Committee Shenanigans: The Untold Story

March 18, 2008

There have been several allegations brought forth regarding my role as Chair on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs over the past weeks. Unfortunately, these disparaging attacks have fueled some to put forth unfounded stories regarding my role as chair of this committee. Therefore, I would like to present the facts and instances that were overlooked, and thus have not been accurately reported.

Below I have provided a link to the committee website where all the meetings are listed by date and meeting number. If you click on “Evidence” you can access the transcripts of the meetings.

I have provided the date and meeting number where possible as well as the time, which will help locate the exact quotation or reference.

Meetings after October 2007:

Meetings before October 2007:

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

My decisions made in committee were procedurally sound and completely impartial:


1. Nothing in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice edited by Marleau and Monpetit or the Standing Orders of the House of Commons substantiates the allegations that meetings were incorrectly adjourned.

2. The opposition never brought forth any formal objections regarding the adjournment of meetings.

3. I based my decisions on the advice of the Law Clerk and/or Parliamentary Council. Regardless, these were routinely overturned by the opposition members:

a. The most important decision can be found at the Meeting of September 11, Meeting # 62 at 1545, 1550 and 1555;

4. Despite the procedural accuracy of my decisions the opposition members insisted on challenging my rulings. Here are a number examples where my decisions were overturned by the opposition:

a. Meeting of September 11, 2007 - Meeting # 62 at 1600;

b. Meeting of September 13, 2007 –Meeting # 64 at 1440;

c. Meeting of September 13, 2007 –Meeting # 64 at 1510; and,

d. Meeting of March 4, 2008 –Meeting # 18 at 1125-1130.

5. There have been accusations that I favoured the Conservative Party. This is absurd. In fact, there were instances where my procedurally-sound decisions could have been viewed as favouring the opposition members. Naturally, these decisions were not challenged by the opposition members:

a. Meeting of September 13, 2007 –Meeting # 64 at 1600, and

b. Meeting of February 12, 2008 –Meeting # 15 at 1110.

OPPOSITION SHENANIGANS

On numerous occasions, the behaviour of various opposition members during committee meetings was so inappropriate and disruptive to committee work that I had to intervene.

1. Meeting of November 13, 2007 – Meeting # at 1240.

Opposition members decided to rise and leave the committee table, ending debate entirely. Four Conservative members and one Bloc Québécois member remained. The rules require that I do a quorum call in which 7 members are present. I was therefore forced to adjourn the meeting because opposition members refused to take their seats;

2. Meeting of January 31, 2008–Meeting # 13 at 1135.

The behaviour of certain members of the opposition parties were so disruptive I had to have their microphones turned off. The unruly nature of the opposition members’ behaviour forced me to suspend the meeting. This is the procedurally sound action as noted in House of Commons Procedure and Practice (edited by Marleau and Monpetit on page 859);

3. Meeting of February 5–Meeting # 14 at 1525.

A member of the opposition, a party whip no less, blatantly disregarded the rules by taking pictures during the meeting with a cell phone. This is completely unprofessional and inappropriate behaviour of a member.

Contrary to the partisan articles one would read in the local papers, both opposition members and government members demonstrated, at various times, their confidence in my ability as Chair:

1) Karen Redman, Member of the Liberal Party

Meeting of September 13, 2007 – Meeting #64 at 1510

“Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the risk of looking like I'm currying favour, I think you're doing a great job. I know this is very difficult…”

2) Scott Reid and Pierre Lemieux, Members of the Conservative Party

Meeting of March 6, 2008 – Meeting #19 at 1145 &

Meeting of March 6, 2008 – Meeting #19 at 1155, respectively


“I would simply say that you have my complete confidence, and I hope you have the confidence of the majority of the members of this committee. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job under such difficult circumstances” (Scott Reid).

“The opposition, in pulling this tactic today, is simply showing Canadians again that this is a partisan move, that it is a hijacking of this committee, and that it's their way or no way. That's basically the way they're framing this. You have my full support, Chair, and I thank you for the good work you've done. Thank you” (Pierre Lemieux).

In addition, Karen Redman stated in a recent Liberal Party Media Release, that the Conservatives are preventing an investigation. This Media Release fails to mention the fact that the Conservatives readily agreed to the investigation, but repeatedly asked that all parties be looked into as well. However, the opposition categorically refused. Curiously enough, several opposition members have engaged in similar electoral practices that have been deemed by the opposition to be the so called “in-and-out” scheme. Below are examples, taken from committee transcripts, of elected members of parliament that have engaged in similar practices:

NDP
Libby Davis
Peter Stoffer

Liberal Party
Stéphane Dion
Pablo Rodriguez
Marlene Jennings

Bloc Québécois
Christaine Gagnon
Marc Lemay

For more details please refer to the Meeting of February 5, 2008 – Meeting #14.

It is most unfortunate that the local media has not lived up to their journalistic obligation to research and report facts in an unbiased nature. I will leave you now with a statement made by the Speaker of the House that substantiates the aforementioned.

Speaker admonishes all parties for anarchy in parliamentary committees (14 Mar 2008)

OTTAWA — The Speaker of the House of Commons warned Friday that excessive partisanship has pushed parliamentary committees to the brink of anarchy.

In a rare intervention, Peter Milliken appealed to all parties to "address themselves to the crisis in the committee system that is teetering dangerously close to the precipice at the moment."

Traditionally, committees are masters of their own business and the Commons Speaker has been loath to intervene.

But partisan shenanigans at various committees compelled Milliken to speak out about what he called "this anarchy that appears to be serially afflicting committees in recent weeks."

"Frankly speaking, I do not think it is overly dramatic to say that many of our committees are suffering from a dysfunctional virus that, if allowed to propagate unchecked, risks preventing members from fulfilling the mandate given them by their constituents," Milliken told the Commons.

The lack of decorum and civility in the Commons and its standing committees is not a new problem and they've arguably been more dysfunctional at various times in the past. However, recent hijinks appear to have goaded Milliken into issuing his unusual admonition.

For instance, for two days in a row this week, the Conservative chairman of the justice committee walked out of a meeting rather than allow an opposition challenge to his ruling that the committee has no business investigating the Cadman affair.

The opposition parties last week combined to remove Gary Goodyear as the Conservative chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee after he repeatedly blocked attempts to investigate allegedly illegal Tory spending practices in the 2006 election. Milliken noted that the opposition members chose a new chair, Tory MP Joe Preston, even though he "had stated unequivocally that he did not want the nomination."

In this minority Parliament, Milliken said rulings by committee chairs are being routinely overturned by majority votes, even when the rulings are procedurally sound. Such a state of affairs has led to "general lawlessness" at committees.

While the various parties acknowledged the validity of Milliken's warning, each side blamed the other for provoking the problem.

"This is an important statement and a serious criticism of the opposition's anti-democratic tactics at committee," said Peter Van Loan, the government's House Leader.

"Parliamentary committees are becoming irrelevant sideshows due to partisan hijacking and manipulation of rules and votes."

But Libby Davies, the NDP House leader, said the Conservatives - and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office in particular - are to blame.

"I think it's clearly the government (at fault) and it's the PMO and the control that they want to exert over committees to carry through their own political agenda instead of allowing the committees to do their own business and do it in a democratic fashion," she said.