has sometimes led to confusion among members and the general public as to the nature and significance of certain votes”. I would like to spend part of my remarks on the Crown's prerogatives. Page 43 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice states: An essential feature of parliamentary government is that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet are responsible to, or must answer to, the House of Commons for their actions and must enjoy the support and the confidence of a majority of the Members of that Chamber to remain in office. This is commonly referred to as the confidence convention. This complex constitutional subject, a matter of tradition that is not written into any statute or Standing Order of the House.... Members can see that royal prerogatives are not found in any statute or in the Standing Orders. There is, however, one reference to confidence in the Standing Orders, that is, in Standing Order 6, in relation to the election of the Speaker. Precedents are clear that this provision is unnecessary and outdated, since the House itself elects the Speaker of the House, and the executive no longer plays any formal role in the election of the Speaker. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, at page 43, goes on to articulate the point that confidence is not a matter of parliamentary procedure. It says, “What constitutes a question of confidence in the government varies with the circumstances. Confidence is not a matter of parliamentary procedure, nor is it something on which the Speaker can be asked to rule.” There was a time when there were references in the Standing Orders to motions of non-confidence in relation to the consideration of supply. Page 44 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice sets out how the Standing Orders were modified in this regard and when these changes were removed: When the Standing Orders respecting supply were amended in 1968, it was specified that, in each of the three supply periods, the opposition could designate not more than two of the motions proposed on allotted days as motions of non-confidence in the government. This was the first time the notion of confidence found expression in the Standing Orders. This rule was modified provisionally in March 1975 to remove the non-confidence qualification; the motions would still be brought to a vote but the vote would not automatically be considered an expression of confidence in the government. The provisional Standing Orders lapsed at the beginning of the following session and the term found its way back into the 1977 version of the Standing Orders. No further changes were made until June 1985, when the Standing Orders were again modified to remove the non-confidence provision with regard to supply. For 43 years, there have been no operative Standing Orders that deal with confidence. There is a good reason for this. Since many Crown prerogatives have been superseded by statutes, there are still royal prerogatives that are not found in statutes, including but not limited to foreign affairs and treaty making, and the powers to prorogue or dissolve Parliament. Now that I have addressed the notion of the Crown's prerogatives in relation to the prerogatives to prorogue or dissolve Parliament, I would like to speak of the mechanics of how Motion No. 79, if adopted, would operate. I have not made up my mind about whether I will support this motion or oppose it. I will say, however, that I think this motion would benefit from study at the procedure and House affairs committee. The committee could really dig into the interplay between the role of the Standing Orders and the Crown prerogatives, and whether the scheme that is proposed in Motion No. 79 is acceptable in the context of our rules, given the informal nature of non-confidence motions in the Standing Orders. Finally, I do not think that two one-hour debates are sufficient to fully understand the implications this motion would have on the procedures and practices of this House. That said, I will continue to have an open mind about the proposal because I have great respect for my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona and the views of other members who will speak in debate on this motion.

