The NDP is pushing to limit the government’s control over time allocation and in-camera House of Commons committees.
Parliament is supposed to be Canada’s seat of democracy, but there are increasingly too many in-camera Commons committee meetings and the majority governing Conservatives are using time allocation too often to limit debate on bills, say NDP MPs who now want to bring in rules to limit the government’s control over these measures. However, a leading Parliamentary expert says these changes should be done in a comprehensive and thoughtful way.
According to the House Standing Orders, MPs must examine the Commons rules each time a new Parliament begins between the 60th and 90th sitting day. As part of this review, NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.), said that his and NDP Whip Chris Charlton’s (Hamilton Mountain, Ont.) staff are preparing a set of proposals to democratize House procedures. The Feb. 6 sitting will be the 80th sitting and Feb. 27 will be the 90th sitting day.
“When that occurs, that will be our target for introducing at least some of the proposals that we’ve got and then that will be furthered with us bringing motions to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for in-depth study as to how we aid in the democracy of this institution as opposed to destroying it,” Mr. Comartin told The Hill Times last week.
The two main areas the party will focus on are the use of time allocation and committees going in-camera when it’s not necessary. He said he wants to establish criteria for when it’s important to use time allocation on debate in the House of Commons, something the government has been using often.
Before the House recessed in December, the government used time allocation and closure nine times on a number of bills to move them through the House. Some of the bills included Bill C-18, Ending Wheat Board Monopoly Bill; C-20, Increasing Seats in the House of Commons Bill; and C-13, the Budget Implementation Bill and Bill C-10, the Omnibus Crime Bill. The government argued the bills were priorities and needed to be passed before a certain time or that they had already been debated in the previous Parliament and therefore limited debate on them to move them through the legislative process quicker. The government also argued that the opposition was attempting to delay the bills by either filibustering or introducing motions to not proceed with debate.
Mr. Comartin called these moves “undemocratic,” but Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Sask.) said it was necessary for the government to invoke these measures on certain bills.
“You’ve got to realize that time allocation is not used indiscriminately from our standpoint. We’ve brought forward time allocation on certain pieces of legislation because we felt it was necessary to do so primarily because the opposition, including obviously the NDP, have demonstrated without question that on certain bills, they just want to debate the bill, they want to defeat the bill and not allow the bill to come to a vote,” Mr. Lukiwski said. “When that happens, it’s quite frankly antidemocratic.”
Mr. Lukiwski said the government believes in “healthy debate” and “intelligent and responsible debate” unlike the opposition parties.
“The opposition has proven time and time again they’re not interested in strictly debate, they’re interested in delay, and that’s when time allocation comes into force and I think it’s a necessary tool that a government has at its disposal. We’ve used it, as I say, only in certain situations,” he said.
Retired Queen’s University political science professor Ned Franks told The Hill Times last week, however that while he would like to see something done about Parliament’s degradation, he said it should be done in a bigger context.
“I would very much like to see that. That really, in my view, should be a small part in a big project to re-examine how our House of Commons works, what its successes and failures are. We’re at a point now, not the institution of Parliament, but the Members of Parliament, rank very, very low in public esteem. Of course the former auditor general Sheila Fraser ranked the highest. Parliament should be better than that and not least of the reasons is that so much of Parliament is an effect of partisanship and trained-seals behaviour,” he said. “I wouldn’t even mind seeing it be incremental, but I think it has to happen through a very serious process of examining the Standing Orders and the purpose of the House and the role of Members and we haven’t really had that for a long, long time.”
Mr. Lukiwksi said he would wait to see the NDP’s proposals before commenting on them.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, MPs debated a private member’s bill to prevent MPs from crossing the floor.
NDP MP Mathieu Ravignat (Pontiac, Que.) introduced the bill, C-306, An Act to Amend the Parliament of Canada Act (political affiliation), last September. It came up for debate for the first hour in November, and the second hour on Feb. 1.
