Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament
Issue 11 - Evidence, June 17, 2009
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met this day at 12:21 p.m. to examine the manner in which committee member substitutions are made and in particular the need for temporary as well as permanent replacements of committee members; and to study on the Senate committee system as established under rule 86, taking into consideration the size, mandate, and quorum of each committee; the total number of committees; and available human and financial resources.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I see quorum. I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament to order. I would like to extend a warm welcome to our colleague, Senator Carstairs.
On May 28, 2009, the Senate instructed the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament to examine the manner in which committee substitutions are made and in particular the need for temporary as well as permanent replacements of committee members. Today we have before us, once again, Senator Carstairs, the sponsor of the order of reference, who will make a few brief remarks and then answer honourable senators' questions on this issue.
Following Senator Carstairs' appearance, we will have the opportunity to meet with our colleague Senator Lowell Murray, who has kindly agreed to share his insights as a long-time member of the Senate, as a former Leader of the Government in the Senate, as well as an extremely well-respected committee chair in his own right.
Senator Carstairs, you now have the floor, and we look forward to your comments.
Hon. Sharon Carstairs, P.C.: Thank you, Chair. Very briefly, this came about because I thought I was doing my duty and asked for a replacement as chair of the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament for a meeting I knew could I not attend. I found the replacement. I was then told that it was perhaps unwise for me to find a replacement because in finding a replacement, I could then be removed as chair of the committee.
The logic goes like this: If you read Marleau and Montpetit, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, on page 829, it says that the chair must be a member of the committee.
On page 833 it says:
In the event that the elected Chair of a committee resigns or is for any reason unable to carry out his or her duties, the committee must proceed to elect a new Chair . . .
The House of Commons does not have anything but permanent members, and those permanent members are substituted in, so they have not in any way reneged membership. The problem is we have a system in which, as you know, if we are replaced, it is said in the Journals of the Senate that we are replaced, and we are not put back on the committee until the whips replace a second time.
We are in limbo during that period of time of no longer being a member of the committee. If we are not a member of the committee, then Marleau and Montpetit would argue we are, therefore, not eligible to be the chair.
As our numbers are coming closer to even, I did not think that we would want to have a situation in which one side or the other on any given day stands up at a committee meeting and says, ``Well, the chair has been replaced; therefore, we will elect a new chair.'' That could create total chaos.
I thought I would bring this to your committee so that perhaps you could come up with a way that we could have perhaps a substitution system similar or different — we always like to be a little different in the chamber — that would not indicate that the senator had been replaced on the committee but simply substituted on the committee for a day or a period of time.
Thank you, honourable senators.
Senator Robichaud: In the House of Commons, are the vice-chairs allowed to chair the meeting when the chair is replaced for a day?
Senator Carstairs: I understand that, yes, the vice-chairs can, but I am not an expert on the House of Commons. I am not even an expert on the Senate, as I keep discovering, but I am more knowledgeable about the Senate than I am about the House of Commons. My understanding of Marleau and Montpetit is that that is what can happen in that eventuality. They have to go before their equivalent of our Selection Committee to actually remove a member from a committee. Their members are permanent until there is a motion through their equivalent committee that they have been physically removed from a committee.
As you know, we do not do that. We do not, basically, have Selection Committee meetings very often. We have had to do that when we have replaced an independent member. If an independent member has resigned, then we have had a Selection Committee meeting in which the independent member has been replaced because there was no other way to do it. However, if it is a government member or an opposition member, then they are replaced by the whips in the usual fashion, if you will.
Senator Robichaud: In the case that you put before us, the correct action then would have been not to find a replacement?
Senator Carstairs: Absolutely. It was recommended to me that I simply not find a replacement. However, with the numbers getting tighter in this place, I think you will find that neither the government nor the opposition want to be put in the situation where they cannot replace their members of the committee.
The Chair: Just before calling the next senator, Heather Lank appeared before this committee on its committee study. She highlighted for us this very issue. In meetings with her, I know that she and her team are looking at language or words or amendments to overcome this very problem that you have brought before us, so already work has begun to try to find words to address your problem.
Senator Keon: My question is closely allied with what Senator Robichaud just said. If we had enough numbers, considering the controversy of the last couple of days, I am not sure we should substitute at committees. Maybe we should address the numbers on the committees. If someone wanted to sit in as an observer, fine, but not become a voting member for the sitting of that committee. It is fundamentally expanding on what you just said. In other words, do not appoint someone to replace you and cause a problem. If a senator wants to attend a committee, it is his or her right and privilege, but do not appoint someone officially to replace you for that meeting. For the smaller committees, maybe the numbers who are present at the committee should be addressed.
