Amendment to Resolution 5 - Law Amendments

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I'm going to move one more amendment. Before I do, I just want to address what it is we're doing here. What we're doing here, despite opinions to the contrary that have been voiced, is trying to collaborate. This is actually the only tool we've been given to do that. We weren't given notice of this resolution; we weren't asked for our opinion on the resolution; and all things being equal, we would just love to vote against the resolution, because we think it's bad for all of the reasons that we've talked about. We're not going to do that, because we don't have the votes. The resolution is very likely to pass.

The only avenue available to us is to put forward thoughtful amendments that we think address issues that we see and to compromise. In this case, I'm going to put forward an amendment about what we think is the other most ill-considered part of this resolution, which is doing away with the Law Amendments Committee. I understand the committee will exist under a different name, but amendments will not be allowed to move in that committee.

I will tell the members who haven't been around for a long time that when I was first elected, I really learned the rules of this House through putting forward amendments. Those felt like contentious times then, but I actually look back on them with some kind of sepia-toned recollection.

At the time, there were a lot of bills going forward that we thought were really problematic, particularly around education. Again, we knew the bill would pass, so our only option when the bill came forward - abolishing school boards, fundamentally changing the organizing rights of teachers, doing a whole bunch of other things that we disagreed with, and so did the then-Opposition, the PCs - we got to work. I think we probably put forward 100 amendments on that bill and we wanted to see every single one of them passed. It was not a filibuster - it was a compromise.

I will tell you that as I stood up time and time again, feeling like I was going to throw up because I was not used to standing up in this House, I found the government of the day very intimidating. They did lots of thumping and cheering and all the things that majority governments like to do. As a new member I had a different take on that.

I kept on going. The craziest thing happened, which was that as I got up over and over again to move amendments, these green notes started landing on my desk. The Pages started coming in every 10 minutes and putting a green note on my desk. I didn't really have time to look at them because I was talking. It was teachers from across the province who were watching the debate, who had been marching outside Province House, trying to make their voice heard, who felt they hadn't been consulted on the bill, just saying thank you.

That wasn't for me, it was for our staff, it was for our caucus. The PCs of the day did some heavy lifting there too. It was an instructive moment.

The other thing that happened is that some of those amendments passed - not all of them, but a couple of amendments, where the government of the day looked at them and said, This doesn't take us off our core objective of this legislation and it's a compromise we can make.

I think that fundamentally that's what the Law Amendments Committee is. It's a place for a government to test its legislation again public perception, against expert opinion. With a majority government, they can decide what the outcome of that test is, and they have. In the example I gave of that very contentious education legislation, the teachers marched, people slept overnight, Law Amendments Committee ran and ran, and the legislation still passed. Governments can do that, but not without people's voices being heard and not without people being able to bring their best ideas forward about what should happen.

I think it's so important. We often talk about how we are unique in the country because we're the only jurisdiction with a Law Amendments Committee. At the risk of getting into trouble, I'll say that Law Amendments Committee isn't actually that great, it's just all we've got.

I think I've said this before, but just as a brief reminder - and I won't be long in my comments - in other jurisdictions, as I think the member for Cumberland North mentioned earlier, legislation will be provided to the other parties, to experts, to the public sometimes, in advance of their introduction. That's one way to do it. That doesn't really happen here. Or they go to a number of subject committees. If our committees were formulated differently, an energy bill would go to the Natural Resources and Economic Development Committee, and at that point, we could call experts who could talk about that bill and offer feedback, and maybe even the public could do it.

Law Amendments Committee is the only committee of its kind, but there are lots of other legislative bodies that have other ways of getting feedback from the public and experts, but this is the only way we have, so it's really crucial. This could be compensated for in other ways, but unless we give not just the public but often at Law Amendments Committee, we hear from experts. Some of those experts, I know, are currently in the special interest box, but that box has shifting parameters. Sometimes they're in, sometimes they're out.

Nonetheless, we hear from experts. We hear from regulatory bodies. We hear from environmental NGOs. We hear from law associations. We hear from municipalities. Those are the folks who have the capacity to bring amendments to consider. In almost every case, when they do that, they have not been asked ahead of time if they have suggestions for the legislation. I bet if they were, they'd offer those amendments at the front end and they wouldn't have to come there.

Law Amendments Committee is not the only path. I don't even think it's the best path, but it's the only one we have right now. As Opposition parties - now we've got nine. Before, we had six.

For the new government members, our staff is not like your staff. We have limited resources, we have limited capacity, and we have limited time. We're going to have less time after this passes. To understand where the public is on a piece of legislation, where the community impact is on a piece of legislation, we rely on Law Amendments Committee. That's how we know. We hear from them. Often people will call around and say, Please come to Law Amendments Committee and make your opinion heard. Half the time, we don't know what that opinion is, but we want to hear it because that's the best way to gather it.

I did ask the Legislative Library to tell me how many bills since 2000 had been amended at Law Amendments Committee: 295 bills have been amended at Law Amendments Committee - interestingly, very few of those under this government. There might be lots of reasons why, but I guess I'm saying I have some sympathy for this government saying, Well, it's not really a thing, bills don't really get amended there. But they did in pretty large volumes, and now there is no opportunity for those amendments to come forward other than in the Committee of the Whole House on Bills. The Committee of the Whole House on Bills is a really important committee. Please don't do away with that one. We'd like to keep it.

Again, we are all here - as we've heard from the government members, as we've heard from Opposition members - we are here to represent our constituents. We're here to do what's best for them. I really believe that's why we're all here. To the extent that ministers have Cabinet portfolios or those of us on this side might have shadow cabinet portfolios, we also want to do our best by those areas and sectors and people impacted, so we need to know what they're thinking. I often say my job is to amplify the hard work and brilliance of advocates in so many fields.

So much of what I stand on in this House and argue for and advocate for doesn't come from me. It doesn't even come from our caucus. It comes from people doing the work who don't have the microphone, who don't have the opportunity to bring those opinions, those ideas, those solutions into this House. Law Amendments Committee is the place where they can bring those solutions. Law Amendments Committee is the only place in our legislative structure, so I just really would love - you know what? If you have to ring the bells and take a recess, no problem. We won't hold it against you.

There are lots of things I'd love to address that came up from the government. I get it. I'm sure it sounds like we're being preachy, but every word we've said in here has been on the substance of this resolution and has stayed on the substance of this resolution and why we think it's important. On this in particular, we're open for another way forward. We're open for another opportunity for the public and for experts to see and understand the legislation that comes before this House, but we don't have it right now.

With this amendment, we are asking the government to just pause on this. It's not going to make that big a difference. The committee still exists. The change that is being proposed is that people can't bring amendments. This government doesn't have a track record of accepting those amendments anyway, for better or for worse. It's five minutes of time in a committee that meets a handful of times a year. It's meaningful to the people who come forward, do the work, and bring those amendments. I don't think it costs the government anything to leave this as it is, to show a spirit of compromise and collaboration, and to let the public have their say and offer their expertise, whether that's lived experience, legal experience, or organizational experience, on the legislation that moves through this House.

With that, I'd like to move an amendment to Resolution No. 5, which can be found on change sheet NDP-2. Have those sheets been distributed? Can I ask the Pages to distribute those?

While the Pages are distributing them, I'll read it. Essentially what it does is change Public Bills back to Law Amendments Committee: