THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 30, 2023
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met with videoconference this day at 10:32 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(a), for consideration of possible amendments to the Rules.
Senator Denise Batters (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. I am Denise Batters, senator from Saskatchewan. I am the deputy chair of this committee and will be acting as chair today.
Before continuing, I will invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Ataullahjan: Senator Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Omidvar: I’m Senator Omidvar from Ontario, and I’m missing my name card.
Senator Woo: We can confirm you are Senator Omidvar.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Woo: Good morning. Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Greene: Steve Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn, New Brunswick.
Senator Black: Rob Black, Ontario.
Senator M. Deacon: Good morning. Marty Deacon, Ontario.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. This morning, we will be continuing our consideration of committee mandates and structures. In this panel, we will be examining the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, or TRCM. I’m pleased to welcome with us today the Honourable Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications; and the Honourable Michael MacDonald, a former chair of that committee.
We will start with Senator Miville-Dechêne, and I will ask you to keep your opening remarks to no more than five minutes so we can have appropriate time for questions. You will be followed by Senator MacDonald, when he will have a chance for opening remarks. After that, we will have questions.
[Translation]
Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for inviting me to testify as Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. It’s a role I’ve taken on only since the fall of 2018, shortly after my appointment to the Senate. It remains — and let me be clear — a short experience, due to the long months when things were done in slow motion during the pandemic. Here are a few thoughts to start with.
The Transportation Committee is not among those committees that review the most government bills. However, since I have been a member, we have spent a great deal of time studying two non-budgetary government bills that have been submitted to us. We spent five months studying Bill C-48, the bill banning oil tankers along British Columbia’s north coast, and we broke all records during the review of Bill C-11, during which we heard from 132 witnesses and spent 65 hours on clause-by-clause study.
Since the beginning of your study, other committee chairs or former chairs have said they regret not having enough time to study bills thoroughly. So, in a way, I’m privileged. However, my experience as vice-chair leads me to believe that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between the time you spend in committee hearing witnesses and the depth of the review you do.
The political and often partisan nature of the whole committee work process at the Transport Committee plunged me into a new reality that I’ve gradually come to terms with. Let me give you two examples. The discretionary nature of steering committee meetings opens the door to partisan tactics that undermine committee work. This was particularly true during the study of Bill C-48. It would be more efficient and apolitical to establish neutral, predictable mechanisms whereby the steering committee meets once a week, at a fixed time, to follow up on current issues.
As for the choice of witnesses, again, I understand that it’s not an exact science, but I don’t share the opinion of some, who believe that we have a duty to hear all the pressure groups that have formally asked to be heard, insofar as half are for and half are against. Of course, our role is to hear citizens, but the current process tends to privilege well-organized pressure groups with plenty of resources to manifest themselves, as opposed to the others.
However, it would be interesting if, in addition to these usual and unavoidable witnesses, the committee heard from more neutral and disinterested speakers, better able to enlighten senators on issues of public interest.
I feel that the role of the steering committee is precisely to achieve this balance, to exchange and debate this list so that it is as relevant as possible.
This brings me to the role of library research and analysts, which varies from committee to committee, depending on a whole range of factors. However, the reality I experienced surprised me and I’ll share it with you. At the Transport Committee, most of the witnesses recommended for the study of bills have already been heard in Parliament.
Should we review the analysts’ mandate, adding the importance of finding original perspectives or witnesses less associated with interest groups? Should our analysts have the latitude to speak directly to potential witnesses to verify, in a completely neutral way, their specific areas of interest? Sometimes the internet just isn’t enough. As deputy chair, I haven’t been able to exert any influence in this area to date.
I would also like, as Senator Woo did, to point out that, beyond the numerical statistics, we do not measure the quality of our studies, and in particular their impact, if they have any. It seems to me that, in this respect, we’re living on our reputation.
I’m aware that it’s a difficult exercise, because we need to develop a methodology. We haven’t produced any reports or completed any studies on the Transport Committee since I joined. I’m therefore basing my perceptions on those I’ve read as a member of other committees. To get consent for reports, sometimes we tend to seek out a compromise at all costs and make far too many recommendations just to please all committee members. That puts reports on a fast track to being dismissed. It seems to me that we need to show more disagreements and division points between committee members rather than passing over them.
Finally, there’s the issue of the Transport Committee’s mandate, which is a little outdated. The telegraph is still mentioned in its official mandate; that says it all. It also mentions tourism, but I don’t really see any connection between tourism and the two other main fields, transportation and communications.
