THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, April 4, 2022
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met with videoconference this day at 11:01 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(c), to consider the orders and practices of the Senate and the privileges of Parliament; and pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(a), to consider possible amendments to the Rules, and to consider a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Diane Bellemare (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good morning, everyone. Today is Monday, April 4, and we will begin our deliberations. The committee is made up of our two deputy chairs, Senator Batters from Saskatchewan and Senator Lankin from Ontario. Our committee also includes Senator Greene from Nova Scotia, Senator Black from Ontario, Senator Busson from British Columbia, Senator Boniface from Ontario, Senator Clement from Ontario, Senator Cordy from Nova Scotia, Senator Duncan from Yukon, Senator Massicotte from Quebec, Senator Mockler from New Brunswick, Senator Ringuette from New Brunswick, and Senator Wells from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you, everyone, for being here. As you know, we have several topics to cover today. The first one is consideration of the draft report on the use of props, raised by Senator McCallum. By way of background, we have talked about this topic, which was submitted in a letter. I invite Mr. Thompson to present the report. I see that Senator Lankin has her hand up. Do you have a question about the report?
[English]
Senator Lankin: I am sorry, I was offering to move the report so that it was in front of us. That’s all.
[Translation]
At this point, I would ask Adam Thompson to present the report.
[English]
Adam Thompson, Clerk of the Committee: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Just very briefly, you have before you a short draft report that flows from our meeting from two weeks ago where we did hear from Senator McCallum. There was a lengthy discussion amongst the members, and there seemed to be a lot of common ground amongst the committee. I have tried to reflect that in the draft before you. I will just say that I am ready to take any questions that you may have, or, if you have any modifications that you would like to propose, I’d be happy to hear them.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Are there any comments on page 1 of the report? We will go through it page by page.
[English]
Are there any comments on page 1 of the report?
On page 2 of the report?
And, finally, on page 3 of the report?
I conclude, as everyone did receive that previously, that it was read.
Senator Batters: I was a little surprised to see that it was done as a report, as I thought that it was going to be simply a letter from the committee to the Speaker. Why was it done as a report rather than a letter? I thought that’s what we were going to do, a bit less formal of a scenario.
Also, as I’m on steering now, I know we had some trouble having a steering committee last week so we didn’t end up having one. I think generally the procedure should be that steering committee reviews the reports before they come to the full committee so that we can make sure that we have any kinks worked out of it, not that there are any on this particular one, but so that we have the kinks worked out before it comes to the full committee. That will save us some time on less controversial matters on that sort of thing. I would like to suggest that for the future. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Batters.
[English]
For the benefit of the committee as a whole, we had problems with finding a time for the steering committee to meet, so we exchanged notes. I understand that it would be good to have an in-person or at least a virtual meeting of the steering committee, but we couldn’t have it last week.
[Translation]
Senator Clement: Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question.
[English]
I know that the report does reflect a general consensus and reflects the conversation that we had. It does give the Speaker a lot of leeway in terms of determining certain things. We opted not to have a prescriptive list, because that would be more complicated to manage, but that does mean that the Speaker has more leeway.
Do we know how the Speaker feels about this? Was that part of the conversation? I may have missed that.
The Chair: I don’t think it was. I will ask Adam to explain to us the process and why it is a report instead of a letter.
Mr. Thompson: Certainly.
First of all, as to why it is a report rather than just a letter, my understanding from the conversation at the last meeting on this was that we were going to do both a report and a letter. As a report, I would just note that the report will be tabled rather than presented, which is a slightly less formal measure. It does not require a decision of the Senate. It’s for the Senate’s information.
The content of the report is just acknowledging the existing practice and providing some commentary rather than changing anything. That’s really what I understood the feeling of the committee to be, is that we’ve got this practice about props. It’s just a question of how it applies and, no, it doesn’t apply in this case, or it shouldn’t have applied in this case, and we’re acknowledging that.
As far as how the Speaker would apply that and rule, I’m certain that he would take into account any arguments that are made, including this report. Having this public and tabled as a report does put that on the record and open for any senator to be aware of as well as the current Speaker, or any future Speaker, to take note of this committee’s feelings on the matter and take that into account in making any ruling that they may choose.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for the report.
I do recall that we had the discussion that we would have a report and a letter to the Speaker. I think the report being tabled in the Senate is good for other senators, because they recognize that the Rules Committee has actually looked at this, something that is a very important issue.
I wouldn’t want to have a list of things because we never know what might arise. I’m very pleased with this report in that it makes a suggestion that if you are wondering whether or not it would be appropriate, that you contact the Speaker beforehand, but it also allows common sense to be part of the decision-making by the Speaker or by the deputy Speaker who happens to be in the chair.
Senator Wells: I’m in agreement with Senator Cordy and others on this. I thought it was a well-written report. It captured our discussion.
I want to go to a place where Senator Clement mentioned seeking the opinion of the Speaker. This is a good time to mention that, unlike the Speaker in the House where rulings can’t be challenged, we can challenge the ruling of the Speaker in the Senate and, in fact, it’s been done before. This report and any note that might go to the Speaker would be exactly that; it would be for the Speaker to use as guidance in the future on making any rulings, but also knowing those rulings can be challenged by the chamber.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Wells.
If everything has been said, I need a proposer for the report. Senator Lankin proposed that the report be adopted.
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: That’s done.
Let’s move to the second item on our agenda, a presentation from Shaila Anwar and Till Heyde on the history and evolution of committee structures.
[Translation]
Shaila Anwar, Deputy Clerk, Committees Directorate, Senate of Canada: Good day, honourable senators.
[English]
We are pleased to join you again this morning to follow up on a few questions from last week’s meeting and also to provide you with a bit of historical perspective on Senate committees to help you in your deliberations.
To begin, my colleague Till Heyde will provide you with an overview of Senate committees, their origins and, more importantly, how they have evolved over time to the system and structure we have today. After that, I will address some of the questions and comments from last week’s meeting and review some of the more recent issues facing committees with respect to their activities, resources and schedules, and then we will both be available, of course, to answer your questions afterwards.
With that, I’ll turn things over to my colleague, Till.
[Translation]
Till Heyde, Clerk Assistant, Chamber Operations and Procedure Office, Senate of Canada: Honourable senators, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to meet with you today. As Shaila indicated, I will provide an overview of how Senate committees have evolved over time.
The evolution of Senate committee structure went through four major historical phases. The first was from Confederation to 1894; the next was from 1894 to 1968; then there was the third half of the 20th century; and last was the last two decades, give or take.
At Confederation, there was no set list of Senate committees. The Rules Committee was the first one formed. Its mandate was to frame rules, orders and regulations for the governance of the new institution. The accountability committee, which is now CIBA, was formed around the same time.
[English]
In 1894, the rules were amended to list three standing joint and seven standing Senate committees. Membership was variable, initially between 9 and 25 senators, and the number and size of the committees grew over the following decades. There were also special committees established as required over the years. This was a fairly shifting phase but tending towards increase.
By the early 1960s, there were 16 Senate standing committees whose size ranged between 9 and 50 senators. We were just checking before, and I think there were three committees with 50 senators on them. There were also three standing joint committees.
A major reorganization of the Senate’s committee structure took place in 1968, taking effect in 1969. The number of committees was significantly reduced to only eight standing Senate committees, each with a membership of 20, as well as three standing joint committees. General mandates were included in the rules for the first time, and this was also the year that the idea of a committee being able to self-initiate work was introduced, with Rules being authorized to undertake some work on its own, and this idea was extended to CIBA in 1975.
[Translation]
Over the following years, the number of committees gradually increased. By the end of the 1990s, there were three standing joint committees in addition to 12 standing Senate committees whose membership dropped to between 12 and 15 senators in 1983.
At the dawn of the new millennium, two new committees were created: the Human Rights Committee and the National Security and Defence Committee. These committees had just nine members each. Pursuant to an agreement, the committees were supposed to meet on Mondays, which meant adding to the regular meeting schedule at the time. That is how things have been ever since.