The Chair: Senator Carstairs raised the question of voting, though, in terms of numbers.
Senator Keon: That is my whole point. If enough people are on the committee, I do not think a single vote becomes quite as crucial, although I appreciate what you are saying, Senator Carstairs.
Senator Carstairs: If you have a committee of nine and the split is five-four, and one person is not there on the side that has five, then you have deadlock because you have four-four, and you cannot move. Any motion would immediately be stymied.
Senator Joyal: I want to pursue the idea of the deputy chair occupying the chair. First, the wording of the title, ``deputy chair,'' bears this. The position is the ``deputy chair,'' so it is there, in my opinion, to assist the chair and to occupy the chair for a temporary period of time. I have often seen it happen when a chair has to leave the chair for a short period of time during a sitting. It will be the deputy chair that will occupy the chair.
The problem that I see is that if we recognize the deputy chair occupying the chair in the case of the absence of the chair, then we lose a member. We come to equality in some cases. That is the conundrum. The idea of having the deputy chair replacing the chair on a temporary basis is totally sound. It happens everywhere in all the organizations I know personally and that you know, certainly, in your own experience.
The problem lies more with a member of the committee being absent and maintaining the equilibrium within the committee, rather than being the problem at the chair level.
Senator Carstairs: It only becomes a problem in the Senate at the chair level because we are physically replaced. We are not substituted; we are replaced. If the word was ``substituted,'' then I would suggest that there would not be a problem. However, but we do not have a system of substitutions; we only have a system of replacements.
Senator Joyal: Then we have to address the solution for that. If we are to give more flexibility to the replacement of a chair by a deputy chair, it seems to me that the answers could be at that level, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: That is the drafting that is being looked at now, senator.
Senator Fraser: Thank you very much for pushing this forward, Senator Carstairs. I, too, had run into this quite recently, a couple of days before you raised it, and was quite taken aback. It occurs to me that whatever we end up doing to address it needs to apply to the deputy chair as well as to the chair of any committee because the deputy chair is also elected.
With all respect to Marleau and Montpetit, in my very hasty flip through the rules here, the only rule I found is rule 88 of the Rules of the Senate, which is about the organizational meeting, namely, the Clerk of the Senate shall call it and the committee shall at that meeting choose a chairman. It does not say anything about deputy chair, nor does it even say that the chair shall be a member of the committee involved, so perhaps we need to look at a reworking of this entire section.
Senator Carstairs: Essentially, Senator Fraser, if I can add to that, apparently, the procedure in this place is that if we do not have a specific rule, then we look to now what has become pretty much our procedural bible, Marleau and Montpetit, for what they have to say about this particular issue.
Senator Fraser: I know. Goodness knows it is better to have Marleau and Montpetit than not, but it is not the same.
Senator Carstairs, what would you think of a system whereby we had a new rule — rule 88(1) or whatever — to the effect that if the chair or deputy chair is unavoidably absent, the chair or deputy chair, as the case may be may, designates a senator who is not a member of the committee as a voting member of the committee for that day as a substitute, if you will, for a member?
Part of my problem with replacements and so on and how to work it is how to keep the party balance without ending up with rules that are akin to the rules on time allocation. They become so complicated no one can understand them.
Would that solve the problem, if we allowed for temporary substitution and gave the power to designate to the chair and deputy chair? I do not know whether the leadership would like it.
Senator Carstairs: That is the problem. At the present time, as you know, the replacements are at the wish of the whips of the two parties in the Senate.
Then there is the broader issue that — let us face it — we cannot ignore. What if a party decides that it wants to make a permanent replacement on a committee, that someone is acting in a way that that party has determined does not make him or her a valuable member of that committee for their party, and the whip simply chooses to replace that person on a permanent basis and then simply never re-replaces. It is gone. That is why I raised it in my remarks: Do you want to have temporary replacement and permanent replacement?
In the house, as I indicated to you, the only way it could be done in a permanent way is for the selection committee to make that decision. Let us be realistic here. If that happened at the present time, and the government decided it wanted to replace a member of a committee, and had to appear before the Selection Committee, the Liberals control the Selection Committee. Do you think they will agree to allow the Conservatives to replace a member of a committee?
I would suggest to you there are some holes here that are not simply dealt with, which is exactly why I sent this matter to your committee.
One simple way would be to allow for a system of temporary substitutes. Have one form that says, ``This is a temporary substitution for one meeting only,'' and another which says, ``This is a replacement,'' and use those words differently — ``substitute'' for one day and ``replacement'' until such time as that person is replaced.