My guess is that those two key areas were put together because at one time communications happened through transportation. However, in the age of the internet, that’s no longer the case. So there’s no real connection between the two main issues that make up the committee’s mandate.
Some committee members have expertise in the transportation sector, while others are more interested in communications.
In addition, given the exponential rate at which the internet and technology are growing, perhaps a committee like ours should devote itself to them full time.
Of course, I’m ready to answer your questions.
[English]
Hon. Michael L. MacDonald: I will speak first about my history on committees. I’ll speak to Transport and Communications Committee as well as some general comments and observations.
I have been on committees for over 14 years now. When I first came into the Senate, I was put on Internal Economy. I believe everybody should spend a stint on that committee for the first few months and get a feel for how the money is managed at this institution. I think it’s important.
I was on Fisheries and Oceans and on Transport and Communications. I was on Transport longer than any other committee, eventually becoming deputy chair. As you know, the chair of Transport is usually on the opposition side of the floor. So for a number of years I was deputy chair when Senator Dawson was chair and then, of course, when we went into the opposition, I became chair in the last Parliament.
I start with Transport and I just reflect on what my colleague here said about communications and transport. I believe Transport is a perfect example of a committee that should be reassessed in terms of its workload. As someone who has worked a lot in both of those areas, and I believe transport and communications deserve their own committee. I know Senator Dawson and I had disagreements on this over the years. He liked it together. But I think they are both so important, and there is so much involved in both of those particular areas, that they deserve their own committees.
So that brings us to another question. When we start splitting certain committees up, we have to either bring other committees together or remove some committees altogether. I believe that it’s time for a complete and comprehensive review of our committee structure.
We did make a half-hearted attempt of it a decade ago, I believe. Many people can be particularly strong in certain areas and don’t want to budge. I’m not necessarily critical of that. But what happens in the end is that we have a lot inertia and nothing changes. We end up going back to the same formula that we started with. There are 28 full-time House committees, 18 full‑time Senate committees, a number of subcommittees. I think if we do a comprehensive review of our structure, we should do it while reflecting upon the House of Commons committees to see which ones we are duplicating or don’t have to duplicate. With some of the bills that were mentioned there, I’m glad we had a Senate committee because if we didn’t, the House of Commons didn’t do their work. So we have to be very careful if we remove a committee. But I think that it’s something whose time has come.
The other thing I want to see is avoiding — and I have seen more of this in the last decade — and I think it’s a mistake to let one demographic of people with a collective interest just dominate one committee. It drives people away from that committee. I think that committees should be really structured in such a way that has many points of view and not a top-heavy point of view so it turns into a committee of group think. We have to avoid that. It’s incumbent upon us to avoid that, and I think we can avoid it with good committee structure and a good approach to filling the holes on the committee and the structure of the committee.
Because it does stifle honest discussion, we don’t want to censor opinion on committees. I think it serves the best interests of the Senate, the committees and the public when there is a great cross-section of views sitting on every committee. I think there are committees that we don’t have that perhaps we should look at. I’m always — this is just a personal view. I’m appalled at the conduct of Parks Canada and Heritage Canada when it comes to the history of this country. We have no say in it here. They seem to do what they want. There is a Heritage Committee on the House side. That’s just one example. I think we should look at all the committees comprehensively on both sides of Parliament, to see which ones we want to maintain, which ones can be split up, which ones perhaps should be subcommittees. I think there are some committees in the Senate that should be subcommittees, because we know that access to translators and the support we need is very restricted. We want to make sure that we have all the access we need for our most important committees and that they are held at a time frame where most people can attend.
All of this stuff is workable, doable. I just think we have to roll up our sleeve, take a hard look at the committees and put our personal feelings aside, put our personal hobby horses aside and do what’s best for the structure and for the Senate and for the institution. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate that from our witnesses.
Now we will have questions and, first of all, I’m going to ask you to keep your questions and the exchange in total, the answers that you receive, to a maximum of five minutes, and then we’ll have time for everyone to have a robust discussion today.
Senator Quinn: Thank you, chair, and thank you colleagues for indulging my presence at your committee today. I am a member of the Transportation and Communications Committee. I thought it was important for me to be here today to make an observation and ask a question of my colleagues.
My observation is that having been on this committee from my arrival here, it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that communications is such a very important topic. This past year, we have been looking at streaming internet issues, newspapers, spectrum management, things of that nature. And these are issues that will continue to evolve and dominate the time because they are evolving so quickly. On the other side of the equation, the transportation side, there are issues that we’re not touching because our time is being consumed with these very important issues.