In 2002, the Senate pulled out of the Joint Committee on Official Languages to create its own committee, also with nine members. In 2005, the Conflict of Interest Committee was created, and its structure as per the Rules is unique, as you know. Finally, the Senate’s 17th standing committee, the Audit and Oversight Committee, was created in late 2020.
Shaila will now address some of the questions that were raised during last week’s meeting. I will then be pleased to answer questions whenever you like.
Ms. Anwar: I would like to focus on the Senate committees’ more recent activities. To support the discussion, we’ve distributed a series of tables showing the committees’ most relevant stats. We use this data to track the volume of activity, which helps us better allocate our resources and monitor workloads. You also have a copy of the old weekly schedule we used for in-person meetings as well as the current hybrid schedule. We thought these two documents might help explain how resources are allocated according to the approved schedule.
[English]
The first report, Committee Activities Five-year Snapshot, covers from March 2017 to March 2022 and spans from about halfway through the Forty-second Parliament, through the Forty-third Parliament and to the start of the Forty-fourth Parliament. In that time, there were three dissolutions and one prorogation that would have interrupted committee activities, and of course, this also encapsulates the period of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it covers three relatively normal years in terms of parliamentary activity, and the reason why I wanted to share this report with you today is because it shows a similar overall pattern regardless of whether or not the year was interrupted in any way by a prorogation, dissolution or other event.
National Finance, as you’ll see, is far and away the busiest Senate committee in virtually every category. Included in our busy tier of committees, I would put Legal and Constitutional Affairs and Social Affairs. For these three committees, we typically staff them with senior experienced clerks, and we generally expect all three to need extra meetings, as they are typically tasked with the most legislation.
[Translation]
The next tier, the middle group, consists of Energy, Aboriginal Peoples and Agriculture. These three committees tend to do longer, more in-depth studies. In typical years, they also travel.
[English]
The next tier, or less busy, gets interesting in that we have committees that have two weekly meetings, such as Transport, Banking, Foreign Affairs, and Fisheries and Oceans, but have comparable hours to committees that normally only meet once per week, such as Defence, Official Languages, CIBA and Human Rights. This chart shows CIBA subcommittees as well as some of the special committees, although I would note that some of these were not added to our database that we use to track committee hours until 2019.
[Translation]
The next table shows pre- and post-pandemic committee activity. These two tables show the same information as the first one, but it is split into the two pandemic years, March 2020 to March 2022, and the two pre-pandemic years, March 2018 to March 2020. The purpose of these tables is to give you a better sense of the normal volume of activity compared to the significant decrease in committee activity during the pandemic. As you’ll see, the patterns are similar. Finance, legal affairs and social affairs are still the most active, which isn’t surprising, because these committees were among the first authorized by the Senate to meet virtually.
[English]
We also see in this chart that CIBA has now moved into the middle or medium tier, and if you include the hours of its subcommittees, it has more hours than Finance. I mention this because the question about CIBA and its subcommittees was raised last week. CIBA used to have three, maybe four, subcommittees, most of which met occasionally when other committees were not meeting, and they were mostly supported by the CIBA secretariat. However, since 2016, this number has increased to seven subcommittees, some of which met frequently, along with a few advisory working groups. In the previous fiscal year, CIBA and its subcommittees represented about 35% of the total of all committee activity. We were able to accommodate these additional meetings, because initially other committees were not authorized to meet, and even when they were, CIBA was given priority over other committees, except for the ones meeting on government business. So far this session, CIBA has created four subcommittees and one advisory working group.
As expected, the statistics during the pandemic show activity levels that are about 40% of the levels from the pre-pandemic period. Pre-pandemic statistics are more aligned to our recent historical trends, but they also give a better impact of the special committees — in this case, Arctic and the Charitable Sector — that kept pace during that period with other committees we consider to be in the less busy tier. The pandemic also saw the addition of a new Senate Standing Committee on Audit and Oversight, which occupied the middle tier in terms of total number of meeting hours.
We tend to staff these committees with managers or assign a second committee to an experienced clerk. This is possible on a temporary basis if those subcommittees maintain their historical pattern of monthly or even quarterly meetings. However, if they remain at the current activity levels, it will continue to put a strain on the committee schedule and resources and could become unsustainable in the longer term with our existing staffing levels.
[Translation]
It’s interesting to look at these patterns over time, and doing so enables us to better allocate our human resources. I think this information can be useful to you as you consider adjusting schedules or the number of senators on each committee.
As Till pointed out, the historical factors that led to certain committees having a particular number of members or a particular meeting time may have evolved, so maybe some changes should be made.
[English]
I bring these statistics up in the context of your discussion on schedules, membership and resources. There may be some useful data for members to take into consideration particularly to see if some committees might be able to move into different tiers to better reflect their actual meeting times.
One additional point on the original in-person schedule is that not every committee had two time slots per week. Eleven committees had two time slots, and of that, if I take Rules as an example, Rules had two time slots but only ever used their one time slot. Their second time slot was almost never used. Fisheries is another committee that often didn’t use their second time slot. Then we had four committees that met once a week and a couple that met on an ad hoc basis, like Selection and Conflict and the standing joint committees that don’t typically meet on a weekly basis. It would appear already that additional time slots could be drawn from those unused time slots set aside for other committees. Here I’m strictly speaking about the in-person schedule, not the hybrid schedule.
My final point has to do with the question of capacity and resources. Support staff for committees come from several sources — your clerks, the room attendants and the pages. Some of the broadcasting and technical support staff are employees of the Senate Administration. Our interpreters are employees of the Translation Bureau, which is Public Works, and they are mandated to provide translation and interpretation support to Parliament. The terms and conditions of that support is governed by a partnership agreement between the two institutions. Finally, the House of Commons provides multimedia and broadcasting equipment and support as part of a service level agreement between the Senate and the House of Commons.
[Translation]
During the pandemic, the main obstacle was interpretation. Without getting into the details here, they had to reduce the interpreters’ hours of service by about 30% for health and safety reasons, and they exhausted every possible avenue for hiring qualified staff. Meanwhile, the Senate increased its sitting hours and began sitting regularly until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Committees lost three Tuesday evening time slots and lost additional capacity because of the hours of service required for Thursday evening Senate sittings. Caucus meetings also increased service hours, especially on Tuesdays, and that eliminated another two potential time slots for committees.
[English]
For multimedia technicians from the House of Commons, the SLA was increased last spring by CIBA to support two hybrid meetings per time slot. This was done in coordination with the Translation Bureau, who could not support any other additional meetings.
For the Committees Directorate, we’re resourced to support 17 standing committees and up to four subcommittees in accordance with the in-person schedule. Hybrid meetings do require more support, which we’ve been able to absorb up until now because existing committees are meeting less.
In terms of our operational requirements, thus far this session the Senate has 18 committees, which is an increase of one from the start of last session; four joint committees, which is an increase of two from last session; five subcommittees and one advisory working group, for a total of 27 committees. We are currently under-resourced and need additional resources to support the existing committees and subcommittees. If additional committees or subcommittees are created, the Committees Directorate would need additional resources at the rate of one clerk and one administrative assistant per committee.
By way of comparison, the House of Commons Committees Directorate currently supports 26 standing committees, one special committee and four joint committees. The joint committees are supported between both houses. Each provides clerks and administrative assistants, and the technical support is usually a shared responsibility. They also have three subcommittees and one working group, which works out to 35 committees and subcommittees. In terms of staffing, they employ 6 managers, 27 procedural clerks, 3 legislative clerks and 43 administrative support staff.
By comparison, the Senate Committees Directorate has 34 employees in total, with 14 procedural clerks, 12 administrative assistants, 3 managers and 3 legislative and logistical support staff. As a point of information, we currently have four vacancies; however, we’re recruiting to try to fill three of the four positions.
I think I’ll stop there, and at this point, Till and I are both available to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you very much, both of you, for this interesting presentation.
Senator Ringuette: Shaila and Till, this is very interesting.
I don’t want to talk about resources, because whatever recommendation we make, either for additional resources via additional working groups, sub or whatever, that is not what we should lie our decision on.