The Chair: Good suggestion.
Senator Robichaud: Then have you to go a little further and say that in the absence of the chair, the deputy chair will chair the committee.
Senator Carstairs: That is the practice at the present time in the Senate. You asked me about the house, and I was not sure about the house.
At the present time, if I am not there — it happens to be a joint committee where it came up with me — so the chair from the House of Commons took over that day. In normal practice — we have all watched it happen — if the chair is not there, the deputy chair takes over for a particular meeting. That is not the problem. I am trying to avoid members of the committee then saying, ``Well, the chair is not here. Has the chair been replaced? Yes, the chair has been replaced. Then we no longer have a chair, therefore we are electing Senator X to be the chair of this committee.''
Senator Robichaud: If I may, how would you get around Marleau and Montpetit? Marleau and Montpetit will still be there; the chair is not there.
Senator Carstairs: The house gets around that because they have not replaced the member, they have only substituted the member.
Senator Robichaud: If everyone understands that, I have no problem with it.
The Chair: We will have some interesting wording when we get them back from the drafters.
The Chair: Senator Carstairs, on behalf of our group, I want to thank you for once again contributing so much to the work of the Senate and appearing before us today to answer our questions.
Honourable senators, we have now had an opportunity to reflect on the questions raised by Senator Carstairs. Would you agree with the observation made by Senator Comeau, when he was responding to Senator Carstairs' speech on the motion in the chamber, that this matter could be part of our general study on the committee system?
I believe it would simplify our proceedings if it were included in the briefing package being prepared by Mr. Bédard and others from the Library of Parliament. Rather than doing a separate response to this motion, it could be subsumed into our general committee motion.
What is the view of honourable senators on that?
Senator Fraser: It is tempting, but would I recommend against it, chair, because our broader study on committees, whatever we end up recommending, will be broad, I assume. If it is not broad, that in itself will be a subject of controversy.
The mere fact that we complete our study — and we do not know when we will do that — does not mean that anything will happen any time soon.
The problem Senator Carstairs has raised is an actual, practical, real, present problem, for which we do need to change the rules. I suggest that we would do all senators a service if we could address it rapidly.
The Chair: A number of the other problems that the committee is looking at in its study are serious, current, practical problems as well. Not only that, but, as I have said before, this issue is already being addressed by those who are doing some preliminary drafting and research work for the committee. This specific matter is being addressed.
Senator Fraser: I am not tying to pre-empt that work, I am only talking about the timing. It is wonderful that they are working on it. I was delighted when I first heard that, and I am delighted again today to hear that.
I am only saying that this is something we could carve out and move on quite rapidly. It is a much simpler concept for people to grapple with. I see a number of committee chairs, deputy chairs or former chairs here who undoubtedly would want, if possible, to have this particular uncertainty settled as soon as possible. I know that I would, and if I were a deputy chair I would feel the same way.
Senator Furey: Could we move on to the witness and discuss this toward the end of our meeting?
Senator Robichaud: If we go that way, I have no problem.
The Chair: Senator Carstairs, once again, thank you very much. This has been deeply appreciated.
Honourable senators, we will now here from Senator Lowell Murray, whom I introduced earlier.
Senator Murray, you are a well-respected committee chair and former Leader of the Government in the Senate. You have had years of valuable experience, and we are looking forward to your general views. Please proceed.
Hon. Lowell Murray, P.C.: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is an honour to have been invited here. I answered your questionnaire quite hurriedly. I did not think it needed too much elaboration. I am certainly prepared to be told that I am mistaken in some of my views, and I am prepared to be persuaded that I am mistaken, especially as, after almost 30 years here, I have myself withdrawn from active membership on committees in order to leave room for newer senators to come in. However, as I say, I am prepared to engage on that basis.
Now that I am here and have you as a more or less captive audience, I will deliver myself of some views on the Senate, some of which have you heard, that I would like to place on the record now.
I am an independent senator, as you know. Fortunately, there is room in the Senate for a few independent senators to make an effective contribution as generally independent members cannot do, except in rare instances, in the House of Commons, for reasons that need not detain us at the moment.
However, we could not have 105 independent senators; we could not have 105 loose cannons. There has to be some organizing principle for legislative bodies such as ours, and the organizing principle is several political parties confronting each other in this legislative body.
I have never been very impressed with the notion sometimes floated that senators should set aside their partisan affiliations and should sit, rather, as members of provincial caucuses or some other such organizational principle. For one thing, I do not believe we should do anything to accentuate divisions of region, language or culture that already exist in this country. I believe that you who belong to political parties would be better advised to try to make the present system work. The way it is supposed to work is that within the caucuses of national parties, we are supposed to try to work out different perspectives of region, language, culture, social and economic interests, and so on.