I’m proposing that transportation in this country is such a cornerstone of our economy that we need to pay attention to the crises that are in various parts of that transportation business, but we’re not having the opportunity to do that. I think that the transportation industry and infrastructure are suffering because of it because we haven’t had those discussions. I really appreciate the comments that my colleagues have shared with us this morning.
Does it not make sense, and given the dominance of what’s happening in today’s society and the communication world — and what I just outlined regarding what’s happening in the transportation world — should we not be moving quickly to allow these committees to have a more visible presence by having their stand-alone topics? Maybe some other issues can be put with them, but they shouldn’t be together, I don’t believe. I heard Senator MacDonald’s comments and my colleague who is our deputy chair; I know that you have concerns about some of these issues as well. Wouldn’t it be better to move quicker rather than slower to address this very important issue?
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I feel it’s worth considering: Should we put technology, which is now part of the Social Affairs Committee’s mandate, as well as the virtual realm, the internet and the development of new technologies, under one committee?
However, I’ve seen the list, so I understand that we have a problem with respect to the number of senators. We already have too many committees, because we’re in small groups, so it’s much harder to have representation and be everywhere at once. I feel we must make choices. Carving up the committees and creating more of them is almost inconceivable to me. What we need to do is regroup. Do we group subjects together like banking, trade and industry? I’m not sure, but I can surely tell you that these are two completely different issues. Unlike Senator Quinn, I’m more interested in communications than transportation. I’ve learned a lot about transportation since I became a member of the committee.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: We use Transport and Communications as one example, but there are many other examples where it seems to be a strange marriage of subjects. I have wondered why social affairs is grouped with science and technology. I don’t understand the correlation there. I’m not saying they don’t do a good job at handling those issues, but it doesn’t seem to me to be a proper match of subject matter. There doesn’t seem to be much correlation there. I think we should reassess with an honest eye to this and try to, again, not just strengthen the committees as they stand. I’m not against fewer committees. I think we can do with fewer committees but we just have to be sure of the ones we are dropping off and which ones we’re combining.
Senator Quinn: Our institutions of government are oftentimes regulated or fashioned because of convention. We have always done it this way; we have always had these types of committees. The change is sometimes difficult because of convention, but I would propose that the world is changing so quickly that our institutions need to take that into account and change with them so we give the attention to those areas that have evolved and are developing so quickly.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Senator Woo: Thank you to Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator MacDonald for your very thoughtful testimony. I have questions for both, and we may have to wait for a second round to attend to the second question.
Let me start with Senator Miville-Dechêne. On your remarks concerning selection of witnesses, I take your point that we should not seek to be exhaustive in accommodating all of the witnesses who want to be witnesses. What do you think is the time when we have done an appropriate amount of testimony? What are some ways, some benchmarks that we can use or rules of thumb to know that, yes, we have heard enough from this point of view and we can stop and move on to a different point of view?
Second, on witness selection, you make some important points about trying to avoid lobbyists and so on.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Not avoid, but —
Senator Woo: But to not just rely on lobbyists. It’s a very fair point.
What is the best practice in terms of identifying and selecting witnesses? We rely a lot on the analysts to help us. Have you found some other ways in which it’s useful and productive to identify witnesses outside of conventional practice?
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for your questions, which are particularly complex. I’m not sure that each committee has a specific methodology for deciding on the number and the type of witnesses. That’s exactly what the steering committee is for. I must admit that I haven’t had much experience, extensive discussions or content to determine whether we had heard enough witnesses who share the same views. Should we move on? Obviously, we need a consensus. This is also political work. Based on which side of the fence you’re on, you can have a completely different perspective on an issue. That’s why we carefully calculate floor time, because it’s easier than starting to wonder if one witness is offering us something better than others.
Obviously, because of my professional background, I don’t feel that’s the best way to conduct a study. That’s why, at the beginning, I said that doing a long study doesn’t guarantee that we will hear more voices than we do when we conduct a shorter study. If 20 people tell us the same thing, that doesn’t take us very far. None of that detracts from the fact that we must hear from Canadians. We also need to hear from the lobbyists, but we must be very aware that some represent the views and interests of their businesses and associations. Others — and that’s where we need to find them — try to rise above all that to seek out the common good.
Our offices can certainly do research, but I truly believe in the telephone. I don’t believe that just reading someone’s biography is enough to grasp whether they should come and testify. That’s true everywhere. We always fall back on the same witnesses, because it’s safer. We know what they’re going to say, and we know how they’re going to weigh in.
The Senate is a huge organization. The idea is to bring in new voices to hear them. It’s very important in our society to have young people, not so young people and people from all walks of life. It seems to me that’s a missed opportunity.