That being said, Shaila — and maybe, Senator Mockler, if you would like to also comment on this — we have the Monday committee that meets for four straight hours, and then we have other committees that meet two times for two hours. I’m talking about the regular sitting that we have. My question is, what is the comment regarding whether or not four hours is too difficult to manage in regard to the senators and the staff involved to be efficient in those four hours? To be honest, my question is, are we effective in having two two-hour committee meetings, or is it too long to have one four-hour meeting? Should we look at an efficient streamlining of having a three-hour per week committee meeting, considering the number of committees that we have on our plate right now?
I open this for your comments. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you for your questions. Ms. Anwar and Mr. Heyde, do you want to answer now?
Ms. Anwar: I think it would probably be best to ask the senators who are members of committees that usually sit on Mondays. I see Senator Boniface here. She was the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence last session, and that was the committee that sat longest on Mondays.
[English]
I would say there are probably some advantages in terms of allowing senators to focus on a subject matter study, a special study. When you have that extended time, you’re immersed in that. I know when the Legal Committee was studying certain bills, we would hold all-day hearings or big blocks of hearings, and that allows you to absorb a topic. That being said, I know senators are busy and sometimes the schedule needs to be broken down.
Basically, there are advantages and disadvantages to having fewer but longer meetings versus lots of two-hour blocks. What the stats show is there are some committees that typically were not using their full two two-hour meetings per week. In that sense, there are efficiencies that could be built into the schedule. The problem is that if committees are only allotted two two-hour time slots, unless they proactively say they are not going to sit on a certain day, we presume that slot is available to them.
The Rules Committee, under the old schedule, when we were still meeting in East Block, had the time slot after the Legal Committee, and I was the clerk of Legal for probably five years. I think if they ever asked me for that time slot, I would have fallen off my chair because they certainly never used it when I was the clerk, and the Legal Committee often sat longer.
Senator Boniface: I’ve sat on the National Defence Committee where we did four hours and have sat on the Legal Committee where we split it up for two hours. I think it often depends on what you’re dealing with. For instance, if you’re dealing with a bill and you’re going to clause by clause, sometimes the time in between gives you time to better prepare as opposed to flipping directly into clause by clause. I think that studies of four hours are helpful on studies on legislation. From my personal perspective, two and two works quite well.
Senator Lankin: I want to ask Shaila and Till whether the joint committees that are more temporary in nature are already counted in the numbers you presented. For example, I’m thinking about the Emergencies Act review and of MAID. If they are not counted here, at least on the schedule, even though they may not be just Senate committees, it would be useful to see them reflected.
The second thing is a committee that is not a standing Senate committee or a parliamentary committee but the committee of parliamentarians, which is different, but its time slots are not reflected in any way. For forward planning, it could be helpful to see it, even if they’re not part of the statistics that we need to have resources for. Thanks.
Ms. Anwar: With respect to the joint committees and the schedules that I provided in the bundles, they are prior to the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency and the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying that was just created last week, so no, those are not included. We do have a time slot for the two standing joint committees, Scrutiny of Regulations and Library of Parliament. As I mentioned, they don’t often sit every week. The Library Committee hasn’t sat in a couple of years, in fact. However, we do set aside the time slot for them, and it’s dedicated to them.
For the two special joint committees recently created, I will add them to an upcoming schedule so you can see it. I don’t know when the MAID committee will meet. That’s a discussion we will have with the House of Commons. For the National Security and Intelligence Committee, NISICOP, that is not supported by Parliament Hill, either the House or the Senate. I notionally know that you meet on Fridays, but I have no idea when or where. Those resources are accounted for separately. They are not supported by either the Senate or the House of Commons, but I imagine that you have interpretation provided by the Translation Bureau.
Senator Batters: First of all, as somebody who has been on the Legal Committee for basically all of the nine years that I’ve been in the Senate, generally the lengthy day-long studies that were done about bills were precisely because those particular bills had very rigorous time frames for being reported, because we were doing a pre-study or they had to be reported back to the Senate in a very limited time frame. That was generally the reason. Having two two-hour sessions per week, it would have taken us weeks to be able to do that properly. That’s generally why Legal occasionally does have those lengthy meetings. But I would say, having been on those types of committees, having a committee like Legal meet for four hours at a time would not be efficient. My impression is that it’s more efficient to have those two two-hour time slots, particularly during a sitting week.
As well, clause by clause, in my view, should always be, if possible, on a different day than when you’re actually considering that particular bill in front of witnesses so that everyone can have the proper time to reflect and perhaps come up with amendments or observations, rather than just go right into it. I also don’t think it shows the proper respect to the witnesses that you’ve just heard from because at that point your mind would probably be almost made up. Witnesses may certainly have that impression. “Did it even matter that I was heard from today?” That is another reason that I think that a committee like Legal, which considers a lot of legislation, should be in two two-hour spots rather than one four-hour spot.
There are a couple of things coming out of what Ms. Anwar was just saying. Could you please tell us what the Emergency Committee time slot is? I believe you said you know what those time slots are, just not the MAID one. I hope that joint committees are taking away from House of Commons resources for committees and not Senate resources, because those are limited.
My last question is if you could please explain why the House of Commons has, throughout the pandemic, had priority over Senate committees in their sittings and resources allocated, particularly translators. They have basically been back to normal with their committees in the House of Commons for 18 months or more. We’re still not back to normal, not even close. We’re probably at half, at best, of the particular committee regimen that we had before. Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: With respect to Scrutiny and the Library joint committee, we’ve had an agreement with the House of Commons that the Senate provides all of the back-end support for Scrutiny and the House provides all of the back-end support for the Library Committee.
For the two special joint committees, because our resources are so tight, this is a conversation we had with our partners in the House of Commons to say that we don’t have the ability right now to do the back-end support — by that I mean provide the committee rooms, the committee time, the interpreters, the multimedia support and the tech support — so the House has agreed to provide that support for both the Emergency Declaration Committee and for MAID.
For the time slot, the Emergency Declaration Committee has settled, I believe, on Tuesday evenings, either 6:00 to 9:00 or 6:30 to 9:30. For the MAID committee, those discussions have not yet started. The members from the House of Commons have not yet been named. I imagine that will be a discussion that will take place typically between the whips of both houses and in consultation with the members of the committee. I don’t know at this point when it will be, but once it is, we will add it to the schedule. It will be back-end supported by the House of Commons, but we will, of course, have a Senate clerk and administrative assistant assigned to work with the senators on the committee.
Did that answer all of your questions, senator? I think you had one other.
Senator Batters: My main question is if you can please explain, because I think the public will want to know — this is something I talked about in my speech about hybrid Parliament and the fact that it’s an extremely unfair situation that the House of Commons has their committees having priority over the Senate committees, yet it’s something I believe that the Senate Administration agreed to throughout. Can you please explain why this is happening? They have basically been back to normal for 18 months, and we have not at all. We’re still not even close to back to normal.
Ms. Anwar: From my perspective, I track very carefully the committee statistics and, as I said, right now we’re down about 30%, almost 40%, from what we did before the pandemic.
For the House committees, I can’t really comment on who gives priority to what. I know that we have a partnership agreement with the Translation Bureau that prioritizes chamber sittings, followed by committee meetings, followed by caucus meetings. They have been down in their service, and my understanding is that the service on the House side has also been reduced. It’s just that they have more committees that sit longer, and their chamber also sits Monday to Friday and longer hours than our chamber does. So while they are down a bit, we are down a little bit more. I think the difference is their numbers are down across the board, whereas on our side it has been more acutely felt by committees. The chamber statistics are — Till can probably comment on that more than I can — reasonably close to what they were before the pandemic now, whereas the committee numbers are not yet back up to where they were before. In terms of how —
Senator Batters: It’s particularly about committees, all committees basically. That’s what I’m focused on, because the chamber — I don’t believe we can even have a committee sitting at the same time as the chamber, or at least we couldn’t for a significant part of the pandemic, whereas the House of Commons has committees all the time. My comment was that it took us so many months to get any committees going at all. The House of Commons had their committees going by the summer of 2020, and quite soon after that they had basically all of their committees running at their full capacity that they had prior to the pandemic starting. They had those going. But we have never even come close committee-wise. Legal, for example, is meeting at best at half the capacity that we did before.