1430 words

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

May/12/23 1:49:13 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Motion No. 79, introduced by the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona. The motion would make substantial changes to the Standing Orders pertaining to confidence votes and the prorogation of Parliament. With respect to confidence votes, it would make significant changes in a number of different ways. Perhaps less of a change is that it would seek to amend the Standing Orders to expressly provide that votes on the main estimates, the budget and the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne be treated as questions of confidence. By convention, for all intents and purposes, these votes are treated as questions of confidence. It would, indeed, be difficult to imagine a scenario in which a government could survive losing any such vote. Even more, however, this motion would significantly regulate and limit the ability of members to bring forward and put on notice motions of non-confidence in the government. It would do so in three ways. First, in order to put such a motion on notice, the signatures of at least 20 members of Parliament from more than one of the recognized parties would be required. Second, only one such motion of non-confidence could be put on notice per supply period. Third, members would be limited to either sponsoring or signing such a motion once per session. With respect to prorogation, this motion would require that the government put on notice a confidence motion upon the Prime Minister expressing the intention to advise and consult the Governor General with respect to prorogation. The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is a learned member. He brings a great deal of institutional knowledge and a good understanding of matters of procedure, and I have a lot of respect for him. I appreciate, in that regard, the spirit in which the member is seeking to make changes to the Standing Orders. However, I will be unable to support this motion, primarily because of the process that the member has proposed in making changes to the Standing Orders. Two hours of debate, nothing more, nothing less, is the process that the member has chosen. There would be no study or consultation. Why is this? It is because that is the process for private members' motions, and it is the way in which the hon. member has embarked upon amending the Standing Orders. I would submit that, with regard to the substantial changes that are being proposed, two hours of debate would be completely inadequate under the circumstances. I would submit further that it is all the more inadequate given the fact that many aspects of this motion are seemingly novel, as the hon. member conceded when I put a question to him earlier. Although much ink has been spilled on, for example, the subject of prorogation, and although the procedure and House affairs committee has undertaken multiple studies in recent years on prorogation, what the hon. member is specifically proposing has not been studied. This is that the government should put forward a confidence motion upon the Prime Minister expressing the intention to prorogue Parliament. Similarly, the significant way in which the hon. member is proposing to limit the ability to put on notice other motions of non-confidence in the government has not been considered either. The hon. member is quite right to say that he is not ashamed that some of these ideas are novel ones. It is good to come up with new ideas. All hon. members should make an effort to bring fresh ideas, but new ideas need to be tested. What would have been better is if this motion had contained a clause referring the items and the changes proposed to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. That would have provided an opportunity to hear from witnesses, including experts, to better understand the implications of the many changes that the member is proposing. Had the hon. member included such a clause in the motion, I would have been very open to supporting the motion. It is unfortunate that the motion does not contain such a clause. On that basis alone, I am unable to support the motion. The need for study is further underscored by the fact that the motion could have constitutional implications as it pertains to prorogation. The Governor General derives the authority to prorogue Parliament pursuant to section 38 of the Constitution Act of 1867. More specifically, section 38 provides the Governor General with the authority to summon Parliament and therefore, by extension, to prorogue it. The authority of the Governor General is exercisable according to unwritten constitutional convention upon the Prime Minister providing advice and consulting with the Governor General. It is the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister alone who consults the Governor General on the question of prorogation. By prescribing that a motion of confidence be put before the Prime Minister goes to the Governor General limits the discretion of the Prime Minister to seek prorogation. Moreover, the motion proposes to insert a wedge between the Prime Minister and the Governor General and that, in turn, could impact upon the manner in which the Governor General responds to the advice of the Prime Minister. I would note that, on the question of constitutional implications, section 41(a) of the Constitution Act of 1982 provides that any change respecting the Office of the Governor General requires a constitutional amendment. All of this is to say that there are a number of considerations that need to be studied and considered, and on that basis, it would be premature to adopt the motion at this time.