[English]
Senator Woo: You know this well because you are a former journalist, and the media often goes back to the same people over and over again for comments —
Senator Miville-Dechêne: We are doing the same thing.
Senator Woo: Exactly, yes. I think you have got a special insight that perhaps we can learn from.
Senator MacDonald, I want to ask about assigning senators to committees. We were in the U.S. recently together, meeting with senators and Senate committees in the U.S. One thing that struck me about their structure and their system is the trappings of gravitas to their work, including a certain emphasis on longevity and continuity on committees. They tend to stay on a committee rather than rotate frequently. What is your view on continuity of membership in our Senate and whether that should be given some priority in the assignment of committee seats?
Senator MacDonald: That is a very interesting question because on one hand, I think change is good. We all need change sometimes. It’s upon the committee member to tell themselves, when they identify for themselves they should make a change. I was on the Energy Committee for 10 years, 11 years. I really loved it. But then I felt it was time for a change because there wasn’t a lot more that I could discover that I hadn’t discovered in 10 years, in terms of all the particulars around the energy field.
On the other hand, there are two types of opinions. There are opinions and there are informed opinions, and an informed opinion is always a much more valuable one. There is a place for experience and longevity on a committee. Perhaps the best solution would be if there is at least more than one person on the committee with longevity; it would give the option for one to move elsewhere. There is a role for somebody with corporate knowledge on a committee to be a common thread through the committee for a decade or so. Yes, I do. But I think we should be open to change. The older I get, the more open to change I am.
The Deputy Chair: It’s a good sign.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you to both our witnesses for being here. We are undertaking this review, and I’m not clear after how many years we’re undertaking such a review, chair. Perhaps you could help me out with that. But how often, given the past pace of evolution, should such a review be mandatory in the Senate?
Senator MacDonald: I’ll go first. The first question is whether it should be mandatory. Does it have to be mandatory? Certainly if it was mandatory, it would offer some structure to the approach. But I also believe that if there is an obvious drag in the system or the system is not working to the extent or the benefit it could, then we should have the objectivity to approach it and to deal with it. That’s why I like this. I’m glad we’re speaking about these issues.
I mentioned earlier — and it must be a decade ago or more — we had a half-hearted attempt to review this stuff, but it went nowhere because there didn’t seem to be the will for people to pursue it. I think it was about a decade ago, and it didn’t really get off the ground, so this is —
Senator Omidvar: So you are making my point for me, in a way —
Senator MacDonald: Yes.
Senator Omidvar: — that it should be mandatory, structured, built in with a report to the Senate, et cetera. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: I do think we should make these decisions with an eye to the House of Commons committees, what they do and what we duplicate or what we reinforce that they don’t do. We see that with Transport and Communications. We did a lot of work that they just skimmed over, and we do know that the House of Commons tends to be a little more confrontational than we are in Senate committees, and I think it hurts their product sometimes.
Senator Omidvar: Really. I visited TRCM, and I thought it was confrontational enough.
Senator Miville-Dechêne, I wonder if you have a response to my question.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I haven’t had the same experience as Senator MacDonald. As you know, when you first arrive in the Senate, your first reflex is to want to change everything. I’m over that reflex. I try to think more deeply about what’s going on and to see the benefits and pitfalls of the systems. Clearly, it’s human to tend to feel comfortable with a certain model and a certain number of committees. So if you want to change the status quo, you’ll be met with resistance to change both inside and outside the Senate. To overcome that, the idea of a mandatory review of committee mandates that doesn’t depend on senators seems to be a good idea to me.
One of the changes in the House of Commons that I find worthwhile is the rotating schedule, so it’s not always the same committees meeting at 8:45, a time that’s a little hard on the brain. Of course, I’m talking about 8:45 in the evening.
There’s also the idea to have a greater or lesser number of senators on each committee. Do we really need 12 senators? You know, when there are 12 of us, we can’t ask additional questions and we have to stick to our time very strictly. However, in my opinion, a supplementary question is the best way to find what witnesses don’t always say the first time, and shed more light on the issue. If all we do is ask one question and stop there, it’s much harder to get to the bottom of things.
[English]
Senator Omidvar: I have a question for both of you. Figuring out what subject gets meshed with what committee title is a bit like making sausages. I have a sausage to propose to you and would like to get your response to it.
As Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, we know that science and technology do not belong with us because it does not get the appropriate attention. We think it belongs with communications, science and technology. I agree with your suggestion that transport and public infrastructure could be one committee. With public infrastructure, we could throw in public lands and housing, all those other things that we tend to let fly by the side.