Ms. Anwar: For us, the challenge has been — we deal with our direct support partner in this regard, which is the Translation Bureau. I can’t really comment on how they have decided — they’ve given us, “Here is the sum total of what we can support in a week.” How that was divided was a conversation or a decision that essentially happened at the Selection Committee where different options for scheduling were provided, and the determination was made to have every committee have one time slot per week rather than try to manage certain committees getting more or less than others at certain times of the year.
That being said, one of the things adopted by the Senate both last year and this year was to prioritize committees with government bills. As a result, some of the committees that would normally sit once a week even lost those time slots in order to allow committees studying government bills to meet a little more often on the Senate side.
As to who gets more service or not, as I said, the House did sit more and did have more committees before the pandemic, and that continues. I think our percentages, in terms of lack of service, are higher than what the House has said their reductions are in service, but that’s really a question I think for the Translation Bureau. I can’t really answer for what their relationship is with the House of Commons. I can just speak to what our relationship is with the Translation Bureau.
The Chair: Thank you, Shaila. I don’t know if Till wants to add some information about those issues.
Mr. Heyde: The one point I would make is something to which Shaila alluded in her presentation. With the hybrid sittings, we have seen the Senate tending to sit longer than would have historically been the pattern on Tuesday afternoons, routinely going until 9 p.m., whereas previously we would often be done on a Tuesday afternoon before the dinner break. As I believe Shaila pointed out and, Senator Batters, you also made the point that while the Senate is sitting, it is out of the ordinary for a committee to be meeting. That means, in effect, the Tuesday afternoon periods are lost for possible committee meetings while the Senate is sitting.
What we’ve seen in the last two weeks is a bit more reflective of where historically we might have been. The Senate would meet in the afternoon for several hours and then adjourns perhaps a bit before or after the dinner break without seeing the clock, and then committees are able to meet. I know at one point when I was with Committees quite some time ago, there actually were two periods in the schedule for Tuesday afternoons. I don’t think in practice the very late committees used that time very aggressively because it was really inconvenient. But that is another factor that has played in, in that the Senate is perhaps taking a bit more time, which then has ratchet-on effects for committees.
Senator Duncan: I apologize to my colleagues if this has been covered and I missed it. I certainly would defer to our able Chair of National Finance, who I see is in attendance. This committee, as noted — and as a member, I can say — is very active. We also have the challenge of — we have government legislation in terms of the budget. Our able clerks are always trying to schedule witnesses, trying to obtain witnesses. Obtaining answers from those witnesses is a separate subject. Scheduling of those witnesses has an impact in terms of the committee meetings that we’re talking about.
I would like if Shaila could perhaps take a moment and just talk about the issue of scheduling witnesses and its impact upon this schedule. Is it possible that there is a date that might be better suited for some committees in terms of scheduling witnesses? Has that question been answered or raised before? Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: Thank you, senator, for the question.
I think now, because we’re inviting all witnesses to appear virtually, some of our scheduling constraints have — I wouldn’t say been eliminated, but it has been a bit reduced. We used to have to be able to account for allowing people to travel to Ottawa, which, depending on where they were coming from, was not always a 24-hour turnaround, and people need time to make travel plans. It is a bit less of an issue now because it is easier for people to tune into a meeting via Zoom, but people are still busy and overscheduled whether they’re working remotely or not. Essentially, we like to give people at least a week’s notice.
I don’t know if that specifically is answering your question. I don’t know that it makes a huge difference in terms of if a committee sits twice versus longer. In terms of witnesses, I don’t think it makes a huge difference.
Senator Duncan: Thank you, Shaila, for that. I really appreciate your answer. What I heard you say, though, gives me great concern in that it’s easier to schedule witnesses and to hear from witnesses and thus also to hear from folks across the country in the hybrid format. My concern is if that hybrid format doesn’t continue, where will we be in terms of trying to organize witnesses? We will be back in an issue of having to give a week’s notice, which will delay reporting and delay committee work. Thank you for the information.
Senator Busson: I want to compliment Shaila and Till and the staff for putting together this incredibly comprehensive and useful chart on the different committees and the comparisons between prior and pandemic scheduling.
There is one other thing I want to make a quick comment on, and it was alluded to. Till made a point when he was talking about the history of the committees. He said when National Defence was created, it was created and scheduled for Mondays, back in 1968, I believe, and it’s still on Mondays. It’s an anecdotal observation on my part, but I think the Monday sittings sometimes deter some people from being on that very, very important committee. I wonder if Till has a comment about why. Is there a reason it’s on Mondays? Is that something you can comment on, Till?
Mr. Heyde: I think I will let Shaila take that, if you don’t mind, Senator Busson.
Ms. Anwar: In 2001, when Defence and Human Rights were added and, shortly thereafter, Official Languages, that was part of the negotiations, I guess, to add those extra committees, because the Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday was full in terms of capacity to support committee meeting time slots. To add senators to a new committee, you also have to make sure that the time slot doesn’t conflict with other committee assignments. Those were the considerations behind giving them the Monday time slot.
I was assigned to the Defence Committee way back when, and I’ve been here for 15 years. The Monday committees have been asking why they have to be on Mondays for all of the 15 years that I’ve been here. This comes up at least 20 times a year. It’s certainly nothing new.
The Senate has taken the approach of having a set schedule and not a rotating schedule. The house, by comparison, does a rotating schedule so that everyone sits in the mornings sometimes, in the afternoon sometimes, on Mondays-Wednesdays sometimes, on Tuesdays-Thursdays sometimes. Both systems have pros and cons. There is a bit more certainty to your schedule on the Senate side because committees tend to meet at the same times. With the pandemic, we’ve had to shift things around, and that has been very disruptive to everyone as a result.
That’s the reason behind the Mondays, but we’re talking about 22 years ago when that decision was made. Is that decision still valid? Are the reasons still valid?
Originally, if I take Defence as an example, the committee had nine senators. For the last two sessions, the Senate has adopted a sessional order to increase it to 12 members, which is a reflection of the interest that people do have, despite the fact it meets on Mondays. I guess it’s a question of, if you know going into it that this is when the committee meets and has always met, you can make decisions as a senator that way.
By the same token, there are senators who have two committees sitting in the same time slot. If those time slots never change, that means on a Thursday afternoon, the senator has to pick whether to be on Legal or on Social or on Foreign Affairs. You can’t be on all three because they all meet at the same time. Maybe that’s also a way to keep everyone spread out. Otherwise, probably the whole Senate would be on Foreign Affairs because everybody wants to be on Foreign Affairs, and quite a few people want to be on Legal.
I want to address a point from Senator Duncan’s last intervention. With respect to video conferencing of witnesses, we did that before the pandemic. We had witnesses who appeared by video conference if there was a time constraint or if they didn’t want to travel. That capacity always existed. We had the flexibility to have some witnesses coming in or for last-minute witnesses to appear by video conference if necessary. The difference with Zoom is that it has become so much more widespread that we can increase the number of video conference witnesses we hear. That may or may not be a good thing, but certainly in a time-constraint situation, it can be easier for witnesses to join that way.
Senator Massicotte: I’m having a debate with myself while we discuss this thing in such great depth. Are we looking toward making recommendations about committee hours? I’m not sure that’s the case. But I share the frustration about the fact that we’re meeting 40% less than we were pre-pandemic. It’s not the fault of our people. There is just not enough staff. That is best dealt with on Internal Economy. I highly recommend, if the committee agrees, that you as our chair should remind Internal Economy that we are frustrated by the lack of support staff and frustrated by the fact that we’re at 60% capacity. I think the committee does very good work, and it is very important to Canadians that the committee does its work. We’re still lagging behind so significantly. The problem is not our staff, but the problem is a lack of staff. Let’s focus on that. I have a sense that every committee is talking about their slots at this point. I hear that comment from everyone else. But it isn’t everyone’s responsibility. It is Internal Economy’s responsibility, and we should lay our comments there.
