[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 9, 1995
.1106 
[English]
The Chair: I call the meeting to order.
[Translation]
Welcome everyone. Today's agenda includes the study and adoption of a draft report to the House from the Sub-committee on Private Member's Business.
Mr. Lee, the floor is yours.
[English]
Mr. Lee (Scarborough - Rouge River): Members will have in front of them the report to this committee from the subcommittee, putting forward six items as being votable. If all members have that, I move the report be adopted.
The Chair: Is the committee ready to make a decision? I don't want to ride over anybody who has something to say.
The motion is: That the report of the subcommittee be concurred in and presented to the House as the Seventy-Sixth Report to the House.
Motion agreed to
The Chair: Members have before them one other draft report, which is very short, concerning the business of supply and the form of the Journals in respect of royal assent on bills.
Are there any comments on the draft report?
Mr. Lee: Having read through the report, I can see that, for at least a short period of time, we may have failed to record with precision in the record of our proceedings the procedure surrounding one of the most important functions we have here, that is the way we provide for the spending of the taxpayers' money.
The particular report would call upon and require the House to record with precision the wording that was used by the Speaker and the Clerk of the Senate in the granting of royal assent to supply bills, that is money bills. I agree wholeheartedly that should be shown with precision on the public record for any citizens who may be curious or make inquiry. I will certainly support this, and I would move adoption of the report.
The Chair: And its presentation to the House as the Seventy-Seventh Report.
Motion agreed to
The Chair: That concludes the business for today.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe (Laurier - Sainte-Marie): In future business, the joint committee will soon start working its work on a code of ethics, isn't that right?
The Chair: The motion has not yet been adopted in the House.
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Mr. Duceppe: There is no doubt that it will be eventually.
The Chair: When? Are there any speakers from the Opposition? If not, it could be adopted it soon.
Mr. Duceppe: It will be, eventually. We could make a bet on that!
The Chair: I would hope so.
Mr. Duceppe: Do our scheduled meetings on Tuesday and Thursday, fit with the schedule of the Joint Committee? I was thinking that we should reserve our time spots on Tuesdays and Thursdays and turn ourselves into a Joint Committee at the same time, particularly since it is quite probable the legislative workload will be very heavy from now until the end of June.
Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): I think that Mr. Duceppe is right, but I would like to add something else that is important, if I may.
At one point, we are going to have to set aside some time in order to examine, not the supplementary estimates but the, pardon me, I have forgotten the exact term.
For next year's budget, we're going to have to set aside one or two sessions to look at future expenditures that we will have to make. If something urgent crops up, we could hold an additional meeting.
Mr. Duceppe: If we do overtime, then it comes under the Solicitor General.
The Chair: There is also Bill C-85, which is before the House today and will soon be before the committee.
Mr. Boudria: - [Inaudible - Editor] -
The Chair: Bill C-85.
Mr. Boudria: Is that not a matter for the Standing Committee on Government Operations?
The Chair: No, this bill is coming here.
I would suggest that we, at the same time, examine the report submitted by the Commission to review allowances of members of Parliament, that was prepared almost a year ago and is also being referred to this committee. We could do these two together and I suggest that we sit at night in front of the cameras. Tuesdays and Thursdays would then be available for the committee.
Mr. Duceppe: I did not intend to sit at night in addition to Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think that if we were to look at what remains to be covered between now and the end of June, with everything that's coming up in the House, we should begin with the Joint Committee meetings in the meantime.
Mr. Boudria: I think that the pension bill will be referred to the committee before the bill on ethics.
Mr. Duceppe: As long as we don't tack on time to this committee in order to do the work of the joint committee in addition.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman the fact remains that we have indeed two matters before us and, unfortunately, neither matter is being referred to this committee very quickly. Consequently, everything is delayed.
As for the bill on the code of ethics, we have planned to submit a report to the House in October. However, if we start reviewing the bill on pensions, we will not have a lot of time between now and the end of June to begin discussions on the other bill.
Mr. Duceppe: We could begin, and then we could go back to it later on.
Mr. Boudria: Yes, we could do that, but I thing that, in principle, we should not begin new proceedings except for urgent matters, before completing the two other items.
