Good morning. Thank you very much.

The proposed changes to the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act seek to equalize the power of relationships between political party leaders and their caucuses. It is often argued that the current balance of power is weighted too heavily in favour of leaders. This is the problem or the set of problems that Mr. Chong's bill seeks to address, as too much power in the hands of party leaders could undermine the capacity of individual legislators to represent constituents and hold leaders to account.

As Mr. Chong's bill states in its preamble, our system of responsible government requires that the executive branch be held accountable to a legislative branch. He offers his bill as a step in the right direction in terms of honouring the spirit of responsible government. So in these remarks, I will try to identify the main aspects of the bill and what I take to be their justifications. I'm going to focus mostly on his original bill and the proposals in the bill. I acknowledge that he has recommended some changes. I'll try to go somewhat seamlessly back and forth between those things.

Political parties in Canada operate under an understanding of party discipline, which means that members of caucus are generally expected to vote in solidarity on bills and motions. One of Mr. Chong's concerns seems to be that a leader might punish a rogue member of caucus by expelling him or her for failing to support the party's position. His bill offers protection to caucus members by preventing party leaders from removing members from caucus unilaterally.

Instead, the bill states that a member's removal from caucus would happen only if a majority of all members of the caucus voted in favour of the expulsion by secret ballot. Readmission to caucus could come in one of two ways: either the member is re-elected to the House of Commons as a member of the party or a majority of caucus members present at a meeting vote in favour of the readmission. So note the higher threshold in place for expulsion.

The bill also seeks to restrict a leader's power over candidacy nominations. Currently the party leader signs off on candidate nominations, which means that a candidate needs the approval of the leader in order to run on the party's banner. This could give leaders significant power and influence over current members of caucus who need to get the leader's signature of approval on their nomination papers for the next election.

Mr. Chong's original bill proposes the following reform. Have a nomination officer sign off on nominations rather than the leader. There would be one nomination officer per province and one for the three territories chosen by secret ballot of the chief executive officers of the party's electoral district associations. Nomination officers would be chosen for four-year renewal terms but Chong has proposed an amendment so that the party would appoint one person to sign off on all nominations.

Party leaders are somewhat immune from caucus judgment because caucuses do not choose or remove their leaders. They are chosen by parties at large in delegated conventions or country-wide ballots depending on the party's preference and its internal rules.

While leadership reviews currently happen by parties at large at regular intervals depending on the party's constitution, the bill provides for a leadership review process by caucus alone, defined as the “process to endorse or replace the leader of a party”. The bill states that if 20% of caucus members submit a written notice to the caucus chair to call for a leadership review, the chair is to order a secret ballot to review the leader. If the majority of all caucus members vote to remove the leader, a second vote is held to identify an interim leader until the party as a whole can decide on its new leader.

As far as I can tell, the bill doesn't specify the time periods that lapse between those things. For instance, once the petition with the 20% signatures is presented to the caucus chair, when does the caucus chair decide to have a vote after that? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure how much time would lapse between the removal of the leader and replacement with the interim. I assume that would happen immediately but I'm not sure.

A further point of interest in the bill is its definition of caucus. The bill states:

In this Division, “caucus” means a group composed solely of members of the House of Commons who are members of the same recognized party.

Senators are notably absent from the bill's definition of caucus, despite the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada includes senators as active members of its caucus and until earlier this year, the Liberal Party did as well. In this sense, the bill is at odds with what is standard practice for the government caucus.

The bill restricts the application of its definition of caucus to its division C.1. So it's not meant to be a sweeping definition of caucus to be applied universally. That said, it would be a legal definition of caucus and at this point, as far as I'm aware, there is no other legal definition of caucus.

It is important to consider the potential implications of this. Could this set a precedent whereby senators are not considered to be real members of caucus? By excluding senators from caucus, does the bill make a statement intentional or not about the role senators play in responsible government? Specifically, does it suggest senators play a diminished role as compared to members of Parliament?

On the one hand, the exclusion of senators from caucus in the bill is understandable and there are parts of the bill that obviously don't apply to senators. Senators are appointed until age 75 and are not subject to nomination contests; however, senators can and have been removed from caucus. But under this bill, they do not get the protection that MPs would get.

I'll conclude now because I've probably taken more than my five minutes, but I look forward to your questions.

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