MODERNIZING THE SENATE FROM WITHIN: UPDATING THE SENATE COMMITTEE STRUCTURE
Standing Senate Committee On Rules, Procedures And The Rights Of Parliament
Eleventh Report: Operational Issues
Chair: The Honourable Jack Austin, P.C.
Deputy Chair: The Honourable Terry Stratton
A. Terms of Reference
B. How Your Committee
Did Its Work
C. This Report
THE
EXISTING STRUCTURE AND ITS CHALLENGES
A. The Current Committee
System
B. Support
Staff and Facilities
C. The Costs of Expansion
D. Operational
Challenges
IMPROVING
THE EXISTING STRUCTURE
A. The Number and Size of
Committees
B. Scheduling of
Committees
C.
Subcommittees
D.
Summoning
Witnesses
E. Committee
Mandates and Names
ANNEXES
1.
Recommendations and Proposed Rules
2.
Current Schedule of Committee Sittings, With Data on Conflicts 26
The Eleventh Report of
the Senate Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of
Parliament contains eight recommendations focused on bringing about
improvements to the operational effectiveness of Senate committees.
Committee work is
already widely regarded as one of the Senate’s key strengths. Senate committees have an impressive track record,
particularly in the refinement of government legislation and the production of
innovative policy studies. The
proposals contained in this report build on these strengths, and will enable
the Senate committee system to use Senators’ time more efficiently and
effectively.
The central immediate
challenge to Senate committee effectiveness is the tension between rapidly
expanding committee workloads and the finite time of a constitutionally
limited number of Senators. Workload
problems are especially severe for the official Opposition, as a result of the
declining number of Opposition Senators in recent years.
This report reflects the
view that there are no magic structural solutions to the workload problem,
because the central source of the problem is not structural.
There are, however, a number of incremental improvements that can be
made to the way in which the committee system works, reflecting two general
themes. The first is greater
flexibility. By maximizing the
capacity of the Senate to adjust its committee structure to varying
requirements, structurally imposed inefficiencies can be minimized.
The second theme is strengthened coordination.
By minimizing scheduling conflicts and other impediments for individual
Senators, and by increasing the capacity of the Senate to ensure that
committee activity reflects Senate priorities, the value obtained from the
time and financial resources invested in the committee system can be
maximized. Recommended reforms include reducing the size of committees,
where possible; making better use of lightly used time-slots; closer attention
to scheduling; and limiting the creation and ad hoc scheduling of
subcommittees.
The measures proposed in
this report will reinforce one another in enhancing the effectiveness of the
Senate committee system. They
respond to immediate operational problems such as growing committee workloads
and scheduling conflicts. They
also respond to the need to maintain a balance of partisan perspectives, and
full participation by the Official Opposition, in circumstances that are
seeing a growing imbalance in the numbers of Government and Opposition
Senators.
A. Terms of Reference
This report provides findings and recommendations relating to a series
of issues concerning the structure and activity of committees of the Senate of
Canada. The Standing Committee on
Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament (the Committee’s present
name) prepared the report in response to the following Order of Reference,
adopted by the Senate on 15 March 2001:
That
it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Privileges, Standing Rules
and Orders that it examine the structure of committees in the Senate, taking
into consideration – inter alia – the following:
- available human
resources
-
the schedule of committees
-
the mandate of each committee
-
the total number of committees
-
the number of Senators on each committee
And that the Committee report its findings to the Senate no later than
Wednesday, October 31, 2001 (subsequently amended to March 29, 2002).
B.
How Your Committee Did Its Work
In carrying out the work referred to it, your Committee held sixteen
regular meetings to hear and consider evidence between March of 2001 and March
of 2002, including wide-ranging all‑day sessions on June 19 and 20 of
2001. Furthermore, to ensure that
your Committee would fully benefit from the perspectives of current committee
chairs and members, the Chair and Deputy Chair held a series of meetings with
other committees that yielded advice your Committee has considered when
developing recommendations.
In addition, an ad hoc working group was established to
undertake a closer review of how committees can maximize their contribution to
the Senate performance of key roles. This
action reflects the recognition that the Order of Reference to which this
report responds has two dimensions: it directs attention to immediate measures
that can enhance the effectiveness of committees, and it requires that
attention be paid to whether the committee system is broadly serving the
priorities implied by the role of the Senate in Canada’s political system.
C. This Report
This
report begins with a review of key facts about the existing committee system,
including an overview of the operational pressures that require attention at
this time.
The
review of the existing structure and immediate issues provides a reference
point for the consideration of reform proposals relating to the operational
issues raised in the Terms of Reference provided to your Committee.
Following a general discussion of the adequacy of resources, which has
implications for all issues, the report addresses the number and size of
committees, scheduling issues, the structure of subcommittees, the summoning
of witnesses, and committee mandates and names.
A complete list of recommendations, accompanied by proposed rules where
these are required, is provided in Annex 1.
THE
EXISTING STRUCTURE AND ITS CHALLENGES
A. The Current Committee
System
The current Senate committee system reflects the committee mandates set
out in Rule 86, and consists of: permanent
or standing committees, several of which have been established jointly with
the House of Commons; and special committees periodically created by the
Senate (or jointly by the Senate and the House of Commons) on a temporary
basis to address single issues.
The 15 standing committees and the number of members provided for each
by the existing Rules are presented in the following table.