943 words

Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

May/12/23 1:57:34 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 79, moved by my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, whom I thank, by the way, for his excellent speech. Despite the fact that I still consider myself a young politician, perhaps less so in age than in years of experience, I feel that I have learned a lot about procedural matters during my three and a half years in office. I had the pleasure of participating in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, particularly when it came time to set up a hybrid Parliament during the pandemic. Although I stopped sitting regularly on the committee after that, I followed its work from a distance. Among that work was the study on proroguing Parliament during the summer of 2020. This was the first time that the government was required to justify its use of prorogation after the fact. As I will explain, this did not solve the problem of partisan use of prorogation. Today's motion just happens to touch on the framework of prorogation, along with the definition of a vote of confidence. I want to quickly review these two aspects of the motion, which are in some ways intertwined. With respect to prorogation, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs had the opportunity to read and analyze the “Report on the Government's Report to Parliament: August 2020 Prorogation—COVID-19 Pandemic” and produce its own report on that report. That report noted the various times in history when the government has used prorogation for what could be described as partisan purposes. I would like to take a moment to read part of that report. It is rather enlightening. [In 1873,] Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Lord Dufferin when facing a loss of support in the House of Commons during a political scandal that would be dubbed the Pacific scandal. The Committee heard that the 1873 prorogation ended a committee inquiry into the matter but that the controversy over the scandal resumed during the subsequent parliamentary session. Sir John resigned a few weeks after Parliament resumed. [More recently, in 2002,] Prime Minister Jean Chrétien requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Adrienne Clarkson at a time when details were emerging of a political scandal that would be dubbed the sponsorship scandal. The prorogation prevented a report from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts on the sponsorship scandal from being presented in the House. [One year later, in 2003,] Mr. Chrétien prorogued Parliament until February 2004. This delayed the tabling of the Auditor General’s report on the sponsorship scandal, which was due to be tabled that November, until after Mr. Chrétien left office. Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Michaëlle Jean in December 2008. The prorogation occurred at a time when a global financial crisis had recently begun. However, the prorogation also enabled the government to postpone a non-confidence vote in the House that was being sought by the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party, who had proposed a coalition, and the Bloc Québécois, who had agreed to support the coalition under a supply and confidence agreement. It was noted that the Governor General granted the request for prorogation but only after several hours of reflection. By the time the House resumed sitting in January 2009, the opposition coalition had collapsed. One witness referred to these circumstances as being driven by a breakdown in good governance within the Liberal caucus. [En 2010,] Prime Minister Harper requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, from January 2010 to March 2010. The reason for the three-month duration of the prorogation was to allow Parliament to recess for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. However, the prorogation also postponed the examination by the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan into alleged mistreatment of Afghan detainees while in custody. The 2020 prorogation was no exception to the list of prorogations that were requested for partisan purposes. Although the government invoked the pandemic as a reason, in the eyes of several witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, there was some doubt about that justification. The fact that the government was mired in the WE scandal, that the prorogation lasted for a long time, five weeks, and that the government's report was biased, led the committee to conclude that reforms around the prorogation of the House and votes of confidence needed to be clarified. Essentially, while the legislative change in 2017 was intended to make the use of prorogation more transparent after the fact, the goal was not met. In a way, the purpose of Motion No. 79 is to make the use of prorogation transparent upstream instead of downstream, after the fact, when it is too late. Essentially, Motion No. 79 would allow, prior to a prorogation of the House and after the Prime Minister expresses an intention to recommend such a prorogation, a motion of confidence to be moved, in which case the motion should meet a range of criteria. It will have to be tabled with four days' notice and to be signed by 20 members of the House representing more than one recognized party, which removes some of the partisanship from the initiative. To avoid abuse, there are safeguards in place. Only one such motion can be placed on notice per supply period and only one can be sponsored or signed by the same member of the House in a session of a Parliament. The text of the motion can either be, “That the House has lost confidence in the government” or “That the House has confidence in the government”. Both are quite clear and unambiguous. It cannot be amended. The time of the debate is limited to a maximum of one ordinary sitting day and a maximum of 20 minutes per member and 10 minutes for questions and answers. Consequently, no stalling tactics are possible. Once the four days have passed after notice was given, the motion takes precedence over all other business of the House. It is debated and then voted on. Linking prorogation to a confidence vote will hopefully make a government that wants to use it not only think twice about the risk of being defeated and triggering a general election, but also consider whether it has the grounds to seek prorogation with the assent of other parties in the House. We must remember that the prorogation of a session puts an end to all the business of Parliament, with some exceptions. Every committee, with the exception of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, stops its work when prorogation occurs. Every time there is a partisan prorogation, it is the taxpayers, the citizens, who pay the price, since many bills that affect their daily life die on the Order Paper. In a political context where we can expect more and more governments to be elected with a minority, making prorogation increasingly likely, Motion No. 79 provides a framework that is entirely justified and welcome. As for the confidence vote aspect, how does a confidence vote work? How do we define what constitutes a confidence vote? Actually, it is not always particularly clear. I would refer members to what the parliamentary website tells us. Currently, matters of confidence are regulated by constitutional convention. The website states: As the confidence convention is an unwritten parliamentary practice, it is not always clear what constitutes a question of confidence. Motions that clearly state that the House of Commons has lost confidence in the government, motions concerning the government’s budgetary policy, motions for the granting of supply, motions in relation to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, and motions the government clearly identifies as questions of confidence are usually recognized as such. This convention is subject to interpretation, so some uncertainty needs to be cleared up in terms of the definition of “vote of confidence”. That is what Motion No. 79 seeks to do. Professor Hugo Cyr had this to say to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs: It is essential to understand that it is up to the House of Commons itself to determine whether it gives and maintains its confidence in the government. There is sometimes confusion in this respect, as prime ministers sometimes state that a vote on a particular bill or issue will be a confidence vote. This undue pressure on parliamentarians could be considered a form of blackmail, and that has no place in a democracy. The government should never be able to hold an opposition responsible for defeating a government, for example, on an issue that should never have been a matter of confidence. For all these reasons, both with respect to prorogation and the framework for votes of confidence, I commend the work of the member for Elmwood—Transcona on Motion No. 79. It lines up with the recommendations the Bloc Québécois made during the drafting of the report on the prorogation of the summer of 2020. I hope, despite what I just heard in the last two speeches in the House, that Motion No. 79 will receive the support of the House.