What is your response to those two proposals?
Senator MacDonald: I did not write this down. I think that you were reading my notes last night as I was writing them myself, because I thought the same thing about science and technology, that it would be better off with communications. For me, that was a natural.
For the other stuff, we have to look at it all comprehensively and compare them. There is more than one example where you can move something to another group where it would fit more comfortably. That is an obvious one, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Briefly, it’s like a puzzle, in that you introduce two amendments, when you should be looking at the whole thing. However, what you’re saying makes sense, in principle.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Senator Miville-Dechêne, you spoke in your opening remarks about how, for much of the time that you have been on this committee, you went to the steering committee fairly early, or you have been on this committee for a number of years during the time that you have been in the Senate.
In the last four years, as I see it, this committee has been dominated by a few dominant government bills, then was substantially curtailed for two-and-a-half years during COVID where there were very few committee meetings held for a certain time.
Then for a lengthy time frame, I am guessing that this committee met only once a week, like the committee that I am on — the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs — which is normally a two-meeting-a-week committee, but it was then curtailed for some time down to once a week. I wonder if that has been the primary part of your experience and, as a result, I will come back to you with a question.
First of all, I wanted to ask Senator MacDonald, who was on for a longer period of time prior to COVID and prior to some of those disruptions, could you tell us with your experience on the committee — because you were on the committee when more studies were done — what was one of the highlights of the time that you were on the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, perhaps a study? Maybe it was the study of a bill. Could you tell us about that?
Senator MacDonald: Yes. Senator Miville-Dechêne mentioned the difficulty in getting the report out. We did a report on pipelines across the country about seven or eight years ago. It was a good, comprehensive report. We went coast to coast. We were very pleased with the end result. It was well received. We had more time for transportation issues then.
As you say, over the last few years, communications has — except for Bill C-48 — dominated the committee. That is natural; I understand that.
I would highlight that report as one of the things I appreciate the most of the work we did. I found we were doing more. Certainly, when I first got on the committee we were doing more transportation-oriented studies than we were communications. That balance has changed in the last five or six years.
The Deputy Chair: To go back to Senator Omidvar’s question, I have been on the Rules Committee for 10 years. We have not had this type of a general review of committee structure and mandates since I have been on this committee. Perhaps it was slightly before that. I know there have been other types of reviews but not at the Rules Committee.
Senator Miville-Dechêne, in your opening comments — I am listening through translation, so perhaps it did not translate exactly — you spoke about your desire to hear from witnesses who are more neutral, citing a way to mutually verify their expertise and also talking about there are too many lobbyists, or people from lobby groups, who are testifying before the committee in your experience, going back to the same people over and over again as witnesses.
First of all, in my experience, that is very much the call of the steering committee, as to whom the witnesses are. Can you give a couple of recent examples? I am not sure who you are speaking about, lobby groups. Generally, some lobby groups might represent different groups of individuals or stakeholders that you need to hear from.
Can you give some examples of points of view that you thought were too dominant, being as specific as you can?
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I did not want to go into specifics. I would not say a particular point of view has been dominant. I would say, because we have not met a lot — I will use Bill C-48 — there were no steering committees, almost none.
We came into a mathematical game, which was if we heard that many lobbyists for Bill C-48, we’ll hear that many groups against it. For me, it was too much of a mathematical formula instead of trying to see whether we heard a particular point of view enough. Should we try to find other witnesses?
This is how I saw it when I arrived on the first big bill I studied. I remember being in an airport and saying to myself, “I need to find some people who can give me another view.” I was calling at an airport, trying to find witnesses who were not on any list. I am talking to you about my very brief experience.
I said right at the beginning that there was a pandemic, that I had two of those five years where, essentially, we were not sitting a lot. This is a brief experience.
I have been asked to come here. The only thing that I can convey is what I went through. It is not scientific. It is the look of a new senator on what we were doing.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted a little more information. Yes, been there, done that, calling witnesses in an airport to make sure. It is always important to make sure that you have balance in the study of a bill, a particular study or report.
It sounds like it was more on your Bill C-48 experience, less so on Bill C-11. Is that fair?
Senator Miville-Dechêne: On Bill C-11, it is of public notoriety that we have had a very long study with many witnesses on each side. At one point, we were looking at one another saying, “Well, we have heard this and we have heard this.”
But politics is a balance and it was certainly long. What I am saying is, since it was that long, should we have tried to find witnesses who had a different take on it as opposed to multiplying the witnesses who had knocked on our door? It is a general remark that I am making.