I believe that governments have a right to expect that their supporters in the Senate will assist them in moving their legislative program through the Senate. I believe both parties have a right to expect that people who carry a party label will, in general, support the orientation of that political party. Membership has its privileges, as they say.
Serious problems arise when governments insist, with respect to their legislation, that not a colon, a semicolon or a comma can be changed. This is unreasonable, and it is not really a political instinct, it is a bureaucratic instinct. It is an officials' position. They can always give you some reason why that comma, semicolon or colon is sacrosanct. They can always present some case for it. It is only when ministers become captive of their advisers and become ciphers that they take the same position with a legislative body such as the Senate. It is quite unreasonable and ought to be rejected.
The other excuse they will give to the caucus is that it would be a mistake to send the flawed legislation back to the House of Commons with an amendment correcting the flaws because the agenda is so heavy over there that room and time could not possibly be found. Well, this is usually nonsense, too, as anyone who follows the House of Commons in even a peripheral way will know.
Finally, the tactic that is used all the time by the House of Commons is to send things over here in the dying days of a session. I have been listening to that complaint from senators ever since I knew there was such a thing as the Senate, and I do not know how it will be corrected until the one occasion arises when the Senate says, ``No.''
On more substantive matters, when the House of Commons, particularly if there is a majority government — though not always a majority government — sends things here that are offensive to parliamentary democracy, such as the abuse of the omnibus format that has occurred under governments of various stripes in recent years, or offensive to the Constitution, and I will not elaborate for fear of getting into current debates, the Senate should absolutely take a stand. I am not talking necessarily about defeating bills or resolutions, rather I am talking about sending them back and telling the House of Commons to think again because it is our view that they are offensive to parliamentary democracy or to the Constitution.
We get into problems because of the heavy hand of government. We have also had a problem in the past three years especially when the political calculations of the opposition parties in the House of Commons become the dominant deciding factor for their colleagues in the Senate.
I will move away from that for a moment. If you really want to consider reorienting the work of Senate committees, I have are several things that I want to mention — real gaps in parliamentary oversight that the House of Commons is highly unlikely to fill.
On spending, our Standing Senate Committee on National Finance handles the estimates and does good work, to their great credit. It selects several departments or agencies a year and does an in-depth study of their estimates and so forth. Other organizations, departments and agencies are not subject to that examination, and the relevant committees of the Senate should pay the closest attention to them.
In a speech in the Senate yesterday, I mentioned Export Development Canada, EDC, which now has greatly expanded financial authority and an expanded mandate that lets them into domestic activities. The opportunities for mischief and for excessive, unnecessary spending are great, no matter how motivated, unless some parliamentary committee pays close and continuing attention to the activities of that agency.
There may be others. Some years ago, we passed legislation setting Canada Revenue Agency and the national park system at arm's length from parliamentary oversight and, really, from ministerial responsibility. I do not know what is happening in those agencies now, but it may be that we should take a closer look to find out. In the case of national revenue, they employ an enormous number of people and have quite a budget and fill an important function in this country. We ought to get into those areas where the House of Commons is unable or unwilling to do so.
We are on the record, and I want to be careful here. I alluded to something when I spoke on the Federal Accountability Act several years ago, namely, agents of Parliament. I just read the report that the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament did on the parliamentary budget officer. They did a good job. They got all the political parties in two houses of Parliament to agree on their approach. That itself is an achievement, although it will be extremely difficult over the next few years to make this work. Part of that is because the provisions relating to the parliamentary budget officer in the Federal Accountability Act were not that well thought through. I will leave that for the moment.
In the case of all these servants of Parliament, the Auditor General, Official Languages Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner, Information Commissioner and a number of others, there is a real danger that they are getting away from us. These are servants and agents of Parliament whose first reporting relationship is supposed to be to Parliament. Each of them has its own advocacy group out there in the country, and they have a systemic relationship with that advocacy group. Almost of all of them have become media savvy and are relating to the media, which is fine in its place and at the appropriate time. However, I worry that we will come to the point, or are coming to the point, where they will regard their relationship with Parliament as merely a pro forma one. We have to pull them in close and stay tight with them. There is always a danger of empire building. There is always a danger of a culture of zealotry taking hold, especially when the staff of these agents is long-serving. There is a danger of a zero-sum attitude. That troubles me. I do not want to pick on a particular advocacy group, but the one that comes to mind, for example, is freedom of information. To hear what some of the advocacy groups say and the cries taken up in the media, you would think that freedom of information trumps everything else, including privacy, the conventions of cabinet government and on and on.