Of course, if a question of privilege is referred to us, we will have to set aside the topic under discussion, and devote ourselves to that particular issue. That is our role.
.1115
[English]
The Chair: I agree with the whip when he says we're unlikely to get the ethics resolution before Bill C-85. My thought was that we could start with the commission on salaries, possibly as early as next week. Even if we don't have the bill, we could at least start that part of the proceedings, and I wonder if the committee's interested in doing so. I think we'll have the bill too.
Mr. Boudria: We're into 10-minute speeches now.
[Translation]
Mr. Duceppe: What do you have in mind about salaries?
The Chairman: We could perhaps meet with members of the Commission so they can explain their report and their recommendations because that is part of the study Bill C-85.
Mr. Duceppe: Maybe so, but when I study something, I normally have some sort of goal in mind; if not, I can read for my own enjoyment.
The Chairman: We could -
Mr. Duceppe: It's not too taxing but it doesn't move things along. I have a life you know. The government has told us that increasing salaries is out of the question.
The Chair: Yes.
M. Duceppe: Very clearly.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Duceppe: It has a bill on pensions.
The Chair: There are no provisions for salary increases.
Mr. Duceppe: No. This is a bill on pensions.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Duceppe: We have it in the House and we will vote on it in due course. We know your position, you know ours. And I believe, that we are aware of the Reform Party's position.
If you are telling me that you want to study salaries knowing that the government has already decided not to give any increases, than I'm telling you that this is a waste of my time. I have other things to do than study a bill when I already know what the outcome will be.
If you're telling me that the salaries will be increased later on, then we could study it later on.
The Chair: Mr. Boudria.
Mr. Boudria: Perhaps we could deal with those two items at once by inviting these people to appear, as experts, to comment on the Bill and, at the same time, they could tell us - Because they prepared the entire package for members of Parliament. They studied the issue of pensions. We will invite them on that basis and if we want to ask them anything about salaries at the same time we could do so.
Mr. Duceppe: I would suggest that we limit this to one meeting. Because otherwise - We are here to make recommendations. We already know the government will say that there should be no salary increases because everyone's salary is frozen. I am not questioning that. I am asking you why I should spend two or three weeks or a few dozen hours studying something when I already know what will transpire. All this window dressing is very nice but we know this is a foregone conclusion. Let's have a real debate. Anything less is smoke and mirrors, and there is more to life than that.
[English]
The Chair: I think we'll have a meeting of the steering committee between now and next Thursday. We won't have a meeting on Thursday because we have no business, and I'm not going to be able to line up any witnesses on anything. We don't know whether we have the bill yet. But perhaps we could have a meeting of the steering committee on Thursday at the committee's time of meeting and settle on what witnesses we will have on the bill and how we will do it.
Mr. Pickard (Essex - Kent): Mr. Chairman, I think there are two principles involved here that I have a little concern with. If the Government of Canada or anyone sets a committee in place to study a problem, I think we have to bring that committee's report back in some reasonable way and deal with it in an appropriate way. Otherwise, why did we start the process in the first place?
Whether or not it's a question of increase in salary shouldn't be the major goal of whether we hear this committee out and get things on the record. The goal should be, in my opinion, the other recommendations they may be making, which will effect a better system itself. I really don't know if I would agree with the fact that because MPs have not been or will not be in the position to have their salaries increased, it should stop us from hearing a committee that has done reports and put those reports forward to the committee. I think it's our responsibility, therefore, as committee members.
I think we would be heading down the wrong path if one of the facets of the study eliminates the whole study or throws it out. It's improper to head in the direction of throwing everything out because one facet of the report may not be as open as we would like to see.
.1120
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Duceppe.
Mr. Duceppe: Of course one of the components of the report is pensions. However, a pension bill has been tabled in the House and we already have a decision on salaries. I'm willing to meet with those who wrote the report for a couple of hours, but we're not going to make recommendations on an issue that has already been decided.
I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of Canadians and Quebeckers who would see us spend a few weeks on an issue which has already been decided.
There might be something more urgent for us to do. We could hear them out of interest but let us not spend more than one meeting on that.