It was a controversial bill. Our committee was divided on it. Maybe what happened reflects this division. Obviously, for me, it is not the ideal situation if we are to be seen as committees that are doing the sober second thought. It also has to be by listening to points of view that we have not heard before.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: First, it’s a pleasure to stand in for my colleague Senator Wells this morning. This is the second time I have attended a meeting of this committee, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s truly a fascinating committee.
I also served for four years with my colleague Senator MacDonald on the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. I learned a lot on that committee.
I have two questions.
Should House of Commons and Senate committees be aligned in terms of missions, committee definitions and objectives?
Should the Senate committee review be done looking at all committees together or in silos, by each committee on their own? You have to consider that society in 2023 now integrates a range of elements, whether it’s communications, IT, or the development of electric transportation. We have a complexity today that wasn’t there 20 or 30 years ago when these committees were struck. I’d like to hear your comments on those two issues.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: To the second question first, if we are going to do a comprehensive review, it has to be done as a whole. That is the only way to get a result that will trigger some change. It may make it more difficult to negotiate, but we can start with the committees doing an internal review and then go to a larger committee to review, overall. However, it would probably slow down the process and make it more difficult to get change.
Can you ask me your first question again?
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I wanted to know if we could in some way align the objectives and missions of each of the committees. Should we retain the disparity? There are disparities between the committees. I’m thinking of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. In the House of Commons, It’s the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. There’s a kind of dichotomy that’s sometimes hard to understand.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: I had the same thoughts when I was looking at the committees the other night. I printed them out to see what each committee did and what they attributed to each committee. You could see there were obvious correlations between House of Commons and Senate committees but some House committees had, again, different elements attached to them than we had in the Senate.
There is an argument for more correlation there, more working together, more streamlining of both committees so that they work in concert with one another. It is more important with certain committees than others. We know how much work Legal does. It is such an important committee. It is a committee that obviously has to be tied to the Justice Committee on the other side. All of that can be and should be fine-tuned, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I believe there are about 30 committees in the House of Commons, and the Senate has 18? Oh, I see. There are 28 committees in the House of Commons. I feel it might be difficult to align them, given that there are 338 MPs and 90 senators right now. We need to sit on those 10 committees. The more committees we create, the harder it gets for the small groups.
Because the Senate is a relatively independent institution, I don’t think we should do things exactly the same way as the House of Commons when it comes to committees. I feel we should use what we like, like perhaps rotating the schedule to accommodate senators who stand to benefit from better timeslots from time to time. I don’t remember your other question.
Senator Boisvenu: It was about reviewing committee mandates. Should we let each committee review its mandate on its own, or should we look at them all together?
Senator Miville-Dechêne: All together, because as I said, people always prefer — it’s not easy to change things. If each committee does its own thing, I don’t think we’ll ever get the big picture.
[English]
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here as well. This is a different seat, isn’t it?
I have listened to everything that has been said. I do not want to repeat. I will make a comment and ask for your thoughts on that.
I am not lacking patience when I say this, but I respect the chair has indicated that in this committee we have not had a review in decades. Fair enough; understood. We had a Modernization Committee work on committees going pretty progressively. It was really thorough and the suggestions being made were similar to the conversations today.
We had another group taking a look at committees that came up with good suggestions. We have some basic blocks here of when we meet, how long we meet, how many should be meeting, what our committees look like and our ability to adapt and change committees over quadrennials or over reviews.
What will it take for us to move over the finish line on this? Senator MacDonald, you have talked about how we have to tweak this, we need to have a look at this and look at that. You are absolutely right on all of these things. However, I feel like we’re a bit stuck — not personally as a committee but perhaps as an institution — on what it will take to say, “You know what? I may have to give up this,” or “We may have to meet on Mondays for the next four years,” or “I do better with 1.5 hour meetings, but we may block a few.”
What will it take to get us there, do you think?
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: It’s hard to say. There are many traditions in the Senate and it’s not easy to change things because there’s always a whole set of procedures, rules and ways of doing things. That makes it harder to change things.
From my perspective, clearly, when we have government bills that are supposed to be the priority, the idea of sitting a little longer seems obvious to me, except that it remains a political decision. The leaders and everyone else have to agree to sit a little longer. Obviously, it becomes a political issue.
If we consider government bills to be the norm, at that point, the schedule simply has to follow suit. When you need a little more time, you need a little more time. I’m not saying that studies and private member’s bills are not important, but they don’t move at the same pace. I’ve been in situations where it was impossible to add more meetings.