Senate Standing Committees and Memberships
Aboriginal
Peoples |
12 |
Fisheries |
12 |
National
Finance |
12 |
Agriculture and Forestry |
12 |
Foreign
Affairs |
12 |
Rules,
Procedures and Rights of Parliament |
15 |
Banking, Trade and Commerce |
12 |
Human
Rights |
9 |
Selection
Committee |
9 |
National Security and Defence |
9 |
Internal
Economy, Budgets and Administration |
15 |
Social
Affairs, Science and Technology |
12 |
Energy,
the Environment and Natural Resources |
12 |
Legal
and Constitutional Affairs |
12 |
Transport
and Communications |
12 |
Standing Joint Committees and Senate Memberships
Library of Parliament |
17 |
Official Languages |
9 |
Scrutiny of Regulations |
8 |
In addition, there is one special committee of the Senate:
the Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, a five-member committee
mandated to report on or by August 31, 2002.
Standing or special committees have the authority to create
subcommittees in the course of their work, and subcommittees have been
increasingly used in recent years. These
range in formality and permanence from the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs,
which has been created as a routine matter in each session of Parliament since
1984, to more temporary working groups established to pursue single issues.
B.
Support
Staff and Facilities
Senate committees require the services of:
·
a Committee Clerk (who provides procedural assistance
during sittings as well as general administrative and logistical
coordination);
·
one or more Library of Parliament Researchers (who
provide research support during sittings as well as briefing materials, advice
and report-drafting assistance);
·
Debates and Publications staff who prepare committee
transcripts; and
·
Pages and support from Parliamentary Precincts and
Services.
Senate committees require dedicated rooms equipped to provide
simultaneous translation and, in some cases, the televising of meetings and
the holding of video-conferences. Senate
committees currently have seven rooms at their disposal, four of which are
suitable for the use of the Airpac cameras that enable meetings to be taped
for broadcasting. As well, one
room in the East Block is equipped for video-conferencing, and a second room
is in the process of being similarly equipped.
Support costs for clerks and researchers vary approximately in tandem
with the number of committees. For
example, a general rule of thumb has been that whenever two new committees are
added to the structure, the creation of a new team consisting of a clerk and
administrative assistant is required. The
current cost of such a team is approximately $110,000.
However, rising activity levels of individual committees have already
resulted in requirements for a fully dedicated clerk in at least six
committees. It is reasonable to
assume that this trend will continue, making the $110,000 figure
unrealistically low as a basis for projecting the cost of added committees.
Each committee or subcommittee normally requires the assistance of at
least one researcher provided by the Library of Parliament.
The cost of this research support averages approximately $60,000 per
Senate committee in direct staff costs, but is not included in the Senate
budget.
For other kinds of support, the costs associated with the addition of
committees to the existing structure are significantly dependent upon the
time-slots during which they would sit. For
example, the cost of Debates and Publications staff would not increase for two
to four new committees, unless the scheduling of new committees creates new
simultaneous or back-to-back sittings. Four
new committees sitting back-to-back would require the hiring of three new
reporters and two scopists, at a cost of $292,840 per year, and simultaneous
sittings would result in further increases in costs.
Similarly, an increase in the number of committees sitting Monday and
Thursday would require the hiring of one new Page, at $10,000-12,000 per year.
With respect to facilities, the cost impacts of expansion vary
considerably depending on the specific demands that would be made by new
committees. For example, meeting
times are an important variable. Although no more than four standing committees meet
simultaneously at the present time, committee rooms are often fully booked
during the core periods of committee sittings because of the requirements of
subcommittees, special committees and caucus meetings.
As a result, new committees scheduled to meet during the core period
would require the creation of additional committee rooms, involving
significant capital costs. On
the other hand, existing facilities could accommodate new committees sitting
outside the core meeting times.
Similarly, existing facilities could readily accommodate new committees
as long as they are small enough to be compatible with all existing rooms, do
not require the televising of their meetings, and do not increase the burden
on video-conferencing capabilities. On
the other hand, new committees with requirements in these areas might require
the creation of additional committee rooms, or the re-equipping of existing
rooms, at potentially significant cost.
Overall, the estimated cost to the Senate of creating one to two new
Senate committees or subcommittees scheduled to sit outside the core timeslots
(and where incremental costs of committees sitting back-to-back are avoided)
would be upwards of $122,000 per year. Similarly,
the creation of three to four new committees or subcommittees would cost the
Senate upwards of $244,000 per year.
These estimates need to be viewed as no more than a starting point in
projecting full expansion costs. They
do not include costs to budgets other than that of the Senate, and they do not
include the substantial additional costs that would be generated by studies
that any new committees might be authorized to undertake, including items such
as travel and the appearance of witnesses. Also, if the new committees were to
be scheduled in the current time slots, resulting in an increase in the number
of simultaneous committee meetings, the costs would increase substantially.
D. Operational
Challenges
The current structure of Senate committees represents the most recent
product of a series of trade-offs that dates back to 1894, and beyond.
In 1894, the first Rule providing for Senate standing committees was
adopted; however, between 1867 and that year, standing and select committees
were required only to be included on a list posted in a conspicuous place in
the Senate.
The Senate committee structure has taken a variety of forms over the
years, in response to: constraints
created by varying levels of party representation in the Senate; rising and
falling workloads in individual policy fields; the emergence of new priority
areas; and other circumstances.([1])
The size of committees has ranged from a handful of Senators to as many
as 50, and the number of standing committees has also varied, from limited
numbers of widely mandated committees to larger numbers of committees with
specific mandates. The long-term
trend has seen an increasing number of committees and subcommittees,
reflecting the migration of some functions from the Senate chamber to
committees, and the gradual expansion in scope of government activity and of
the range of legislative and policy fields.
The recommendations in this Report seek to maximize the system’s
effectiveness while responding to general pressures that are affecting, to
various degrees, the work of all committees.