The Chair: That is a good point, Senator Massicotte. Maybe in our concluding remarks, we will decide to have a letter sent to CIBA.
Senator Busson: I had mentioned how helpful these charts are at getting a snapshot of the world of committees. I want to ask Shaila this: On Tuesday afternoons, right now, CONF meets with the permission of the Senate. In the permanent schedule, CONF isn’t marked down at all. Is that a moving target, the Ethics Committee hours, when we’re out of hybrid? Is there a reason why Ethics isn’t on that permanent chart?
Ms. Anwar: Two committees, CONF and Selection, have always met on an ad hoc basis, and now Audit is in the same position. They have permission to sit when the Senate is sitting, and they have permission to meet during adjournments. They’re relatively small in terms of the number of members. They meet when they need to meet as opposed to at a fixed time or on a fixed schedule. We gave them each a fixed time slot for the hybrid schedule just to reserve it because the slots were so tight in terms of availability. If we did it on an ad hoc basis, we would be spending all of our time to try to find them a time. That’s the reason.
Going forward, it may help senators, as it certainly helps me, to know that this is the time slot for this particular committee. We probably will consider giving each of those committees — not necessarily a dedicated slot. We will probably say, “If they’re going to meet, this is their meeting time,” but we haven’t gotten there yet.
Senator Busson: Thank you so much.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: My question is for Senator Mockler as Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, which always has a fair amount of work to do. Let’s keep in mind that we don’t like committees meeting at the same time as the Senate. Every time your committee has to meet at the same time as the Senate, you constantly have to ask for consent to meet.
I’ve noticed that you tend to be in the chamber at the last possible minute to move your motion. Should the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and Rights of Parliament give some thought to an exception that allows the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance to sit at any time even if the Senate is sitting?
Senator Mockler: Thank you, Senator Ringuette. That’s a very good question.
[English]
Since the entry into force of hybrid sessions, I have to share with you that we’re always looking for best practices in order to assure ourselves that we give proper time to the witnesses and to give proper time to the senators. I want to bring that to your attention in view of the question that was asked by Senator Ringuette.
With those best practices at both levels, the steering committee and the members of the committee, we’re using all our slots. We’re using all our minutes. In the four-hour slots that we have, plus sitting when the Senate is sitting, we try to permit all senators, that being 12 members — and I see that Senator Duncan is an able member of our committee — a minimum of five to seven minutes per Senator to ask questions of the witnesses. Why seven minutes? It allows the senator to ask more than one or two questions of the witnesses.
[Translation]
Having the option to ask witnesses more than one or two questions would help us dig deeper into a topic because the committee’s mandate is national finance.
[English]
I think that doing that, given the way the format is broken down, one hour and 30 minutes at the beginning for the first slot, a break for 30 minutes, and then we move on to the other one hour and thirty minutes, giving the opportunity to each of our senators to have seven minutes, that, for us, is best practices.
Second, I will comment on the hybrid system and how it works in Finance.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, I’d just like to take this opportunity to tell Shaila and her team, via the clerk, Ms. Aubé, that they’re doing an incredible job of supporting the committee and making sure we adhere to best practices in preparing committee reports and gathering relevant information and expertise.
[English]
When it comes directly to some of the challenges certainly going forward — and I want to bring this to the committee — we are, however, challenged by some of the answers when we give a time frame to the witnesses, both in the private sector and officials of governments, to make sure that they can answer in writing on the due date that is shared with them and us when we ask to get the information. We’re trying to address that. Many times we do not have the answers at the proper date and time that we have agreed upon, so during the process, when the time comes to write the draft report, we cannot use the information that has been provided after the date in our report. That is a grave concern for Finance. I have verified with a few other committees, and they tell me it does sometimes happen in other committees.
I think the question that is asked is certainly pertinent.
[Translation]
Also, our committee, like any other committee, has to make sure the written answers meet the deadline that is publicly agreed upon by the committee and the witnesses. As to the four hours, and I’ll end on this, when we give our 12 senators seven minutes each to ask questions, the meeting lasts 90 minutes. If we still have time, we go to a second round of questions.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about best practices.
[English]
But there is no doubt that there are other best practices that could be implemented.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you. I have a question for you, Senator Mockler. Given your vast experience and the fact that you have been chairing the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for some time, you are in a position to compare the time before COVID-19, the time during COVID-19 and now.
Are hybrid meetings just as effective, more effective or less effective than in-person meetings? There are certainly pros and cons to both formats. As chair, did you find your committee to be just as productive, more productive or less productive while it was doing hybrid meetings?
Senator Mockler: That’s a very good question. I’m going to give it some thought and talk to the steering committee and members of our committee. Generally speaking, I would say that we use as much time as necessary during hybrid meetings. When we go back to in-person meetings, I’m pretty sure there will be best practices that can be implemented in either format. The public service is currently looking at telework and what kind of changes can be made. Various surveys conducted across the country point to arguments for and against. Modernizing our institutions, if that is what we are talking about, means that the hybrid format and tools like Zoom and Teams are certainly things we should take a closer look at.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Mockler. With that I will give the floor to Senator Batters, but first, I have a question for Ms. Anwar and Mr. Heyde about schedules in terms of Friday sittings. I know Fridays have never been an option for committee meetings, but I was wondering if House of Commons committees meet on Fridays. Could we have hybrid committee meetings on Fridays instead of in-person meetings to reduce accommodation costs, for example? Is that out of the question? We have not talked about this. Mornings, for example, could be reserved for certain committees that do not meet on Mondays.
Ms. Anwar: Before the pandemic, Senate committee meetings happened from Monday afternoon to Thursday before Senate sittings.
Fridays were for additional meetings and subcommittee meetings.
Before the pandemic, the House of Commons’ usual schedule was from Monday morning to Thursday afternoon. On Fridays, there was only a House of Commons sitting for part of the day. During the pandemic, the House of Commons started using Fridays for committee meetings. We did the same. They were mostly extra meetings when a committee had a bill to study. Some subcommittees also sat that day. For extra meeting needs, we used Fridays.
We can do this in the short term, but here is what I think the problem is. When senators start returning to Ottawa and the Senate sits, Fridays are often travel days. Since this winter, it has been hard to find a time, even for a five-member subcommittee, when all five members are available on Friday. The main problem with Fridays is logistical.
We’ll see. Do we have the resources for meetings on Fridays or hybrid meetings? Maybe, but that is up to senators to decide.
[English]
Senator Batters: I just wanted to make a couple of comments based on my experience with hybrid committees, particularly with the Legal Committee that I’ve been on. As I was saying before, I was on it for pretty much all of the nine years that I’ve been in the Senate. In that time frame, some very significant studies took place: the prostitution bill, the marijuana bill and two assisted suicide bills, one of which was before the pandemic and one during the pandemic.
What I noticed was just the inability to have any interaction with the witnesses. They’re on the screen for the time that they’re on Zoom, and you don’t have that interaction before and after the committee and even really during the committee with the senators there. As well, you don’t have the interaction with the senators who are attending the committee because you can attend now either way. There were times during the pandemic where we were only able to have virtual committee meetings, and I thought that was most unfortunate. In those times when you’re able to be there, it’s just so much better when you can have those interactions with your fellow committee members and the witnesses that are presenting to you and to have the opportunity to perhaps meet with them beforehand and that sort of thing. Zoom just isn’t as good.
Also, yes, we certainly did have video conference witnesses for the Legal Committee many times prior to the pandemic, but one trouble we’ve certainly noticed — and this has been across the board, both the House of Commons and us — is this major problem with interpreters having trouble. This was particularly true for committees a lot of time because while we can mandate the exact type of headphones and that sort of thing so that, hopefully, there’s less trouble to the interpreters and less potential health risks, you can’t mandate those for regular witnesses. Sometimes I’ve been in committees where it’s been extremely poor quality — sometimes not good enough quality for the witness to even testify, actually. We have had occasions where, unfortunately, the witness has not been able to testify because the quality wasn’t good enough. Other times, the testimony has gone ahead, and I’ve really worried about how that may have been problematic for the interpreters. We’ve certainly seen a lot of news stories about the difficulty that has created.