With respect to meeting length, a four-hour block would go over like a lead balloon; a three-hour block might be a good compromise. I know you discussed it as part of your study. Clearly, we should have the flexibility to say we need to sit three times or for three-hour blocks, but can we do that? It’s hard, because it turns into a political negotiation. That’s my opinion.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: To add to that, this gets down to leadership.
I think committees not being able to sit until the Senate rises is a problem. It takes away a lot of opportunities for us to sit. We should be more flexible when it comes to those rules. As long as there are a good number of people in the Senate to manage Senate affairs for the day, I think we should be more open to Senate committees sitting during Senate hours. It will free up our time, allow us to be more flexible with our committees and give us the flexibility for it.
It gets back to dealing with witnesses. We are talking about us, but let’s talk about our witnesses for a second. It was brought up here before that if I fly to Ottawa, I am sitting around for four hours and the committee doesn’t sit, we are taking people’s time and it is not very efficient.
When people come to the committee and the committee does not sit because the Senate is not rising, that is very unfair to the people we invite and we should deal with that.
Senator Greene: I note that Senator MacDonald introduced a topic or made initial comments on committee membership. Senator Woo made some comments as well.
I have always been interested in the topic of committee membership because I am interested in the democratic issues when it comes to the Senate and the fact that, in my view at least, we’re nowhere near as democratic as we should be. I was wondering if you would like to make some additional comments with regard to membership on the committees.
Part of your comments before made reference to how some committees are overbalanced by certain groups or certain numbers and so on. Foreign Affairs, which we are both on, for example, has at least three people from Nova Scotia. It may seem odd that Nova Scotia should have such power over a committee. I think it is okay. These are very difficult issues to get at. People can say on a superficial level that they are this or that. When it comes to actually doing something about it in terms of altering the makeup of the committee, which is governed to some extent or to a large extent by party leaders, how do you do that?
Senator MacDonald: That is a good question. I think you just touched upon how you do it.
There has to be a consensus among the party leaders, consensus that comes from the membership that they want balanced or scattered representation on all of the committees. We have to review, look at the numbers. I noticed it myself. I thought it was unusual that there were three Nova Scotians on the committee. There are only 10 Nova Scotian senators, and three are on one committee. I thought that was unusual.
This is manageable. It just has to be addressed before the committees are finalized. If we review each committee, leadership can review them and say that we need changes here because they are not balanced enough. That is not that hard a thing to do.
Some people may not want to leave their committee. But that is what leadership is for, to say that you are going there, right? Someone has to go off.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Very briefly, this is a good question that brings us back to the fact that we all personally want to sit on certain committees. When someone above us chooses us based on other criteria, we may get offended.
Actually, I’ve noticed something — and I think Senator Batters sat on the same committee as me — at one point, five of us senators from Quebec were on the Energy Committee. I understand that we’re a big province, but it was a bit off balance, especially given the oil, gas and electricity issues the committee was debating. Things have changed for all sorts of reasons, but it’s still hard.
I must say that, within the Independent Senators Group, because we’re a larger group, in terms of the criteria used to grant or not grant our committee choices, diversity among us is very important. It means that if three Quebec senators ask to sit on a particular committee, we will use other criteria. I know, because it’s happened to me.
I really wanted to sit on the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. It was my dream committee, but there were too many people like me on it, so I had to take others.
The only way is to try at a higher level. At the same time, it can’t only be the province of origin. Other qualities must be diverse as well. When you start with diversity, it can get pretty complicated in an organization with only 90 senators.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Speaking to the example that you were talking about, it is why my group, the Conservative opposition, put me on the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources for the purpose of the oil and gas study, so that there would be a western Canadian from our group there because it is an important topic for our region. I was pleased to go on the committee for that purpose.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Thank you very much, because you’re really the first group telling us about a very important factor related to committee mandates: testimony.
[English]
It is the witnesses that we called. I am one of the believers that we are not the mirror image of the House of Commons.
Should we have a guideline for committees to say that when you study a bill that is coming from the House of Commons, you select at the most 20%, 30% of the witnesses who appeared at the other place, and the rest of your witnesses you seek different or other points of view?
From my 20 years here in the Senate, whichever committee I have sat on, the bulk of the witnesses at those committees are from Central Canada. We put a lot of emphasis on having regional representation of senators in the committee. But we have not seemed to be able to get regional points of view from witnesses.
How can we manage that? Can we have strict guidelines? Should we leave it to the steering committee of the different committees? We always say that committees are the masters of their own domain, but should we have guidelines?
Senator MacDonald: I will start. I am not really sure what you mean exactly by guidelines. We should avoid grabbing as many witnesses as we can from the House side. There may be a few that you want to hear from again, definitely, people who are real experts in their field who speak with a lot of knowledge.