Aside from workload and time pressures, the most immediate pressure
results from the growing imbalance between Government and Opposition parties
in the Senate, reflecting the fact that one party has governed continuously
for almost a decade. The
shrinking proportion of Official Opposition Senators (in October 2001, there
were 30 as compared to 60 on the Government side) is making full and effective
participation on all committees a growing challenge for the Progressive
Conservatives. This poses a general threat to the effectiveness of the
Senate, which relies upon the full participation of the Opposition on
committees in order to ensure that a balance is reached among partisan
interests.
The problem of imbalance between Government and Opposition sides is by
no means a new one. During the
1970s and 1980s the imbalance was even more extreme than it is today, with
Senate Liberals numbering in the sixties and low seventies, and the
Progressive Conservatives ranging from the mid-teens to the mid-twenties.
Prime Minister Trudeau responded to the problem by agreeing that,
during that Parliament, where a Conservative Senator retired more than six
months in advance of the retirement age and requested that a Conservative
Senator be appointed in his/her place, he would make an appointment at his
discretion after consulting with various members of the Progressive
Conservative Party. Seven
Progressive Conservative Senators were appointed in this way.
Because the appointment of Senators remains the prerogative of the
Prime Minister, your Committee has confined its attention to Senate rules and
practices, and how they might be adjusted in order to maximize the
opportunities for effective participation by the Official Opposition.
In the proposals developed in this Report, your
Committee has also attempted to respond to the following additional pressures
that are affecting the Senate's effectiveness.
(1)
Overall legislative and policy workloads are growing significantly.
As of December 31, 2001, the number of meetings, reports and hours
spent in committee had already exceeded the five-year average.
By the end of March 2002, it is forecast that the five-year average
will have been exceeded by 44% for meetings, 41% for reports and 55% for hours
spent in committee. These
workloads are placing unsustainable demands on the Senate committee system
globally, and creating an immediate need for maximum efficiency in all Senate
procedures.
(2)
There are growing disparities among the legislative workloads of
committees. Some committees have
come to be precluded, for practical purposes, from undertaking policy studies
and other non-legislative work.
IMPROVING THE EXISTING STRUCTURE
Your Committee has had extensive discussions on issues such as the
number, size and scheduling of committees, along with the adequacy of
resources, in an effort to find solutions to a number of widely recognized
problems. As the number of
committees and formal or informal subcommittees has grown over the years, and
the Senate’s overall workload has expanded in line with the growth of
government, increasing numbers of Senators have come to be faced with
unsustainable committee workloads and, in some cases, scheduling conflicts
that prevent attendance at committees of central interest.
Your Committee believes that there is a general lesson to be learned
from the experience of the House of Commons, which has attempted to address
similar concerns with a series of experiments involving significant changes to
the size of committees, their number and other parameters.
These experiments with various committee forms – relatively numerous
small committees, smaller numbers of relatively large committees (with in some
cases subcommittees), committees combining legislative and policy mandates,
and committees specializing in either legislation or policy – have not
resulted in dramatic changes in the workload and scheduling issues perceived
by Members of the House (as indicated most recently by the discussion of
scheduling concerns in the June 2001 Report of the Special Committee on the
Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures of the House of Commons).
In the view of your Committee, the underlying reality is that there is
an increasing volume of work that needs to be done, and a finite supply of the
key resource that enables the work be done – the time of Senators.
It is instructive to compare the Senate and the House of Commons, in
terms of the constraints suggested by these basic parameters.
Numbers
of Committees: Senate and House
of Commons*
Type of Committee |
Senate |
House of Commons |
Standing |
15 |
17 |
Policy
Subcommittee |
3 |
12 |
Standing
Joint |
3 |
3 |
Special |
2 |
2 |
Total |
23 |
34 |
*As
listed on the respective web sites, February 2002.
The
Senate and the House of Commons are each separately responsible for reviewing
all proposed legislation, and rely on their committees for both legislative
review and policy studies. The
underlying workloads addressed by each committee system are thus comparable.
In the Senate, this work is carried out by the approximately 90
Senators (105 minus independents and Senate leadership) who sit on the 23
committees and listed subcommittees while, in the House, a similar workload is
shared among approximately 260 MPs (301 minus the Ministry and party leaders)
who sit on the 34 committees and subcommittees.
In the Senate, the ratio of available Senators to committees is 3.9:1
while, in the House, the comparable ratio is 7.6:1.
Senators thus face close to double the burden, compared with their
counterparts in the House of Commons, in meeting the basic demands of
committee work.
Recognizing
that major reductions in workload and scheduling frustrations are unlikely to
occur in the absence of changes to the fundamental parameters of work volume
and available time, your Committee has attempted to develop a series of
changes which will have the effect of fine-tuning the committee system and, in
combination, alleviating some of the pressures that Senators are experiencing
in committee work. The
central themes of the recommendations in this report are greater flexibility
and strengthened coordination. By
maximizing the capacity of the Senate to adjust its committee structure to
varying requirements, your Committee believes that structurally imposed
inefficiencies can be minimized, and the Senate committee system will use the
time of Senators more effectively on behalf of Canadians.
In addition, better coordination of scheduling and other demands on
individual Senators, and of the activity of committees in relation to
priorities agreed by the Senate, can also contribute to the effectiveness of
the system.
A.
The Number and Size of Committees
With the general caveats set out above in mind, your Committee
has considered the possibility that alterations to the size and/or number of
committees would mitigate pressures currently affecting the system.