“For the past few weeks we have been hearing about politicians who change parties, provincially and federally, as though you can change political values the way you change your shirt,” Mr. Ravignat said during debate last week, referring to former NDP MP Lise St-Denis (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) who joined the Liberal Party recently.
The bill, if passed, would prevent MPs from running as a member of one party and then crossing the floor to another once elected. If an MP wishes to change party affiliations, the bill would force them to step down and run in a byelection that would be called immediately. The bill also allows MPs to sit as independents for the remainder of the term if they fundamentally disagree with their party and wish to leave it without running in a byelection.
“It is a matter of respecting the voice of the people. A Member’s seat will not be considered vacated if the member elected as a member of a political party chooses to sit as an independent. This is a simple and reasonable proposal to protect our democracy,” Mr. Ravignat said.
During debate, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Man.) said that MPs should be allowed to change parties if they wish to and that there are more pressing concerns when it comes to protecting Canadian democracy.
“I believe individuals have a right to do what they believe is in the best interests of their constituents. If that means participating in another caucus, they should be allowed to do so. However, when we talk about electoral reform, there are other priorities that are more important than this issue,” he said, for example changing the voting system and addressing representation in the House. “I am more interested in trying to engage people in participating in the electoral process and opening up nominations than what this bill is attempting to do. It is trying to dishonour or discredit the political process that has worked exceptionally well. The system that we have has worked exceptionally well. By discrediting it, we are ultimately discrediting the democratic process.”
NDP MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.) spoke about a personal floor crossing story, when in 2006, former MP David Emerson won the Vancouver Kingsway riding as a Liberal. The Conservatives won the election and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) appointed Mr. Emerson as a Cabinet minister.
“Interestingly, on election night, Mr. Emerson celebrated his victory for the Liberals by declaring publicly on television that he would be the Prime Minister’s worst nightmare. Two weeks later, on Feb. 6, he was that same Prime Minister’s minister of international trade. Who would stand in the House and justify such a fundamental betrayal of the democratic process? That is just absolutely awful,” Mr. Davies said. “The people of Vancouver Kingsway rose up in disgust. … For a democracy to work, people need to have trust in their politicians and trust is at an all time low in this country. People are not voting in elections. Why? It is because they do not trust politicians to keep their word.”
Prof. Franks said the issue of floor-crossing is a non-starter, however, when it comes to Canada’s democracy. He said while the House can change its rules or legislate whatever it wants, the issue of floor crossing actually entrenches the dominance of the party over the MP and therefore makes it less democratic.
“Members represent their constituencies. This is very old-fashioned, but I believe that that’s their first job and Members do an awful lot of constituency work and their offices do even more of course, but I am really not sympathetic with saying their duties of their party are so paramount that they must represent their parties first and their constituents second,” Prof. Franks said. “If I were to pick one single thing I would like to change in the Canadian Parliament, it would be the dominance of party over the activities of MPs in the House of Commons. I think the party lines are far too rigid and the opportunities available for backbench MPs to exercise their own discretion have become less and less over the years.”
Prof. Franks said the dominance of parties over individual MPs can be seen in everything from Question Period, to committees, to speaking out on a variety of specific issues.
“At some point I think we shouldn’t make a statement one way or another that the parties are not the be all and end all of Parliament. The be all and end all are constituents, members and the way they’re represented in Parliament,” he said. “I think this is as good a place to say parties should not dominate. If a member gets elected into Parliament, that member should be free if he or she wants to move from one side of the house to the other. It only happens very rarely and it normally happens for reasonably discernible reasons. Sometimes they’re even good ones.”
Mr. Lukiwski, who said he personally believes MPs should be able to change political allegiances if they desire, said that because it’s a private member’s bill, the vote on Bill C-306 will be a free one. The House will vote on it this Wednesday, Feb. 8.
The idea of wanting to protect democracy is a good one, Prof. Franks said, and all of these ideas should be examined in a greater scale. “I think we should be able to identify five or six areas which includes Question Period and crossing the floor of the House, committee membership, and the use of time allocation and closure. That certainly could profit from an enormous examination,” he said.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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