It has to be the Senate because the House of Commons, with its turnover and its other preoccupations, is simply not of a mind to do it. These agents all have to be brought in tight by the Senate. We should engage in a continuing public dialogue with them about what they are doing. We have to remind them respectfully that their first and most important relationship is to Parliament — not to the media, not to their advocacy groups, not to anyone else, but to Parliament. Not only do I know the people who are there, but I like them, and I look upon them as being indispensable aids to us as parliamentarians. We should ensure that the relationship is on the proper footing because if we do not do it, no one else will.
Another gap is the electoral and political system. Not only did I support but I urged onward and upward when the Chrétien government brought in the most recent set of reforms, especially political party and electoral financing reforms. Observing it from the outside, I am not so sure any more. It seems to me that the electoral and political system has become horribly bureaucratized. Elections Canada is into leadership conventions and who knows what else, and I think we have to take a second look at that. The House of Commons has a manifest conflict of interest when it comes to anything in this area. Redistribution is only the most blatant example. I would rather trust several dozen senators who have experience with electoral laws, with political parties, with national campaigns and so on. I would far sooner trust them to handle any of these matters than I would anyone in the House of Commons.
I suspect that the House of Commons will be terrified to take on a subject such as whether there are alternatives to the present public financing of political parties between elections. The government got a black eye, as it deserved, for trying to impose something at the time of that abortive financial statement last fall. However, that is not to say that the present system should not be reconsidered. We should be looking at alternatives.
We should be looking at simplifying our whole political and electoral legislation and regulation and trying to lessen substantially the amount of bureaucratization that has taken place in this whole system. If we do not do it, it will not get done. It must be having a negative effect on the recruitment of volunteers to take part in political work in this country and ultimately on turnout. People keep lamenting the low turnout and looking at political leaders and their platforms and Parliament and everything else as having a depressing effect on turnout. No one seems to be looking at the fact that political parties have declined so much. We used to depend on the parties to get the vote out, but the parties are so weak now that they do not do that any more. This is perhaps preaching to the converted or taking coal to Newcastle or whatever the appropriate metaphor might be.
I mentioned in the contribution I made to Senator Joyal's book on the Senate that there are areas, such as the public service, which are not in a good, I think, continuing and healthy relationship with Parliament. Likewise, the whole area of public broadcasting, the RCMP, perhaps other institutions, in respect of which the attention of the House of Commons is episodic, and yet these agencies or institutions need continuing attention, and that should come from the Senate.
Some of that may be relevant to your considerations. That is all I have to say for the moment.
The Chair: Senator Murray, before you stop, could you say something about the size of committees, the number of committees and the mandate of committees?
Senator Murray: Sorry, I should have taken you through my questionnaire. Is the present number of committees satisfactory? Sixteen is more than sufficient, and efforts to increase the number should be resisted.
Should the membership of Senate committees be reduced or increased? I do not understand the rationale for 15 members on Internal Economy and Rules committees and cannot believe that the size of those committees is helpful in bringing their deliberations to a decision or conclusion. The contrary is probably true and was true way back when I sat on those committees. All committees could function well with a maximum of nine or ten members.
How many committees should a senator be on? Personally, I do not believe a senator can really do justice to more than two committees, although I understand the pressures that require leadership to assign more than two.
Should all senators be required to be members of committee? No; it is the quality of committee work that is important. The fewer passengers or conscripts we have on committees the better.
Should consideration be given to regional and linguistic representation on the membership of each committee? Yes, on some more than others. It is up to the government or opposition leadership to see to this, likewise gender representation. In terms of women, it would be important that they always be represented on the National Finance Committee. Senator Nancy Ruth, for example, has been waging a continuing campaign with the Treasury Board and others, including the Department of Finance Canada, about gender analysis of legislation; also the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee where I am told some 80 per cent of legislation goes, and the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee as well.
Should the committee structure be changed but still remain organized around policy fields? I do not understand the question.
Should the committee structure be changed in a way that would narrow their focus to specific policy issues or departments? No. Let the House of Commons focus narrowly, as MPs often do. Ours ought to be a more forward- looking and broad policy approach.
Do you think that the mandate of standing committees should be adjusted to result in a more equitable distribution of work among committees? My answer is that I do not know, and I do not. I just do not know whether it would help the workload on some committees to simply change their mandates and transfer that workload elsewhere. I have not thought that one through.
Should new committees be established to deal with particular areas? No.