With respect to the number of committees, continuing pressures for the
creation of new committees are likely, as emerging issues or policy fields
come to require attention. However,
your Committee is convinced that a portion of existing frustration about
workloads and scheduling conflicts is a virtually inevitable product of the
operation of the existing number of committees within the confines of a
parliamentary week. The creation
of additional committees would almost certainly make these problems worse.
Your
Committee has thus made every possible effort to address the various issues
considered elsewhere in this report without producing an overall increase in
the number of committees and subcommittees.
At the same time, your Committee is not recommending a definite limit
on the number of committees. A
rigid limit could impede the overall effectiveness of the Senate committee
system, by discouraging the creation of new committees in response to the
emergence of new public issues (as occurred last year with the creation of new
committees in the areas of national security and defence, and human rights),
or by compelling reduced coverage of ongoing policy fields whenever a new
committee is established.
Although
your Committee is not recommending a ceiling to the number of committees, it
wishes to caution the Senate about increasing the existing number.
In addition to exacerbating the workload and scheduling problems of
Senators, additional committees are likely to generate additional costs
relating to facilities and staff (depending on when they are scheduled).
With
respect to the size of committees, your Committee notes that Rule 86 currently
specifies standing committee sizes, fixing them at 12 members for most
committees. According to data
provided by the Senate’s Committees and Private Legislation Directorate,
however, the average attendance of Senate committees during the second session
of the 36th Parliament varied between 7 and 9 members per
meeting (with the exceptions of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy,
attended by 13 and the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights
of Parliament attended by over 11).
These
figures may suggest that committees with smaller memberships would be more
compatible with existing demands on the time of Senators.
The option of smaller committees may be especially feasible for those
dealing with issues of a relatively technical or specialized nature, or which
are of primary interest only to Senators from some regions.
Your Committee believes that many of the Senate’s existing standing
committees could function effectively, in normal circumstances, with
memberships reduced from their present level of 12 (on average) to between 6
and 9 Senators.
Your
Committee has also given attention to implications of the fact that committee
workloads rise and fall as the issues within their terms of reference are
affected by cycles of public and governmental attention, and as the substance
of the issues changes. This would suggest that a measure of flexibility in the
sizes of committees could help to minimize demands on Senators’ time
generated by the committee structure rather than the real needs of committee
work. At the same time, however,
there is a need to balance the efficiency gains from flexibility against the
administrative costs and potential disruption to Senators’ schedules that
could be created by repeated changes of committee size within a parliamentary
session. As well, a rule
permitting frequent changes of committee size could compromise their
independence, and the capacity of committee members to persist in
controversial work.
Your
Committee believes that a rule permitting changes of committee sizes only at
the outset of each session, when prospective workloads and issues can be taken
into account, would strike a balance between the competing considerations just
reviewed, and provide most of the efficiency benefits available from flexible
sizes. There are, however, two
committees for which arguments in favour of flexibility are offset by other
considerations. The Standing
Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament; and the Standing
Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration both require the
participation of a representative cross-section of the Senate, in order to
ensure that operational and procedural recommendations broadly reflect the
will of the Senators. In the view
of your Committee, the nature of the matters considered by these committees
justifies the retention of their current 15-member size.
These
considerations lead your Committee to recommend:
1. That, with the
exception of the two committees currently consisting of 15 members (Rules,
Procedures and the Rights of Parliament; and Internal Economy, Budgets and
Administration), references to the size of standing committees in Rule 86 be
replaced with more open-ended references, such as “shall consist of between
6 and 12 Senators,” and that, at the beginning of each parliamentary
session, the sizes of these committees be established for that session by the
Committee of Selection provided for in Rule 85.
(For
proposed rule, see Annex I, “List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules.”)
The current meeting schedule creates problems of congestion is several
time-slots (see Annex 2). On
Wednesday afternoons, when the Senate rises, four standing committees are
scheduled to meet, creating scheduling conflicts for three Senators (as of
March 5, 2002). The most serious
problems occur on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m., when four standing committees are
scheduled to meet, creating scheduling conflicts for eight Senators. Such scheduling conflicts erode the attendance of committee
members in two ways: (1)
committee members may respond to scheduling overlaps by prioritizing
conflicting committees and attending only those meetings of top priority; and
(2) committee members may make only brief appearances at committees meeting
within the same time slot in order to have their attendance recorded.
In either case, committees lose the full contribution of their members,
and the effectiveness of Senate committees is potentially reduced.
In the course of discussing the implications of the global
considerations outlined above for the scheduling of committees, your Committee
has developed a series of guidelines that it wishes to recommend be applied in
the administration of the system. These
are as follows:
·
In a system where committees necessarily meet
simultaneously, there will inevitably be some conflicts in scheduling, and the
objective of a review of scheduling can only be to reduce these to a
reasonable minimum, for committees meeting at their regularly scheduled times.
·
In conjunction with a systematic effort by party Whips
to accommodate the wishes of individuals, there needs to be a general
recognition that the Senate has a corporate interest in the effective
performance of its central roles, and that this will require Senators to serve
from time to time on committees that do not reflect their central interest.
·
Reducing the size of some committees, where possible,
will also reduce the probability of scheduling conflicts relating to these
committees.
·
Expanding the length and number of time periods in
which committees may sit would permit the number of committees sitting at any
one time to be reduced, and lessen the likelihood of scheduling conflicts.
This can be done by one or more of the following:
(1)
permitting committees to sit at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday and 4:00 p.m.
Wednesday even if the Senate is sitting (it
should be noted that this would increase simultaneous demands on staff, and
would require significant additional resources for Debates and Publications);
(2)
scheduling committees on Mondays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; and from
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.;
(3) scheduling
committees on Tuesday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., because potential
conflicts with regional caucuses in this time period have come to be minimal;
and
(4) scheduling
committees on Thursday afternoons, after the Senate rises.