[English]
The Chair: I think the place to settle this, frankly, is in the steering committee. It's fine to discuss it here, and I'm sure the members of the steering committee appreciate hearing the views of all members of the committee, but that's probably the best place to settle it rather than here.
Mr. Boudria: May I raise a new subject?
The Chair: Yes, sir.
Mr. Boudria: We discussed something the other day, and I think it was Mr. Hermanson who suggested it. I want to raise a subject related to what he raised. It's about the government contributions to political parties. Although I didn't agree with the motion that was proposed at the time, if you recall, I indicated at that time I would like to see the issue revisited, whereby some of these so-called fringe parties get the subsidy, even though they don't achieve any threshold in popular support.
The example I was thinking of was the yogic flyers, the bouncers, the Natural Law Party. The Natural Law Party, as you know, gets huge amounts of money. Basically, what we have is the taxpayer subsidizing, I don't know if it's a religious cult or a let's pretend religious cult, but anyway, bouncy people. You have to wonder what the purpose of the act is. Surely the purpose of the act wasn't to do that.
The point that comes to mind is whether there should be a threshold. Should it be 5% or 1% of the vote? I don't know what the magic figure is, but I would be interested, if other members are interested, in discussing this, in having maybe a backgrounder. I know our researcher has more than enough to do, but we could have a little bit of a backgrounder on which party got what amount from the taxpayers so we could discuss very minute groups that get nothing and may not have even had a constituency where they got any kind of support, never elected anybody and don't intend to, yet they get these tax dollars.
I think Mr. Hermanson will recall that when we raised it before, although I don't agree with his motion, it brought in another related subject, which I'd like to discuss later. Now is later. We're talking future business, so I'm bringing it up again to see if anyone's interested in this issue.
The Chair: The report of Chief Electoral Officer on election spending will be available in June, we were told, so all those details will be spelled out there. They may be available to the researcher if he contacts the office, because presumably they're at the printer.
Mr. Boudria: It may be something for us to look at in the fall if anyone is interested. We could get a document meanwhile.
The Chair: Is that agreed?
A voice: Agreed.
Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): Mr. Boudria touched on some matters of great importance. The federal government was edging into this area and the Supreme Court of Alberta, in 1984, gave the decision, which has been over-construed in terms of what it said, and we backed off.
The attorney general of the day decided not to appeal the decision, but we probably need a law establishing the status of political parties, what constitutes a political party. There's certainly not a tabula rasa in this whole area. Most countries have a 5% or other limit. They establish minimum criteria. It may be that we need legislation, but it certainly should be studied. It's a gap in our system in comparison to others. Godspeed to Mr. Boudria, and I hope we'll do more than simply have a report on it. At least we should consider the possibility of recommending legislation.
.1125
The Chair: It was introduced in a private member's bill on the very subject, as I recall. If it ever gets drawn, we might end up with a bill before us or we can come up with one on our own. No, it hasn't been drawn for debate that I'm aware of.
Mr. McWhinney: His name is here, though.
The Chair: Maybe that's it; I don't know. Mr. Lee is gone.
Was anybody else at that meeting? Do you know which one that is? I don't have my House book here with me.
Mr. Boudria: I have my House book here.
The Chair: Bill C-319. We'll know here in just a second. If it's the Elections Act, that's what it is.
Mr. Boudria: It's not in here.
The Chair: Bill C-319?
Mrs. Parrish, did you have something you wanted to say?
Mrs. Parrish (Mississauga West): I just wanted to add to what Don said. I know we're not debating it now, but one of the yogic flyers shared with us that he was paid a salary to run by the central organization. It really was a large advertising ploy to try to get people involved in this sport, or whatever you call it. I think it's an abuse of the Canadian taxpayers. I agree with Don that it needs to be looked at.
The Chair: Mr. McClelland's bill has been drawn for debate, and if it carries at second reading it will come to this committee.
Mr. Boudria: We can start preparing for it then with this document. The same thing.
The Chair: We're making it so we can study it. That will help Mr. McClelland, andMr. Hermanson will be thrilled, I'm sure.
If that's the conclusion of the business, I thank you for your attendance this morning. There will be no meeting on Thursday. It's a holiday. The steering committee will meet, but it's a holiday for the members of the committee. You can do more House time.
I declare the meeting adjourned.