Do you have any adjustment to suggest to the current mandates? Why are Indian and Inuit affairs still in the mandate of the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee? Where is the specific mention of science and technology in the mandate of that committee? Should not science and technology, which would probably need serious attention, be transferred elsewhere?
Do you think that Senate committees should be able to study any matter within their mandate without an order of reference from the Senate? No, it is important that the status of committees as creatures of the Senate, accountable and responsible to the chamber, be maintained. While their independence of views should be encouraged, they should not be permitted to do their own thing as if they were autonomous creatures.
At present, most committees have a quorum of four members, except the five-member committee with a quorum of three. Should the quorum be increased or decreased? I wrote, ``Left as it is, provided both government and official opposition are present.'' However, I probably should have added ``are present when any motions will be proposed or decided.''
Should the quorum of each committee be adjusted depending on its size? I do not know; no, I guess.
Committees are staffed by a clerk with administrative support and one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament. Are these resources sufficient? Yes. In rare instances, special studies for example, outside assistance may be necessary; however, this should be the exception.
Should the clerk and the analyst report to the chair, the steering committee or the full committee? My answer is the steering committee; however, as a practical matter, this should normally be done through the chair. What must be avoided is a situation where staff feel they have to report to several people separately. It is up to the chair to keep other colleagues informed and onside.
Should human and financial resources be equally distributed among committees? No. Committees have different needs at different times. It should not be assumed that some committees should always have large budgets and others lesser budgets.
Other comments on resources? I will put this forward. I wrote it down. I do not believe Internal Economy should be the only judge of needs of the various committees. Committee work should be responsive to the different priorities of the Senate as a whole. The committee of leaders or people appointed by them from the various caucuses should be required to give some formal guidance to Internal Economy on these matters, including the priorities that we want to attach to the particular work of particular committees at any time.
Should greater use be made of the Committee of the Whole? Yes, some of the rules and customs of Committee of the Whole may need to be set aside or modified to prevent unnecessary confrontation. I seem to think that in Committee of the Whole, if a motion to adjourn was sprung on the committee and it passed, then the bill before the committee falls off the table. That used to be the case. In any case, we would have to be reasonable about those rules and set them aside if we were to use Committee of the Whole.
I believe that two or three bills per session, perhaps at the discretion of the opposition in one case and of the government in another, ought to be referred to Committee of the Whole for televised hearings. The chamber should be made more television-friendly for witnesses at the south end. The desks should be taken out of the Senate, in any case, to permit a more intimate debating chamber. As it is, we look like a pale imitation of the Commons.
I do not know how many of you have ever observed the Senate from the galleries, but it does not look great. I would like to see the desks come out, a more intimate debating chamber and something that does not look like an imitation of the Commons.
Do you believe that the number of membership changes is a problem? I do not know. I have not noticed frequent changes on committees where I have served in recent years. Members should not be taken off those committees. Senators should be left on a committee for the duration unless a senator is guilty of gross absenteeism or wants to come off because of loss of interest in the subject. Otherwise, they should be left on there to get into the subject matter of the committee in some depth.
Should Senate committees be able to meet when the Senate is sitting without a special order? Yes, but there must be agreement on both sides in any particular case.
Should special and legislative committees be used more often? Only when there is overload on the standing committees and agreement on both sides.
Should subcommittees be used more often? Only for specific tasks with a beginning and an end. For example, the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs should be in the name and mandate of the parent committee and these issues given their due attention and consideration there.
Should chairs and deputy chairs of committees be paid? Should their office budget be increased as well? No, to both questions. It should be considered an honour to serve in those capacities. Paying a salary supplement places these posts greatly within the patronage gift of the leadership on either side, which is a bad development. Most chairs work no harder than the more committed and active committee members.
Should the time slots and committee room locations allocated to committees be rotated among committees every session or Parliament? Yes; fair is fair.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Senator Murray. That is excellent. I have a long list of senators who have questions. I wanted to make a comment about your third point where you talk about gaps in parliamentary oversight of agents of Parliament and electoral and political system. You will recall that when Jean-Marc Hamel was the Chief Electoral Officer, he had an ad hoc committee made up of unelected people, not senators, people such as myself who, through the early 1970s and 1980s, were key advisors to him and responsible for doing much of the background work for what was then called the Elections Expenses Act.
One of things that might be reconsidered, to take it away from the political body such as the House of Commons, is to have an ad hoc group such as that, who know about election law, as an adviser to the Chief Electoral Officer.