·
Continuity in the scheduling of committees has certain
advantages, because the participation of existing members, witnesses and
interested observers may erode if the committee is rescheduled at an
unfamiliar time.
·
Many of the scheduling conflicts that have arisen under
current scheduling arrangements are occurring on Wednesday afternoons, when a
disproportionate number of committees meet simultaneously.
Reducing the jamming of the schedule during this period should
therefore be a priority.
·
The Standing Committee on National Security and Defence
and the Standing Committee on Human Rights were established on the
understanding that they would meet on Mondays and Fridays only, during this
Parliament.
In
the course of developing these guidelines, your Committee has considered the
implementation of a block scheduling system, as proposed by Senator Colin
Kenny. In the time available for
consideration of the various matters addressed in this report, however, it has
not been possible to subject this proposal to the full analysis required in
order to arrive at satisfactory conclusions.
In order to contribute to further discussion of the strengths and
weaknesses of block scheduling arrangements, your Committee has developed a
notional schedule in which committees have been organized in “blocks” that
separate those that have major related policy mandates.
Such an arrangement could help to ensure that committees that are
likely to be of interest to the same Senators would be scheduled so as not to
conflict with one another. The following table provides an example of such an
arrangement:
Possible Blocks, and Resulting Conflicts Among Existing
Committee Assignments
BLOCK
1 |
BLOCK
2 |
BLOCK
3 |
Banking, Trade &
Commerce |
Transport &
Communications |
Fisheries |
Foreign Affairs |
National Security &
Defence |
Subcommittee on Veterans
Affairs |
Legal &
Constitutional Affairs |
Human Rights |
Rules, Procedures and the
Rights of Parliament |
Social Affairs, Science
& Technology |
Aboriginal Peoples |
Agriculture &
Forestry |
National Finance |
Energy, Environment &
Natural Resources |
Internal Economy, Budgets
& Administration |
Total Conflicts:
7 |
Total Conflicts:
11 |
Total Conflicts:
15 |
A
block system, by definition, eliminates scheduling conflicts by requiring
Senators to choose only one assignment within a given block.
However, the number of conflicts among existing committee assignments
within the blocks outlined above indicates that implementation of such a
system would involve a significant disruption of existing assignments, as
Senators were required to choose among the assignments in each block.
While
a block arrangement would eliminate conflicts, your Committee remains
concerned that such a system may be insufficiently flexible. If unpredicted numbers of Senators are interested in
committees placed within one of the scheduling blocks, then the practical
result of the system might be to avoid possible conflicts that would not have
materialized in practice, while preventing a needlessly large number of
Senators from combining their committees of choice.
If it is the wish of the Senate, your Committee is ready to study the
matter further, while monitoring the impact of recommendations 2 and 3 (below)
on scheduling problems, should they be accepted by the Senate.
At this time, your Committee is not recommending changes to the
scheduling of individual committees. Instead,
your Committee wishes to affirm that party Whips are the appropriate parties
to exercise the responsibility for the organization and scheduling of
committees, because this function requires mediation between issues of general
policy and more personal and circumstantial considerations that cannot be
addressed at the policy level. Your
Committee believes that the general paradigm set out above can assist party
Whips and the Selection Committee in maximizing the effectiveness of the
existing system, and in ensuring that scheduling conflicts are kept to a
minimum.
Your Committee has developed two recommendations for the purpose of
ensuring the workability of the scheduling paradigm provided above by:
(1) minimizing the number of conflicts created by the regular schedule,
and (2) controlling the number of ad hoc committee meetings, so as to
limit the number of ad hoc conflicts that arise during each session of
Parliament.
With respect to the regular schedule, conflicts can be minimized by
ensuring that all parties to scheduling decisions are fully aware of
conflicting committee times, so that conflicting assignments can be avoided.
This primarily requires that a calendar of regularly scheduled
committee times be developed at the outset of each session, and used in the
course of establishing individual committee assignments.
Your Committee therefore recommends:
2.
That, at the outset of each session of Parliament, a calendar agreed by
party Whips be distributed to Senators, indicating the days and times at which
each Senate committee is regularly scheduled to meet during the parliamentary
week; and that the Whips invite Senators to submit lists indicating committee
interests in order of priority, so as to enable the Selection Committee to
propose committee assignments that both respond to the interests of Senators
and avoid creating scheduling conflicts for individuals.
Your Committee has also developed a recommendation for the purpose of
minimizing the intrusion of ad hoc committee meetings on the activity
of regularly scheduled committees during weeks when the Senate is sitting.
Such intrusions, and the scheduling conflicts associated with them, can be
held to a minimum if meetings outside the regular schedule are made subject to
the agreement of Whips or, in the absence of agreement, to concurrence by the
Senate in a Government motion. Such an arrangement would ensure that ad hoc meetings
responding to genuine needs, such as the recent pre-study of bill C-36 or the
review of urgently needed Government legislation, can occur.
At the same time, the creation of needless scheduling conflicts could
be avoided. Your Committee
therefore recommends:
3. That committees
not meet outside their assigned time periods during weeks when the Senate
sits, unless prior agreement from the party Whips is obtained or, in the
absence of agreement, a Government motion has been moved and concurred in by
the Senate.
(For
proposed rule see Annex I, “List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules.”)
Under existing rules, Senate committees are entitled to create
subcommittees as they perceive them to be needed, and a growing number of
subcommittees has been one response to the general workload pressures
discussed elsewhere in this report. Although
your Committee recognizes that subcommittees have relieved pressures within
certain committees, it has come to the view that the absence of a capacity in
the Senate to manage the growth of subcommittees threatens to impede the
overall effectiveness of the committee system.