But for the most part, I think it also calls upon the steering committees to be active. We are all creatures of habit. Our support staff do a great job of running the committees. I often see the same names coming up because there is a pool of names and there are certain disciplines.
I know in some of the studies that I was involved in, on the steering committee, I was more active. My office was more active in searching out different points of view or points of view that we thought should be at the table who were not on the lists of those being invited.
Some of it is incumbent upon our own offices and our steering committees to fill the holes they think are in the list of witnesses and to be a little more proactive.
You are right. I have noted the same bias. We get a lot of people from the University of Ottawa. It makes sense. They are right here. But there are a lot of other people out there that we could be speaking with. I really think it is up to the steering committees and the committees to give direction on this and to take the ball and run with it.
We cannot expect the support staff to think for us. We have to think for ourselves.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Briefly, that’s a good question. I’m not sure that strict instructions are the best way to go. I feel we should try to establish instructions for guidance purposes that can’t be enforced. They would never be absolute, but we need instructions that aren’t mandatory, given that it’s not always easy to get the balance right. We also need to think about the fact that it’s the subject itself, it’s the bill that we want to explore first and foremost.
I find that having witnesses both virtually and in person gives us the opportunity to do that in the short term; it’s possible. If virtual attendance serves a purpose, it’s certainly to bring in points of view that are further away from us physically. We all have our biases, myself included, and I often propose people I’ve known in Quebec to be witnesses. As Senator MacDonald said, clearly there must be senators on this committee to ensure diversity. That should be considered a concern for the steering committee, which must meet regularly, I’ll say it again.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: To close, we will have Senator Marwah. We’re pushing the time on the committee here; we won’t have time for a second round. There is a caucus meeting that needs to take priority, so we’re going to fit you in here.
Senator Marwah: Senator MacDonald, you alluded to — and these comments have been made by many other witnesses as well — the fact that committees should be much more in control of their own destiny, so to speak, and much more control of witnesses, et cetera. The question has been raised that perhaps the committee should be allowed to decide whether they can sit when the Senate is sitting or whether the Senate can sit on a Monday or a Friday. That gives more flexibility to committees and their steering committees, perhaps, if not the whole committee, to really decide what’s important, what’s worthy of sitting while the Senate is sitting, what’s worthy of a Monday or a Friday, rather than leaving that to leadership, who are one step removed about the urgency of what each committee is studying.
Or do you think that will result in too much chaos, as every committee decides to do its own thing? Do you have thoughts on that?
There is a problem if you really let this be freewheeling, unless there are parameters or rules as to when steering committees can decide when to sit and what warrants them sitting outside the normal rules.
Senator MacDonald: Obviously, we can’t go rogue and do what we want without the direction of leadership; leadership would have to approve whatever we wanted to do. I think that’s manageable and doable. When it comes to committees sitting during hours that the Senate is sitting, we should sit down with leadership, get some direction and try to establish a bit more flexibility.
When it comes to sitting on Fridays and Mondays, that will be a different battle because of people travelling and things of that nature. That will be more difficult.
But we are supposed to be the masters of our own house in here, and I think we have to take some of these concerns to leadership and get a little more flexibility out of leadership when it comes to our sitting hours. I believe that.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I would tend to agree with you, Senator Marwah. It’s frustrating when you have something to do and you feel the end of the session coming. We need time during sessions to wrap up consideration of a bill and deal with amendments back and forth. We should be able to speed things up a little. I must confess it bothers me that the schedule is set in stone when it comes to the times of committee meetings, the number of committees and the break weeks. You think you’ve got a month, and then you run out of time. It’s always like that at the end of a session, and it’s up to us to change that. One thing we need is to be more flexible in our schedules. It means we need to make a few changes in our lives and that creates problems for senators, but in the end, that’s how we’ll manage to fulfill our duties.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: I have a comment to add.
There is a role for Zoom — bringing people in who can’t make it here — but we can’t overlook the importance of us going out into the regions. When we have travelled around this country, the response we have received from communities that are always ignored or feel they are ignored — and we show up for a couple days — is always pretty appreciative. We’re always enriched by the experience; certainly, I have been. I just remember with Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, especially, in the West, into northern Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. was a real eye-opener for me. You realize there are different views in this country about how we are making decisions.
The Deputy Chair: Absolutely. I remember those bills and when they came to Alberta and my province of Saskatchewan. That was very welcome, because prior to that, a lot of people felt they weren’t being listened to, and that helped to get that point across.
Thank you very much to our witnesses today and to all of our colleagues. We will see you again. Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)