Also, I wanted to speak about Fridays as someone for whom, on a good day, the flight from Saskatchewan to Ottawa is a six-hour shuffle. It’s not just a two-hour drive or something like that where you can perhaps work it in. Yes, Friday has generally been a travel day, whatever time on Friday that means, whether you’re home at the end of the day or maybe, if you take a very, very early flight, you might get home midday and continue your work there. Also, sometimes the Senate has to sit on Friday. We’ve had a few of those sittings recently, but it can tend to happen more frequently. December and June would be a normal time frame, so I’m not sure how well it would work to regularly schedule committees in that time frame.
The Chair: Sorry for the noise. I don’t know what, but there’s something going on outside my apartment, and sometimes the noise is very loud.
Senator Lankin: I want to talk about two things, starting with a comment on the Fridays. As Shaila mentioned, currently NSICOP meets all day Friday, but pre-pandemic we met for four hours Tuesdays and four hours Thursdays and had times to book to come in to do our readings. It all has to be done in a secure communications set-up.
I just wanted to pick up on something that Senator Massicotte said. I agree this is a very in-depth conversation, and I don’t know to what end. I do appreciate understanding more about the resource constraint. I agree with Senator Ringuette that we need to determine what we require to do our jobs appropriately and that we need to put that request to CIBA and see what happens.
In that, I think it’s incumbent upon us to be effective and efficient in the use of resources and to look at those committees that do have substantially less work. I know it’s very difficult to have conversations about potentially merging committees, but I think when we do our longer study, we will need to look to that.
The conversation seems to be drifting — Senator Batters in terms of your comments — back to the hybrid sitting motion we had last week, which is not what’s in front of us here. There are many different views about the utility of that. What I would say is that right now, in terms of a public health response, we’re still where we’re at. We need to focus on the longer term. I think most people would agree that it’s preferable when we can be together. Many others will feel that the ability to tune in might be useful when you’re doing something in your home constituency. We need to determine that longer term when we get to that point of discussion, which I guess will be coming up again in a few weeks because I think the motion we have only lasts until the end of April. We will be having this discussion again.
Madam Chair, I wonder if we can determine whether there is any final question. For me, the last part of this is to really endorse the idea of you writing to CIBA. This is coming up in a lot of committees, so there will be a lot of this kind of approach to CIBA. I think one of the unfortunate things right now is that until we settle what our long-term picture looks like, we’re getting into a bit of circular conversation: We're not going to increase resources if we don’t need them if we’re not sitting remotely, or we’re sitting remotely so we have to cut back on the hours of time because we don’t have the resources. It’s becoming very circular and, I think, not helpful to the general morale of committees who are trying to do good work. I would very much support you writing to CIBA and asserting our desire, as we look at the committee schedules, to know that there will be resources available if necessary while we commit to looking at making more efficient use of the resources that we have.
The Chair: Senator Batters, do you have anything to add?
Senator Batters: Yes. I just wanted to ask on that — I was trying to get at this earlier with my questions — if it would be helpful for us to write to CIBA and have CIBA discuss this, or is this whole allocation of resources for committees currently the subject of an agreement between the House of Commons and the Senate where nothing can really be done about it at this point. Dealing with translators and other resources necessary for committees, is the Senate already into an agreement that indicates that the House of Commons committees have priority and we’re basically at the maximum level for the Senate committees? I’m wondering if it is a helpful procedure to go to CIBA and ask them, or is this something that is the subject of an agreement that’s not going to be changed.
The Chair: I don’t know. We have to ask ourselves the main questions too. We had this meeting because we wanted to add two committees into our slots of committee studies: a committee on human resources and a committee on communication, transport and innovation. We are examining our resources to see if it’s possible without the senators having too much committee work. We have to balance the work of senators in the Senate, committees and elsewhere.
Having said that, I’m thinking we will reconvene on this subject before we write to CIBA. But I think it’s important to write to CIBA in order to have the possibility of having our regular time, or more time for the regular committee, and also to see if we can have resources for two more committees. These are the questions in front of us.
Senator Cordy: I agree with you. If we’re going to be looking at making decisions in terms of adding committees or not adding committees, I think it’s important that we have the information at hand. Is this an agreement that’s tied in for as long as COVID lasts? Maybe COVID will last forever; I don’t know. But is there an agreement that we’re tied into right now, or is there not an agreement? Let’s have access to all of that information so that the decisions we make can be based on the information we have available at this time. I think a letter to CIBA is very important.
[Translation]
Mr. Thompson: Madam Chair, I just wanted to let you know that Ms. Anwar has something to say.
[English]
Ms. Anwar: I wanted to add one point. I think CIBA is the proper venue if this committee has questions about resources. I would remind you that some of the resources that support committees are directly under the control of CIBA in terms of allocation of resources or getting additional resources, but not all.
I would also suggest, perhaps, that in this session the question of committee scheduling was given to the Selection Committee as one of their orders of reference. A lot of questions and comments came up about the schedule that could be things that could be looked at even within the existing resources that we have, and it may be something that you wish to direct to them or get their feedback on.
The Chair: If we are concluding on this item, I want to thank you very much, Shaila and Till, for your work. It’s very informative. We will need to digest the data a bit more, and it will be helpful for the future.
At the steering committee, when we meet during the break week, we’ll be able to conclude a bit more on what happened today and what we want to ask CIBA, what kind of letter we will write.
Also, we’ll have to resume at some point on the two main questions that were part of our two-step review of the structure of committees in terms of what we want. We know that, in substance, there is no question about the relevance of those two committees. They are relevant. They are already within SOCI. As we can see in the table, SOCI has a lot of hours of meetings, so they have a lot on their plate in terms of bills and so forth. They cannot cope with the problem of human resources, nor innovation, science and technology. Unless you have something to add on those two specific questions, we will turn to the other item on the agenda and return to that after the break. Is that okay with you? I see heads nodding. If so, we will conclude on this item, take all the information into consideration, and come up with something in the next meeting.
This brings us to item 3 of our agenda with respect to the report on step one. We have the proposition of a third report from our committee to the Senate in relation to the stylistic changes we want to make to the Rules. You received the draft paper on that. It has been circulated. I will turn to Adam to summarize this report.
Mr. Thompson: Honourable senators, as you know, we’ve spent a few meetings discussing committee mandates and had divided that consideration into two steps: one, a stylistic review, looking for more conformity between the various mandates of the committees set out in rule 12-7; and step two, which considers changing some of those mandates, adding committees and realigning some things. The draft report before you deals only with that first step.
You will recall that in some of the preliminary discussions we had on that — and you received a table outlining the proposed changes — one of the items brought up in discussion was perhaps reordering the committees in there so that the four internal or administrative committees — Internal Economy, this committee, Ethics and Conflict of Interest, as well as Audit and Oversight — all appear at the beginning of the section, with the other subject-matter committees then following. That is how I have drafted this. That being the case, as it would result in every single committee being renumbered, we are simply replacing rule 12-7 in its entirety with the new mandates for these committees.
You will see at the end there is also a necessary cross-reference change as the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence was receiving a name change. It is just to reflect that earlier on in Chapter 12, where the number of members that it has is identified by name.
Near the end of the report, there are two paragraphs that I wanted to draw to your attention and on which I’d like some guidance. This has to do with when these changes would come into force. From discussions with Shaila, there are some issues with changing committee mandates and, in particular, changing committee names in midstream, in mid-session. A number of our systems are set up in a informatics manner, and there are concerns about what a change in name might cause, for example, with the website in terms of maintaining links between minutes, transcripts, meeting schedules and things of that nature.
I’ve proposed two options. One would be certainly the cleanest, and that would be to have these amendments come into effect at the end of this session so that, in the next session, things would start clean. However, we don’t know how long this session will last. It could be short; it could be long. That being the case, I’ve provided you with a second option, which would be June 30 of this year. That would allow at least the summer for the Committees Directorate — and, if necessary, ISD — to ensure that there are no implications with our informatics systems and that everything is linked correctly.