1589 words

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

May/12/23 2:07:03 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, let me start off by thanking the member for Elmwood—Transcona for bringing forward this motion. When we are allotted our private member's business, it is done by lottery. I say this to make sure viewers understand. He was fortunate enough to be up near the top, and he has generously donated his time and his space to give parliamentarians this important opportunity. I really see this as important because I think this is an opportunity for colleagues from all parties in the House to start really, truly thinking about what it means to be a member of the House. We are members of Parliament, first and foremost, no matter what position we hold. We got to this place legitimately because we captured the attention and the confidence of our constituents in our respective ridings. Every person in this House has earned their spot because of the democratic mandate given to them by the people of their constituency. That comes before all else, whether one holds a position as Leader of the Opposition or a parliamentary secretary or one is promoted to become a minister of cabinet. First and foremost, one is a member of the House. I see today's debate on Motion No. 79 as an opportunity to reassert ourselves as members of the House and to more clearly understand the rules by which we operate. Today's motion, of course, is centring on the confidence convention. For constituents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who may be watching today's debate, when we start talking about procedure and the Standing Orders, I know it starts to sound like inside baseball. However, there is a reason these debates are important. The Standing Orders and how they are interpreted, how they are written and how they operate allow an elected member of Parliament to do their job properly. The government has all kinds of resources at its disposal, but for members of the opposition in particular, the rules of the House put us on an equal footing with the government. The rules are particularly important to members of the opposition because of that very fact. When it comes to the confidence convention, we know that, generally speaking, confidence votes come in a few different forms, but they have never really been clearly spelled out. We are attempting to spell them out today. We know that, for example, anything involving the spending of funds, whether it is a budget implementation act or appropriation bills, would be a motion of confidence. Also by convention, anything else that the government states is a matter of confidence can be interpreted in the same way. This entire conversation is also rooted in the conversation that we need to have about responsible government. This is because, of course, in our Westminster system, responsible government means that the executive branch owes its responsibility to Parliament and not to the monarch. We have to understand that we went through centuries of turmoil and fighting to arrive at this democratic ideal. If we look at the history of England, especially during the 1600s, the civil wars, the establishment of the Commonwealth, the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution were all taking place. It was a tumultuous time. Here in our own country of Canada, as well, we have had rebellions. We had the Durham report, which resulted in a pathway towards responsible government. These are important concepts that we have to understand. In the Standing Orders, there have been references to the confidence convention in the past. It was mentioned back in the 1960s, but through the 1970s and, again, in the 1980s, the provisions were modified several times so that those provisions were actually removed. Let us turn now to Motion No. 79. Boiling it down, it would essentially require that we hold a confidence vote to take place at the start of every new Parliament or following an expression of intent by the Prime Minister before that person prorogues. There are two very important things here. It would essentially establish, for members of Parliament, for the benefit of members of the House and for the general public, a standardized, streamlined format. One of the things that we look at when we look at Motion No. 79 is, for example, the requirement that, if a member of the House were to bring forward a motion of confidence or non-confidence, it would have to be signed by 20 of his or her peers, and they would have to be representatives of more than one party. This makes sense because, if a confidence or non-confidence vote is going to succeed, it is obviously going to take more than one party. This would take away from anything frivolous happening. The motion would place this in the existing Standing Orders right after section 53(1), the chapter that outlines how special debates are to happen. I have heard members of Parliament from the Liberals and the Conservatives, in preceding speeches, wondering about how this would impact the prerogative of the Crown. They need only look at the preamble of the motion, which states right away that it is a prerogative of the Crown to prorogue and dissolve Parliament at its pleasure. We cannot take away from that fact. However, what we can do, as members of the House, is amend our own Standing Orders to provide for a road map on how the House can formally voice its opinion on whether the government of the day continues to have the confidence of the House. This is extremely important because prime ministers have abused that power. I look at the previous Conservative speaker's speech on this when he said that he could not support this motion because it deserved further study. It is quite shocking that apparently the Conservatives need to study the issue at the procedure and House affairs committee to figure out if they need to limit the prime minister's power.

998 words

Constituency

Mr. Alistair MacGregor

May/12/23 2:15:02 p.m.
Watch

It is highly suspicious. Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing here with the Liberals and the Conservatives, if they do end up voting against this motion, is their own naked self-interest because, for them, the current system works. They are the status quo parties, and we are not going to see a meaningful push for reform against the Standing Orders because they want to have the opportunity for their executive to use that power and to not in any way be constrained. Therefore, I implore all members of the House to remember how I started my speech. First and foremost, members are a member of the House, and this is a real opportunity to stand up not only for their rights in this place but also for the rights of the constituents who sent them here, to codify that and to make sure that we have a clear pathway laid out for how confidence is tested in this place. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak. I want to thank again the member for Elmwood—Transcona for giving us the opportunity to debate this. I very much hope that members will find it in their conscience to support this important amendment to our Standing Orders.

210 words

The Deputy Speaker

May/12/23 2:15:02 p.m.
Watch

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper. It being 2:15 p.m., the House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 2:15 p.m.)

61 words

Mr. Peter Julian

May/12/23 2:15:02 p.m.
Watch

Highly suspicious.

2 words