The temptation for MPs to try and reform the way the House of Commons works is always there, and more often than not, the proposals they come up with are a problem. Attempts to make the Commons more "family friendly" dating back to the early 1990s had the unintended side-effect of deepening partisan divides and severely damaging the collegiality that used to exist in Parliament, and more recent proposals to further the family friendliness of the institution threaten to kill those remaining vestiges. Michael Chong's Reform Act wound up putting actively toxic elements into the Parliament of Canada Act which will be difficult for future parliaments to undo. And now we have Liberal MP Frank Baylis' private members' motion, M-231, which would rewrite huge swaths of the Standing Orders that govern the Commons.
That's the thing about reforms for all of their good intentions, it's the unintended side-effects that start making things worse, which leads to the need to propose even more changes, which in turn make things worse, and on it goes in an endless cycle. Look at the state of debate in the Commons all of the scripted speechifying can be traced back to attempts to put limits on speaking times that date back to 1927, when they decided that in the interests of maintaining the flow of debate, they would cap most speeches at 40 minutes. This led to the loss of MPs "giving way" so that they could be asked questions mid-speech, because they didn't want to lose any of those 40 minutes. And then again in 1982, they decided to lower the limit to 20 minutes for most speeches, with the provision of ten minutes afterward for "questions and comments," but these again were rarely actual instances of debate. Parties decided that they needed to fill those twenty minutes rather than ensure that they were a maximum, and if you were going to fill those minutes, you would need a prepared speech, and before you know it, we have the pantomime we see today MPs reading speeches into the record, some that they never even saw before they delivered them, and nobody pays attention to what they say. That's one hell of an unintended consequence that future rule changes only made worse.
It's with this in mind that I am suspicious of what Baylis is proposing. His very lengthy motion would seek to eliminate the speaking lists given to the Speaker by the House leaders, to eliminate Friday sittings, that committee chairs be elected by the whole House and to ensure that members of those committees can't be replaced without consenting, that petitions can trigger debates, and the creation of a second chamber for debating. Baylis apparently had input from Liberals Scott Simms and David Graham, Conservatives Michael Chong and Scott Reid, NDP MPs Daniel Blaikie and Murray Rankin, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and most of those names also should raise alarm bells because many of them have proposed all manner of terrible reform ideas in the past.
The only real item on this list that I am in partial agreement about is eliminating the speaking lists, but it's only a half-measure that needs to accompany broader change around speaking times so that we can start undoing the damage of that 1927 change, and banning prepared scripts and speeches but that isn't what Baylis is proposing. Doing away with the lists will empower the Speaker to better control the debates in the Chamber, to ensure that MPs need to be more engaged in the debate in order to "catch the Speaker's eye" and contribute, but without smashing the current scripting system, this change isn't even a half-measure it invites parties work to skirt it by further coordinating their debate strategy than they do currently. I can not only see there being an unofficial list that the parties will operate from, but given that they already coordinate their questions in QP, this won't be enough to change that system.
Regarding the election of committee chairs, I am waiting to be convinced, but where I am wary is because of the experience in the UK with doing the same. While their select committees have a greater degree of independence already than our Canadian standing committees, in part because shadow ministers don't serve on them whereas opposition critics do in Canada (and you may recall the Conservatives trying to get their critic named as the chair on the Status of Women committee), but the directly elected committee chairs in the UK started using their independence to become media spectacles something that is not necessarily a good thing. Could such a thing happen here? Hell yes it could, which is why I have my reservations. As for ensuring that committee members can't be removed without their own consent, I'm not necessarily opposed in principle, but I do worry that it could create problems down the road with filling committee spots when vacancies occur for one reason or another, or with the whip's ability to manage filling temporary absences such as when an MP is away.
The rest of the proposals I am resolutely against. Eliminating Friday sittings? And make up those siting hours when, considering that they're already constrained to be "family friendly." Having petitions trigger debates? Aside from the "Boaty McBoatface" problem of spoof petitions going viral in order to force debates on unserious issues, it gets back to the same issue of what it takes time away from in the rest of the sitting calendar, and you know that MPs won't want to give up their private members' time to accommodate them. And I know they'll point to the creation of a second chamber as a solution to that, but I have not been convinced by the need for one, given that while it makes sense in the UK with 650 MPs, at 338 we have MPs here struggling to do their own jobs and committee work, and simply giving them another platform to speechify will only give them further excuses to not do the hard accountability work they're supposed to be doing.
Do our Standing Orders need changes? Absolutely. But is Baylis on the right track with this motion? I would have to say no. If anything, this is on the Reform Act's path of good intentions that will have consequences that will only cause problems down the road.