Should you choose to have things come into force June 30 of this year, which would be within the session, an additional paragraph would be necessary, which I have included. It makes absolutely clear that the three committees that are receiving new names are not new committees. We are entirely replacing rule 12-7, and this is to make it clear that those three committees will continue their work as what they were prior to this change. There is not a new committee. It would not bring an end to any work they were doing. They would not need to reorganize and would not need new orders of reference. They would continue the operations they were doing under these new names. Again, if you were to decide that these should only come into effect at the end of this session, that paragraph would not be necessary and could be removed.
I’d be happy to take any questions that you have.
Senator Ringuette: I want to thank Adam for highlighting these two options.
In my mind, all the time that we’ve been discussing this style, the wording, it was to try to have this come into force as soon as possible because, as we would say, it’s a no-brainer. I would like for us to see June 30, 2022, or it could even be September 1, 2022. We don’t know; maybe we will be sitting in July. Some think that we don’t have enough time to do the proper study, so we might sit in July. At the end of the day, I would like for this to happen as soon as possible. Thank you.
Senator Wells: Thank you, Adam and the full team, for doing this. This is really good. Even though I’ve been here for a few years, it is always good to be reminded and refreshed on the state of play with respect to committees and the other issues that are brought to our attention.
With respect to June 30, it is good. As Senator Ringuette said, it is a no-brainer. It needs to be done and should be done.
Just on the question of “cleanliness,” doing this at the end of a session seems like a good idea, but on reflection, we don’t know when the end of a session will be. Governments prorogue unexpectedly, and sometimes expectedly, frequently. There might not be a lot of time between the end of a session and the start of a new session. It could be days or weeks, as we’ve seen.
When you first said it should be June 30 or the end of a session, I thought it was easy and that it should be the end of session. However, with the possibility of prorogation, even within the same government, there is no certainty there. June 30 — we all know what that is and it doesn’t change, and it gives some time. The only edge I see around that is that there are three committees that are empowered to sit after June 30 or at the close of the sitting: CIBA, Audit and Oversight, and Ethics. I don’t know if that situation presents a difficulty — because there are still a few committees sitting — but I would leave that to further advice.
The Chair: If I may say, those committees didn’t change at all, so there are no changes made in the rules for those committees. Adam, do you want to add something?
Mr. Thompson: I just want to say that you’re absolutely correct: For all of the internal committees that could conceivably meet of their own volition past June 30 or, in some cases, even during an intercessional period, the only change has been the number in the rules for two of those committees, with CIBA and Rules maintaining their numbering.
Also, the end of a session and the potential rapid start of a new session should not have any impact. Everything would be starting clean at the beginning of a new session in any event. We wouldn’t have the transitional problems we were concerned about if we were to do it in the middle of a session.
Senator Cordy: I wonder if we could talk to our groups about these things this week and get back whenever our next meeting is. We’ve had really good discussions at our caucus meetings, but, just to confirm, we never did discuss whether it would be the end of session or the end of June. I know that people on what is currently called the Aboriginal Peoples Committee would like the change made to the Indigenous Affairs Committee as soon as possible. Can we bring our responses back to our next meeting of the Rules Committee?
The Chair: If the committee wants, we can do that. The only thing is we don’t want to reopen the whole debate. It’s about the timing of the change.
Senator Cordy: If we don’t, then I’m favour of these changes for the end of June.
Senator Batters: To get away from the possibility that we could potentially still be sitting a little bit past June 30, what about saying July 15 or July 30 to avoid that brief period of time where we might have a few days of the session going on. If you wait until the end of session, you potentially have to wait until the end of session. We’ve seen time frames where the Trudeau government has not prorogued at all during an entire few-year-long time frame. Also, they do have this working agreement with the NDP right now, so we could potentially be into another period like that where there is no prorogation for a long time. I would suggest July 15 or 30.
I don’t feel like I don’t need to bring this particular matter back to our group. I could see the desire to have the Indigenous Affairs Committee, as I think it will now be called, have that change happen more quickly. So, yes, I would suggest the July date.
The Chair: I would also like the July date, because I would like to see the change coming because I might be out of the Senate before a prorogation.
Senator Lankin: I completely agree with everything that Senator Batters said. The mid-July date is very good, for all the arguments that she put forward. I also do not feel that it is a necessary matter to go back to the group. We know we can’t do it any earlier than this in a reasonable fashion and expect to have the efficient technology transition. We know it has to be after and during the summer break. Let’s just make the decision today and be able to report this out. That would be my request to fellow colleagues.
The Chair: I suggest, then, that we change the date in the report to the end of July and that we adopt it today with the date change.
Mr. Thompson: Thank you, senator. That is fine. If the committee is in agreement, I can certainly make that change.
I would like to make one additional change, or just draw something to your attention. At the end of rule 12-7, there are some references included. They’re not there as part of the rules, and those would obviously continue within the rule. I wanted to make sure that point was clear.
I can certainly make the change to July 31, and we can have this in to the Senate this week.
Senator Black: I would move the adoption of the report, if that’s what you’re looking for.
The Chair: Thank you very much. It’s moved by Senator Black, and the report is adopted. Thank you.
Let’s turn now to the last item of our agenda. It is related to the list of subjects.
When we ended last meeting, we were on page 7 with the committee study of non-government bills, a proposition that was made by Senators Cordy and Dalphond. I want to go quickly on these last pages. They are quite straightforward, and I won’t explain in detail what they mean because some of the issues are more complex. But I can summarize it.
What would you like to start first? When we go through this list, we, with our steering committee, will present to you at the next meeting an agenda for the coming weeks of the subjects that we want to do. My intention was that we could easily work on two issues at a time. Perhaps we could have a longer issue, where we could have witnesses, and another issue that is of a limited scope. We would make an agenda so that we could move on this list until the end of June. At the least, we would propose an agenda for the four or six coming weeks. We will see what we can do in the steering committee. I will go on to those items. I want to hear what your preferences and priorities are regarding the items on the list. Is that okay with you?
If that’s okay, we were on the committee study of non-government bills. These issues were put forward by Senator Dalphond in the Senate, and it would have us see if it’s possible to have some rules or processes that would accelerate the study and voting on those bills and the study into committee.
After that, another issue was raised, also to accelerate the study of the non-government bill, presented by Senator Massicotte. It relates to the adoption of a lottery system for bills in the Senate. This needs an explanation. I don’t know exactly what the lottery system is. We would need to have witnesses explain what it is and what it implies. We hear pros and cons, so we need to sit and listen to what it is exactly.
Then we have the issue raised by Senator Duncan about unparliamentary language. How do we want to address this? We have rule 6-13(1) prohibiting personal, sharp or taxing language as unparliamentary. As there is no definitive list of unparliamentary words or expressions, we may consider looking at what other provincial and territorial legislation do and a suggestion as to what is considered unparliamentary.
We also have the items put forward by Senator Carignan. This occurs frequently, the issue of calling of items where we say “stand, stand, stand,” and sometimes it takes time. When we were not televised, it did not really matter. We used to do that. Now that we are televised, some people say maybe we should have another process to indicate what we are coming to next, and to also reduce the inefficient time in the Senate.
We did address the promotional or political purposes props. That issue was raised by Senator Carignan and Senator McCallum.
We have incorporation of leaders and facilitators of recognized parties or groups throughout the rules. That was an issue proposed by Senator Lankin, and it comes from the motion that we did actually study, but I don’t think there was a vote on that, by Senators Wu and Tannas.
Then we have the issue of amending or correction of the rules. There are a lot of items that might be corrected. The clerks have a list of items they would like us to look at to kind of modernize the wording of the rules as they exist now.
Mr. Thompson: Madam Chair, just briefly, the administration does not currently have a list. I have had some preliminary discussion with some of my colleagues among the procedural services, and I am preparing a letter for you to send to the Clerk of the Senate inviting us to collectively look at some of those issues. I will have that letter for you to sign most likely tomorrow. It is in translation now. I am sure the clerk will come back with a list of suggestions of issues we may wish to consider.
The Chair: Thank you.
