Government motion changes rules that require committees to meet
A government motion changed a rule that allowed members of the opposition to force House of Commons committees to meet when they felt the government was avoiding scrutiny.
The House of Commons passed a motion Thursday afternoon to get its committees up and running, with procedure and House affairs (PROC) scheduled to meet on Friday.
But the motion also amended a Standing Order – a rule that governs the House – which allowed all four members of a committee to ask the chair of the committee to call a meeting within five days of receiving their request.
Under the new rules, the four members must belong to two different political parties.
This means that two parties must agree to hold a committee hearing, rather than one party acting arbitrarily, NDP House leader Peter Julian said.
“In a minority cooperative parliament, this is a better approach,†he told iPolitics.
In the last Parliament, the Conservatives frequently used the order to force committees to meet when they felt the government was avoiding attention and criticism.
During the time of the WE Charity controversy, opposition members on the finance committee twice used the order to force the committee to sit.
Conservative members of the ethics committee have also used it twice to get the president to call a meeting.
In one example, Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett and his fellow Conservatives used the order to force the ethics committee to meet to discuss government contracts involving Data Sciences, a company founded by Tom Pitfield. , who has worked on Liberal election campaigns and is a friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The contracts raised questions because they involved personal relationships and ties to one party – the Liberals, Barrett said in the July 12, 2020 hearing.
“It is for these reasons that we launched the call for this meeting.
The motion, which requires MPs to be from two parties to call an emergency meeting, also stipulates that committees will now be made up of 12 members, instead of the usual 10, as required by House rules.
This applies to all committees, except those on: access to information, privacy and ethics; Government operations and forecasts; and public accounts.
In addition, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women will have 11 members.
The House unanimously adopted the motion after Government House Leader Mark Holland rose in the House on Thursday to present the committees’ plans.
The unanimous motion shows that there was a lot of discussion among House leaders before it was passed, Julian said.
The motion stipulated that the PROC would meet at 12:30 p.m. on Friday and be responsible for appointing members of other House committees.
The PROC committee will be made up of Liberal MPs Chardish Bagger, Ryan Turnball, Mark Gerretsen, Sherry Romanado, Rubya Sahota and Greg Fergus.
MPs Barrett, Blaine Calkins, Eric Duncan, Brad Vis and Alain Therrien will sit for the Conservatives, while Rachel Blaney will represent the New Democrats.
READ MORE: House committees should be up and running by Christmas, Holland says
The finance committee will meet no later than Monday, Holland said, and party whips will be responsible for appointing their party members to the committee no later than 24 hours after his motion is passed.
The Department of Finance will be made up of six Liberals, four Conservatives, a Bloc Québécois member and a New Democrat.
Bill C-2, which passed Thursday after second reading, will go to committee, to which Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will be invited to testify and answer questions on the bill for two hours.
The Clerk of the House must also call organizational meetings of all House committees no later than December 17 – the last day the House is due to sit before a six-week recess.
Opposition parties have long urged the government to start the committees.
Ahead of the announcement, two sources familiar with the situation told iPolitics the government just wanted Finance and PROC to be up and running before Parliament rises for six weeks.
READ MORE: Liberals only want finances, procedure committees up and running by Christmas
Under this motion, all committees are required to hold at least one organizational meeting prior to this break, but only PROC and Finance meet urgently.