Some of the workload and scheduling pressures that are currently being
experienced are almost certainly a result of the increase in the number of
subcommittees, given that subcommittee demands on Senators are not greatly
different from those of full committees.
It is also noteworthy that the creation of subcommittees imposes
additional demands on committee staff, and may already be eroding the capacity
of staff to provide fully effective service to committees.
With these considerations in mind, your Committee recommends:
4.
That a new rule providing for the appointment by the Senate of all
subcommittees except steering committees be added, and that consequential
changes to the Rules be made as required.
(For
proposed rule see Annex I, “List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules.”)
Your Committee has also concluded that, although the number of
subcommittees should be restricted, those that are created could contribute
more effectively if they were given greater operational flexibility.
In particular, they should be able to draw their membership from
outside the full committee to which they are attached.
This would enable them to make use of those Senators whose experience
and interests are best suited to their terms of reference, and also to divert
workload pressures from the Senators who are already members of main
committees, as required. Your
Committee therefore recommends:
5.
That new rules on the creation of subcommittees also provide that
subcommittees on substantive matters may consist of up to six Senators, and
that up to one half of the membership named in the motion to establish such a
subcommittee may be drawn from outside the main committee to which it is
attached.
(For
proposed rule see Annex I, “List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules.”)
D. Summoning Witnesses and Compelling the Production of Papers
Your Committee has considered a problem that may arise when a standing
committee exercises the power to summon witnesses to appear, or compel the
production of documents, as now provided in the Rules.
At present, there is no procedure to ensure that the Senate as a whole
is aware of, and concurs in, a decision taken by a committee to summon a
witness or compel the production of documents.
Yet the Senate is implicated in such decisions because the failure of a
witness to comply with an order will be reported to the Senate Chamber, and it
is then up to the Senate to enforce the order.
The failure to do so would imply acquiescence in the refusal of a
witness or supplier of information to cooperate with a committee, and the
erosion of a longstanding power of Parliament to compel the appearance of
persons and the production of documents as required for its work.
In discussing this matter, members of your Committee agreed on the
importance of the principle that committees continue to exercise,
independently, the powers that are required for them to do their work
effectively. The power to summon
witnesses and compel the production of documents is an important element of
these powers, not because it is frequently invoked but because its existence
is normally all that is necessary to ensure the cooperation of witnesses and
other sources of information. Discussion
focused, therefore, on finding a procedure that would not dilute the power of
committees, but would also ensure that the Senate is prepared to support a
committee decision to summon or compel, where support is needed.
Your Committee believes that the existing power of committees to summon
witnesses and compel the production of documents, set out in Rule 90, should
not be changed. However, a procedure involving advance notice to the Senate
of a committee’s intention to issue such orders, and an opportunity for the
Senate to object, would enable the Senate to be fully informed of such
intentions. It would also ensure
that an order from a committee would have the full weight of the Senate behind
it when issued and thus, if anything, strengthen that power. Your Committee
therefore recommends:
6. That Rule 90 be
amended through the addition of requirements that,
(a)
select committees notify the Senate of their intention to adopt a
motion in committee to summon a witness or compel the production of documents,
and that the Senate have two sitting days to object to the motion before the
committee may proceed with its vote on the motion; or
(b)
when the Senate stands adjourned for at least 14 days, select
committees obtain the consent of the Leaders of the Government and Opposition
before ordering the appearance of a witness or the production of documents.
(For
proposed rule see Annex I, “List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules.”)
E. Committee Mandates and Names
During the course of its deliberations, the Chair and Deputy Chair of
your Committee consulted the Chairs of other committees, or in some cases met
with the committees themselves, concerning the adequacy of existing mandates.
There was wide agreement that existing committee mandates are not
creating problems of effectiveness, and that a consolidation of existing
mandates would not reduce workloads or demands on Senators’ time.
The prevailing judgement was that, if anything, the replacement of
existing committees by new ones possessing combined or widened mandates would
exacerbate existing problems. Your
Committee concurs in these findings and, therefore, is recommending only one
change, requested by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, to recognize a
distinct mandate concerning Francophonie relations in addition to
mandates concerning Commonwealth relations and foreign relations. Your
Committee recommends:
7. That, in the
mandate of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs “foreign and
Commonwealth relations” be replaced with “foreign, Commonwealth and Francophonie
relations.”
Discussions have also been held with the Chairs of committees in order
to ascertain whether there is general satisfaction concerning the existing
names of committees, and their accuracy in reflecting the mandates currently
in effect. These discussions have
identified three committee names that, in the view of current Chairs, require
modification. Your Committee
agrees that committee names need to reflect, as fully as possible, the policy
mandates of committees (including changes that have emerged in the policy
fields reflected in these mandates) in order to maximize the transparency of
the committee system, and therefore recommends the following three substantive
changes, along with a technical change to the name of your Committee:
8.
That the following committee name changes be adopted:
(a)
“Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs” be replaced by
“Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade;”
(b)
“Standing Senate
Committee on Fisheries” be replaced by “Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans;”
(c) “Standing Senate Committee on National Finance”
be replaced by “Standing Senate Committee on National Finance and Government
Operations;” and
(d) “Rules,
Procedures and the Rights of Parliament” be replaced with “Rules,
Procedure and the Rights of Parliament.”
Your Committee believes
that the measures proposed above will reinforce one another in enhancing the
effectiveness of the Senate committee system, while retaining the fundamental
strengths that are reflected in the Senate’s existing reputation for strong
committee work.