Senator Murray: A year ago, I had my research assistant, a young man by the name of Blake Hargreaves, do a study of six committees. I was interested in knowing what happens to all the work that the committees do on substantive reports — not legislation, but policy reports as it were — when they come in and table the reports. My view is that too seldom do we take them up by way of discussion or debate. They just sit there.
He did a study a year ago. It is only in English unfortunately, but he traced the progress of 45 substantive reports tabled by six committees in several sessions of Parliament. Of the 45 reports, 21 were adopted by the Senate, representing 47 per cent of the total; and 23 were spoken to on the house floor, of which 11were spoken to by more than one senator and so forth. It is a detailed report that you may want to look at. I have been concerned that a committee does a great deal of work, and sometimes a chair does not even bother to make a speech explaining the report, and it falls into a big black hole.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Senator Murray, thank you very much for coming here and for taking the time to be part of our work. I too have a great deal of respect for our parliamentary system, within which the caucuses play a pivotal role.
In your remarks, you said that a senator should be able to express views contrary to the solidarity of his caucus if he does not agree with its position.
Some of us — myself included — feel that senators should be able to count on a degree of deference in our partisan climate in order to avoid a feeling of ostracism if a senator decides, for reasons that I see as noble, to stand by a principle that, in his view, is put in jeopardy by a piece of legislation or a government position, even if he is part of that government. What do you think? Should a senator be able to count on a level of deference in the face of the partisan spirit that, unfortunately has often inflamed Senate debates — as you will surely agree after 30 years here?
Senator Murray: You are referring to the right, even the obligation, of senators to act according to their conscience or their convictions, sometimes in opposition to their colleagues. In my view, there is no question that that is a practice to be encouraged.
My concern is more with the role of the Senate as an institution as distinct from the House of Commons and the government. What do we do when the government and the House of Commons send us a bill or a resolution that is clearly inadequate or that contains significant deficiencies that we have to correct? Why do we decide to do nothing, out of respect, or sympathy, for our colleagues in the other place? That is my concern.
Senator Nolin: Will you agree with me that it is not acceptable?
Senator Murray: Yes.
Senator Nolin: At that point, even if caucuses are fundamental to the cohesion of the parliamentary system in the other chamber, we must undertake to question the solidarity that is normally expected from the members of a caucus. Would you agree with that?
Senator Murray: Yes, I would.
[English]
Senator Fraser: On that point, I have always found it interesting — and this has come out in committee and also in observation — that the longer a senator is here, the more likely that senator is to act, on occasion, independently of party. There may be many reasons, but it seems to be statistically established.
Senator Murray, with respect to committees, you may recall some years ago we were both on a Speaker's trip to Australia. I am talking from memory not from documents, but I was particularly struck by a system they had in their Senate to address the fact that committees have to do two jobs. They have to handle legislation, and they have to handle studies. For example, in the case of the Legal Committee, which is one I have been on for a while, studies get squeezed out by legislation. However, the studies may be at least as important as any little bill that comes along.
They have a parallel system. The same members will sit on the legal legislative committee and the legal policy committee so that the work can proceed in parallel.
Do you remember that, and do you think it would be a system that we might look at with any interest here?
Senator Murray: Now that you remind me of it, I remember hearing about it at the time. Would it work here? Only if we can adjust the workload in a way that the committees are smaller and senators are not required to be on more than one or two committees, I think, as a practical matter.
Senator Joyal: Thank you, Senator Murray, for your comments.
I would like to bring a nuance to legislative versus study. The perception I have — and it is a perception — is that sometimes, for committees, studies trump legislation. In other words, studies are more — I will use an expression that has been raising some feathers on the other side — ``sexy.'' A study is more in the wind, the subject of the day. However, the Senate has a constitutional duty to give advice and consent on legislation. That is the first and foremost duty we have.
The second duty is to keep the government accountable — not responsible — accountable. We cannot defeat the government in the Senate. ``Accountable'' means the Government of Canada, namely, public administration, generally, and Parliament. We have 14 officers and agents of Parliament. When the members have to devise where their roles lie, we try to push all the legislation into one committee, for example, the Legal Committee for the lawyers and those who like the legal niceties, and then most of the committees have their hands free on other things, except the National Finance Committee because it is a one-case mandate.
However, all those reports that we receive from the Privacy Commissioner, and the report from the complaints commissioner of the RCMP, are important issues, especially after the Arar inquiry and the problems we have seen in the RCMP recently. It is an issue that someone should look into in Parliament. Because the Legal Committee has most of the bills — the majority if not 50 per cent of them in some sessions — and the staff, those other issues fall off the table.