The final item was proposed by Senator Massicotte, and it is to have a period of time when we can reflect on what has happened since the Senate Modernization Committee recommendations. As you recall, the Senate had a temporary committee on the modernization of the Senate.
[Translation]
The Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization was chaired by Senator McInnis and then by Senator Greene.
The committee made a series of recommendations. It would be interesting to take another look at those recommendations in light of what we have done since then.
We could have people come in, such as former senators McInnis and Joyal, as well as clerks Charles Robert and Gary O’Brien. That’s a suggestion, but I would like your thoughts on that list and I would also like to know what your priorities are.
[English]
Senator Batters: I see Senator Massicotte just put up his hand, so maybe he will explain this. I was going to ask if Senator Massicotte could tell us the types of things he views as still outstanding from the Senate Modernization Committee. I know one of the things was definitely done quite soon. When I was on the Senate Subcommittee for Communications, we had recommended this earlier, and the Senate Modernization Committee did as well, and that was televising the Senate Chamber proceeding. That has been going on for quite some time. I know a number of the other issues have been dealt with. Perhaps Senator Massicotte could give us more explanation as to the types of things he would consider under that category.
Senator Massicotte: To answer the question, I forget the exact number, but around 15 recommendations were made by the Senate Modernization Committee, and there were only seven or eight that we punted on. The committee per se approved those recommendations — don’t forget it is a committee of all parties — but they got stuck in the Rules Committee, and those are the ones I’m talking about, those that got approval but didn’t get final approval and were not submitted to the Senate. I forget if it’s exactly six or seven, but that is the number.
The Senate Modernization Committee received a report from the clerks at that point in time, along with a team of people of that nature, and they made recommendations to change quite a few things, small stuff like wording. They said the direction of the Senate was not coherent with that wording, so they recommended quite a few changes of a highly technical nature. We should probably attend to that eventually, but I don’t think it should be the whole committee. It is very detailed. It is predominantly recommendations by the clerks at that point in time, to be coherent with the rest of the amendments we made. I would say two or three of our committee members should look at that report and come back with specific recommendations. We did not disagree on much, but we need to get it done and clean the house, per se. Those are the two types of recommendations I’m making.
The Chair: The steering committee is well suited to look at those suggestions for consistency of the rules, and we can look at it during our next meeting, if Adam can tell us that it is already possible for us to look at that, and then we could come back to you in the next regular meeting of the committee.
Senator Lankin: You were asking for priorities. There are a number of amendments that would reflect current practices. Uppermost in my mind is the inclusion and naming of all of the caucus leaders and group facilitators and sort of the equality of senators. As I recall through Senate discussions, there were two motions — one by Senator Woo, followed by one by Senator Tannas that was as a result of conversations and amended Senator Woo’s motion. There was more general agreement with that. I think one of the issues is it was not such an affront to members of the official opposition in terms of potentially diminishing the understanding and recognition of that role.
I would say that Senator Tannas’ motion would be a priority for us to look at. Some of what it does is simply move current practice into the rules. There may be implications beyond that, which is why we need to have a discussion and steering needs to consider whether that requires witnesses or what we need to do about that. I would like to put that one up.
This one is a pet peeve. I know it’s on a list somewhere, although it’s not one we have acknowledged. Since I arrived six years ago, I’ve been trying to get people to put a simple digital countdown clock in the Senate. Virtually every legislature has that, and probably the House of Commons too. It counts down the time you’re on your feet, and I think it improves the chances that senators will accomplish their speaking within the time that is allotted.
The Chair: Yes, I agree.
Senator Massicotte: I want to clarify my earlier intervention. It was a response to Senator Batters’ question.
The priority I would like is to the issue of a lottery system or any kind of system to put more order and a better balance into the public bills and so on. I agree that it does deserve witnesses. We had set up an informal working group of all the leadership last summer and spring, and it was agreed by all leadership — re the lottery system — that we should send this to Rules and have them take a look at it. There was general agreement. But we should get witnesses in it. I’m not an expert, but some people are within our own Senate. Vincent is very knowledgeable on this matter. I suggest we take a look at it. I think it could resolve some issues. We’re spending a lot of time on public bills. Maybe there is a better process of getting those through but at the same time making sure that we’re not bombarded by bills that maybe don’t deserve priority. I would like to see that getting attention.
Senator Batters: First of all, on those motions of Senator Woo and Senator Tannas, I don’t believe either of them passed the Senate, so we wouldn’t be dealing with that motion having been referred to our committee or anything like that. I can understand the general subject matter, and that general subject matter is the subject of the bill that started in the Senate as Bill S-4 and came back to the Senate as S something else. Then it wasn’t properly a Senate bill, so it got sent to the House of Commons. The House of Commons is dealing with it as a government bill, and it’s not yet back in the Senate — the amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act. That has a number of those types of things in it as well. We certainly can deal with this general topic area to study it as a committee, but I wanted to make the point that we wouldn’t be dealing with either of those motions because I don’t believe either of them have been passed.
As far as the timer clock, I think that would be a great idea. I believe the Speaker and perhaps the table have a clock. Maybe Shaila or Till could tell us what the situation is and how possible that is to have, and also, what the House of Commons has, if they happen to know that.
Senator Ringuette: Briefly, I would like to talk about the issue of “stand.” The Rules Committee dealt with this issue four or five years ago because, at that time, everybody was calling “stand, stand.” Now it’s only the Speaker. For the time being, I believe it is still okay for the Speaker to say that. However, this practice was put in place at a time when only the leadership had a copy of the scroll. Now, because of Till and the scroll committee’s work, everyone receives an email with the scroll for the sitting, so everyone will know what is going on. At the end of the day, I don’t believe this is an emergency issue. For the time being, it’s acceptable. I think it should be a very low end of our priority list. Thank you.
Senator Lankin: Senator Batters put forward the fact that the Woo-Tannas motions were not adopted in the Senate. There was a prorogation or an election before Senator Tannas’ motion was brought forward for a vote. However, like all these other items, these were submitted by members of the committee, and we can talk about the content, as Senator Batters said.
The Chair: Shaila, do you have something to say about the clerk and a timer so that senators can see it?
Mr. Heyde: Under rule 6-3(2):
The Clerk shall keep a record at the table of the time taken by each Senator in each debate. The Clerk shall inform the Speaker when a Senator’s speaking time is about to expire and, when it expires, the Speaker shall so inform the Senator speaking.
In practical terms, you will see by the reading clerk standing at the expiration of speaking times, which is a signal both to the Speaker and the senator speaking. For those participating remotely, it might be a small signal, but that is a signal that the time has expired.
I don’t think there are clocks in the House of Commons. I don’t know if they have a private time signalling system. I know that there are in some other jurisdictions. For example, in the United Kingdom, I believe the House of Commons does have that. I’m just being whispered at that Ontario might have a timing counter as well. That might be something that may be looked at.
The Chair: Quebec too.
Mr. Heyde: And Quebec as well.
For Question Period with ministers where we have very tight timelines, 60 seconds and 90 seconds, we’re keeping track with the functionality on phones to keep track of when the Speaker should be interrupting the senators. There are various methods. You may want to consult with the Speaker. There might be technical issues in terms of how installation of a digital clock, if that were to go ahead, would be done in the Senate in a way that is both tasteful and practical for senators.
The basis of keeping track of times and the standing system that we currently use to signal when time is up is rule 6-3(2). I do know that many senators keep track independently of their times. I know one senator last week whose alarm went off quite loudly. It was very clear that she was keeping track of her time. Certainly, in terms of Question Period, there is a lot of separate time tracking going on.
The Chair: Thank you.
We are at the end of our session today. We have a lot of items that we need to share with the Speaker, along with the prayer. I will arrange a meeting with the office of the Speaker to look at those issues and will come back to you. We will have a steering committee meeting during the break week, so we’ll discuss your priorities and how they fit into the agenda. If you don’t have any questions, be reassured we will be meeting during our next regular slot and providing as many answers as we can. Hopefully, you will know the agenda in advance for the next meeting. Thank you very much, and have a nice week.
(The committee adjourned.)