The recommendations set out in this report reflect an incremental approach to change, and therefore avoid the risk of unintended consequences and the creation of new problems that inevitably accompanies more radical approaches. At the same time, they respond to the central operational problems that your Committee has identified: growing committee workloads and scheduling conflicts. They also respond to the need to maintain a balance of partisan perspectives, and full participation by the Official Opposition, in circumstances that are seeing a growing imbalance in the numbers of Government and Opposition Senators. Your Committee is confident that its recommendations can contribute significantly to maintaining and enhancing the effectiveness of Senate committees.
List of Recommendations and Proposed Rules
RECOMMENDATIONS
1.
That, with the exception of the two committees currently consisting of 15
members (Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament; and Internal Economy,
Budgets and Administration), references to the size of standing committees in
Rule 86 be replaced with more open-ended references, such as “shall consist of
between 6 and 12 Senators,” and that, at the beginning of each parliamentary
session, the sizes of these committees be established for that session by the
Committee of Selection provided for in Rule 85.
2. That, at the
outset of each session of Parliament, a calendar agreed by party Whips be
distributed to Senators, indicating the days and times at which each Senate
committee is regularly scheduled to meet during the parliamentary week; and that
the Committee of Selection invite Senators to submit, to their Whips and to the
Committee, lists indicating committee interests in order of priority, so as to
enable the Selection Committee to propose committee assignments that both
respond to the interests of Senators and avoid creating scheduling conflicts for
individuals.
3. That committees
not meet outside their assigned time periods during weeks when the Senate sits,
unless prior agreement from party Whips is obtained or, in the absence of
agreement, a Government motion has been moved and concurred in by the Senate.
4. That a new rule
providing for the appointment by the Senate of all subcommittees except steering
committees be added, and that consequential changes to the Rules be made as
required.
5. That Rule
96(6), recommended above, also provide that subcommittees on substantive matters
may consist of up to six Senators, and that up to one half of the membership
named in the motion to establish such a subcommittee may be drawn from outside
the main committee to which it is attached.
6. That Rule 90 be
amended through the addition of requirements that,
(a)
standing committees notify the Senate of their intention to adopt a
motion in committee to summon a witness or compel the production of documents,
and that the Senate have two sitting days to object to the motion before the
committee may proceed with its vote on the motion; or
(b)
when the Senate stands adjourned for at least 14 days, standing
committees obtain the consent of the Leaders of the Government and Opposition
before ordering the appearance of a witness or the production of documents.
7. That, in the
mandate of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs “foreign and
Commonwealth relations” be replaced with “foreign, Commonwealth and Francophonie
relations.”
8. That
the following committee name changes be adopted:
(a) “Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs” be replaced by “Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs and International Trade;”
(b) “Standing
Committee on the Fisheries” be replaced by “Standing Committee on Fisheries
and Oceans;”
(c) “Standing
Committee on National Finance” be replaced by “Standing Committee on
National Finance and Government Operations;” and
(d)
“Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament” be replaced with
“Rules, Procedure and the Rights of Parliament.”
PROPOSED
RULES
RE: RECOMMENDATION 1
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended in rule 85
(a)
by replacing subsection 85(1) with the following:
“Committee of Selection
85. (1) At the commencement of each session, a standing Committee
of Selection consisting of nine Senators shall be appointed, whose duties shall
be:
(a)
to nominate a Senator to preside as Speaker pro tempore;
(b)
to recommend, at the commencement of the session, the number of Senators to
serve on each standing committee for which the exact number is not fixed by
these rules, and to nominate the Senators to serve on all standing committees;
and
(c)
to recommend, when a special committee or a subcommittee other than a
subcommittee on agenda and procedure is appointed, the number of senators to
serve on it, and to nominate the Senators.”; and
(b)
by renumbering any cross references to paragraph 85(1)(b) as references to
paragraphs 85(1)(b) and (c).
RE:
RECOMMENDATION 1
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended, in rule 86,
(a)
by replacing the opening words of rule 86(1) with the following:
“86. (1) In addition to the Committee of Selection, the standing
committees shall be as follows:”;
(b)
in each of paragraphs 86(1)(h) to (q), by replacing the words “composed of
twelve members” with the words “composed of between six and twelve
members”; and
(c)
in each of paragraphs 86(1)(r) and (s), by replacing the words “composed of
nine members” with the words “composed of between six and nine members”.
RE:
RECOMMENDATION 3
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended by adding the following after
subsection 95(4):
“Meetings
outside schedule
(5) A select committee shall not meet outside its scheduled days or times
in a week on which the Senate sits, except
(a)
as agreed to by the Government Whip and the Opposition Whip, or
(b)
as approved by an order of the Senate moved without notice by the Government
Leader in the Senate.”.
RE: RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 5
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended, in rule 4 by adding after
subparagraph 4(b)(vi) the following:
“(vii)
“Subcommittee” means a committee appointed by the Senate or a select
committee to conduct proceedings in Parliament as the subcommittee of a select
committee and, for greater certainty, does not include a task force, working
group or study group.”.
RE: RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 5
THAT the Rules of the Senate be amended
(a)
by replacing rule 57(1)(d) with the following:
“(d)
for the appointment of a special committee or a subcommittee of a special
committee;”;
(b)
by replacing rule 58(1)(d) with the following:
“(d)
for the appointment of a standing committee or a subcommittee of a standing
committee;”;
(c)
by renumbering rule 93 as 93(1) and by adding the following:
“Subcommittees appointed by Senate
(2) The Senate may appoint such subcommittees of select committees as it deems advisable and may set the terms of reference and indicate the powers to be exercised and the duties to be undertaken by any such subcommittee.