I am thinking of the reports of the Privacy Commissioner, the Information Commissioner and even the Chief Electoral Officer. When a bill comes through, it goes to the Legal Committee, but the committee does not have time to look at all those reports. A slippage has occurred of the reorganization of the work at this point in time in the Senate. That is my perception. I have no figures or statistics, but that is just what I see happening.
The Senate has to come back, especially after 27 years of the Charter, to the issue of minorities. Last week, we listened to the Aboriginal leaders on an important issue for Canada, the residential school issue. We should be looking, in coordination with those reports of the agents of Parliament, at how the Senate could be the platform for those peoples to come forward and testify on the issues at stake in those reports.
We are caught up by the studies issue. I say that respectfully because we have had many good study reports. However, we should not see the world as much separated between legislation and study: If you are not in legislation, you are in study.
Senator Murray: In 1993, when the Progressive Conservative government became the Progressive Conservative opposition over here, we had a discussion about this, and my suggestion at the time was that we had too many studies and not enough attention on the things Senator Joyal has mentioned. I suggested that the two caucuses, through their leaders, should agree to a limited number of studies per session. They could set a number, two or three or four per session, and it would be understood that several would be at the initiative of the opposition and several at the initiative of the government. We would agree to stay within those limits for that session of Parliament and then move on. When another session comes, we could agree on a new set of studies.
You are talking about limiting the number of studies, as I understand it, and I agree with you. Other issues, not just legislation, that you and I have mentioned are falling between the cracks.
Senator Duffy: Thank you, senator, for coming today. For those of us who are new on the scene, it is a joy to hear the wisdom gathered over the years. It has been quite enlightening. I cannot agree more both with your point and the follow-up of Senator Joyal. I, too, have been troubled by what seems to be more than an arm's length relationship with many of our important national agencies and institutions, and I think your ideas are right on.
In my limited time here of five or six months, I have also seen both the legislative workload and the study workload. People would say, ``Where would we ever find time for oversight of the Mounties or the Information Commissioner and so on?'' It is important that we get back to first principles, the role of oversight being one of those things, because these agencies are increasingly important. They are interacting with the public and are basically operating on their own.
That said, you mentioned television in the chamber. Can you elaborate on your thoughts about making it friendlier? My concern right now is that we do not have proper air conditioning there, and every time we do have the cameras in, they turn up the lights. I feel I am at Swiss Chalet and ``sur la sellette,'' as they say in French.
Senator Murray: I was talking about the physical configuration of the chamber. If it does not look very attractive from the gallery, it must look even worse on television. I was not watching on television when we had the Aboriginal leaders the other day. However, we could make the physical configuration much more television-friendly, with witnesses at the south end and proper provision made for cameras and microphones and so on. If I had my druthers, the desks would come out completely, and we would have benches in a more intimate debating chamber and a more effective way of relating to witnesses when they come.
Senator Duffy: As time is running short, could I just ask for your thoughts on expanded coverage of committees on television versus the devotion of resources to providing continuous coverage of the chamber?
Senator Murray: I think we should make the television coverage of the chamber available. I was not aware this was an either/or proposition. We had better look at how this is done in the United Kingdom because you can tune in to the House of Lords at any time on television if you wish to do so. I have not thought this through for some time. Internal Economy dealt with it, and I do not think I could be more helpful than that. I believe in having television in the chamber provided we could clean up our act on such matters as Question Period, which I thought when I was answering questions and still think is an abomination.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: You mentioned the committees and the examination of expenditures. At the moment, is it the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance that conducts that examination?
Senator Murray: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: Have you changed your views about that? When you were the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, I introduced an amendment that would have allowed the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to examine the part dealing with the fisheries, and you expressed serious reservations.
Senator Murray: I continue to believe that the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance must be responsible for studying appropriations. For a deeper examination of the programs in the various departments — I was talking about the Export Credit Corporation — I feel that it is absolutely necessary for a Senate committee to be in constant contact with that crown corporation. It is important for the committee to require the corporation's management to explain how the funds that it has been given are used.
My fear is that a number of our departments and agencies are sheltered from any serious examination of their programs by Parliament. At the moment, I do not worry about the main or supplementary estimates; I worry about the programs.
Senator Robichaud: And that examination has not been done yet, has it?
Senator Murray: No.
Senator Robichaud: Thank you. That means that we have to change the committee mandates so that they have precise responsibilities.
Senator Murray: You do not agree, Senator Joyal?
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, our time is up. The Senate will be starting in one minute. Senator Murray, on behalf of our committee, thank you for coming. We could have gone on for another two hours. The discussion has been fascinating, and we deeply appreciate your contribution.
(The committee adjourned.)