Subcommittees
appointed by select committees
(3) A select committee may appoint a subcommittee on agenda and procedure to serve as its steering committee, but may not appoint any other subcommittee.
Composition
(4) A subcommittee shall be composed of not more than six Senators, three of whom shall constitute a quorum.
Outside members
(5) A subcommittee, other than a subcommittee on agenda and procedure, may be composed of Senators who are members of the select committee to which the subcommittee reports and Senators who are not members of that select committee, but the number of Senators who are members of the select committee shall equal or exceed half of the members of the subcommittee.
Report
(6) A subcommittee may only report to its select committee.
Application of other rules to subcommittees
(7) Rules 85(4) and (5) apply to subcommittees appointed by the Senate under this rule as if they were committees.
Rules applying in subcommittees
(8) The rules applicable in a committee apply in a subcommittee, with such modifications as the circumstances require.”; and
(d) by deleting rules 96(4) and (5) and renumbering rules 96(6), (7) and (8) and any cross references thereto accordingly.
RE: RECOMMENDATION
6
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended by renumbering rule 90 as subsection
90(1) and by adding the following:
“
Senate first informed
(2) A standing committee may not order the appearance of a person or the
production of papers or records until a report advising of the motion in
committee that proposes the order to appear or produce has been tabled in the
Senate and the Senate has sat on two days since.
Exception
(3) Notwithstanding subsection (2), a standing committee may order the
appearance of a person or the production of papers or records with the consent
of the Government Leader in the Senate and the Leader of the Opposition, if on
the day the order is made the Senate stands adjourned for a period of fourteen
days or more.”.
RE: RECOMMENDATIONS 7 AND 8
THAT
the Rules of the Senate be amended in rule 86
(a)
in the English version of paragraph 86(1)(f) by replacing “Rules, Procedures
and the Rights of Parliament” with “Rules, Procedure and the Rights of
Parliament”;
(b)
in paragraph 86(1)(h),
(i)
by replacing “Foreign Affairs” with “Foreign Affairs and
International Trade”; and
(ii)
by replacing “foreign and Commonwealth relations” with “foreign,
Commonwealth and Francophonie relations”;
(c)
in paragraph 86(1)(i) by replacing “National Finance” with “National
Finance and Government Operations”; and
(d)
in paragraph 86(1)(o) by replacing “Fisheries” with “Fisheries and
Oceans”.
Current
Schedule of Committee Sittings, With Data on Conflicts
Sitting
Schedule of Senate Committees –
1.37th Parliament
|
|||||||||||||||||
Room |
|
Tuesday |
|
|
|||||||||||||
172-E |
9:00 |
|
9:30 to 11:30 |
|
8:30 to 10:00 |
|
8 :00 to 10:30 |
|
|
||||||||
160-S |
Drugs |
Aboriginal |
|
Internal |
|
||||||||||||
256-S |
|
Transport |
|
Scrutiny |
|
||||||||||||
263-S |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
356-S |
|
Rules |
|
|
|
||||||||||||
505-VB |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
705-VB |
|
Nat.
Finance |
|
Agriculture |
|
||||||||||||
275-EB |
|
|
|
Energy |
|
||||||||||||
172-E |
|
|
11:45 |
|
10:00 to 12:00 |
|
10:45
to 1:00 |
|
|
||||||||
160-S |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
256-S |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
263-S |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
356-S |
|
|
12:00
to 1:30 |
Rules |
|
|
|||||||||||
505-VB |
|
|
|
|
Banking |
|
|||||||||||
705-VB |
|
|
|
Social
Aff. |
|
||||||||||||
275-EB |
|
|
|
Legal |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
2:00 |
SENATE |
1:30 |
SENATE** |
2:00 |
SENATE |
172-E |
|
|
|
|
WSR
not before 3:30
to 5:30 |
|
|
|
160-S |
|
|
Foreign
Aff. |
|
||||
256-S |
|
|
|
|
||||
263-S |
|
|
|
|
||||
356-S |
|
|
|
|
||||
505-VB |
|
|
Banking |
|
||||
705-VB |
|
|
Social
Aff. |
|
||||
275-EB |
|
|
Legal |
|
||||
172-E |
5:00 |
|
WSR
not before 5:00 |
|
5:45 |
|
|
|
160-S |
Defence |
Foreign
Aff. |
Aboriginal |
|
||||
256-S |
|
Agriculture |
Transport |
|
||||
263-S |
|
|
|
|
||||
356-S |
|
|
|
|
||||
505-VB |
|
Fisheries |
Fisheries |
|
||||
705-VB |
|
|
Nat.
Finance |
|
||||
275-EB |
Human
Rights |
Energy |
|
|
**Subject
to Senate agreement. Pursuant to
Rule 5, the Senate sits at 2:00 p.m.
NUMBER
OF SENATORS WITH COMMITTEE CONFLICTS,
BY
DAY AND TIME SLOT
(As
of March 5, 2002)
TUESDAY |
WEDNESDAY |
THURSDAY |
|||
9:30
- 11:30 a.m. |
3 |
3:15-5:15
p.m. |
3 |
8-10:30
a.m. |
1 |
When
Senate Rises |
3 |
5:30-7:30
p.m. |
8 |
--------- |
|
TOTAL |
6 |
TOTAL |
11 |
TOTAL |
1 |
([1])
The Senate, Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada,
A Working Document Prepared Under the Direction of the Standing
Committee on Privileges, Standing Rules and Orders, 1994, p. 273 ff.