Michael Chong

Tackling Question Period

For any Canadian who feels disconnected from the political process in Ottawa, it is refreshing to listen to Michael Chong. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Ontario riding of Wellington-Halton Hills. Stepping outside the bubble of life on Parliament Hill, he recognizes that the legitimacy of the federal government is dwindling. Debate in the House of Commons is increasingly marked by sharp partisanship. Citizens are abstaining from voting in record numbers. Surely this situation demands a re-evaluation of our core democratic institutions.

Chong suggests getting back to basics. Acknowledging that Question Period is the primary window that Canadians have to look through to see their government in action, he has put forward a motion to reform the daily session, noting that the most frequent complaint that he hears from Canadians is that the atmosphere in the House of Commons is dysfunctional. This complaint includes two essential points: first, the disruptive behaviour of Members of Parliament during Question Period is uninspiring and tiresome; second, the content of the discussion between parliamentarians is trivial and unproductive.

Prior to his life in politics, Michael Chong co-founded the Dominion Institute, an organization dedicated to enhancing knowledge of Canadian history and civics among the citizenry. The University of Toronto graduate also worked as Chief Information Officer for the National Hockey League Players’ Association, and as a senior technology consultant to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

Chong was first elected to parliament in 2004. The young politician made waves in fall 2006 by resigning his cabinet post on a matter of principle. This makes him a rare bird in the political environment! At that time he refused to support the resolution that recognized Quebecers as a ‘nation united within Canada’, stating firmly that he believed Canada to be one nation, undivided. That impassioned stand endeared him to many Canadians. Now that he is taking on the challenge of improving Question Period, the attention being paid to Chong is growing.

On the afternoon of May 27, 2010 Michael Chong put forward for initial debate his motion regarding the reform of Question Period. Earlier in the day he sat down with Canadian Interviews in his Parliament Hill office to talk about the significance of what he is attempting to do, emphasizing the growing gap between a disengaged public and an unresponsive parliament. “What I’m proposing here is a small step toward closing that gap,” he explains. “I’m not suggesting that this is going to fix everything and restore people’s complete and unwavering trust in their institutions and in their elected officials. But I do think it is a first and important step.”

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Private Members Motion M-517, with regard to the reform of Question Period.

M-517 — Mr. Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills) — That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to recommend changes to the Standing Orders and other conventions governing Oral Questions, and to consider, among other things, (i) elevating decorum and fortifying the use of discipline by the Speaker, to strengthen the dignity and authority of the House, (ii) lengthening the amount of time given for each question and each answer, (iii) examining the convention that the Minister questioned need not respond, (iv) allocating half the questions each day for Members, whose names and order of recognition would be randomly selected, (v) dedicating Wednesday exclusively for questions to the Prime Minister, (vi) dedicating Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for questions to Ministers other than the Prime Minister in a way that would require Ministers be present two of the four days to answer questions concerning their portfolio, based on a published schedule that would rotate and that would ensure an equitable distribution of Ministers across the four days; and that the Committee report its findings to the House, with proposed changes to the Standing Orders and other conventions, within six months of the adoption of this order.

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After another reading and a second hour of debate, the Motion for Parliamentary Reform will go for a vote, likely in fall 2010. If it is sufficiently supported, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will take over and consider the suggestions made by Chong. Eventually the Committee will make a report to the House of Commons.

In the following interview, the Honourable Michael Chong discusses his ideas in detail. He notes the important role to be played by the Speaker of the House in any transformation of daily politics in Ottawa, remarking that the current Speaker, Liberal Peter Milliken from the riding of Kingston and the Islands, feels that he does not have the solid support of the House to enforce even the existing rules. Chong also reveals that he has discussed his motion to reform Question Period with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It is interesting to learn the outcome of that exchange.

CI: In a recent article by Jane Taber in the Globe and Mail, she quoted you as saying that, over the past half dozen years or so, the issue of the dysfunction of Question Period has been ‘the number one complaint’ that you have heard from everyone from fifth graders to truckers to boardroom executives. What is the precise nature of that complaint?

MC: The precise nature is twofold. First, people are appalled at the behaviour in Question Period. Second, Canadians in general feel that Question Period is in its own parallel universe, that it’s not focussed on the issues that really matter to Canadians, that it is often about cheap political point-scoring rather than more substantive issues that they really care about. So those are the two things that I have heard consistently.

The behaviour is not readily apparent to viewers on television because it’s filtered. They actually clean the audio tracks. The video is focussed in a way that ensures that ninety percent of what is going on is not shown. For those people who actually come to watch Question Period, they don’t have the filtered audio because they are there watching it from the galleries. They also get the entire view of the House. Coming out of that experience, universally people are appalled at what is going on.

So that is on the behaviour side. On the substance side, Canadians just in general say – the things I’ve heard over the last half dozen years consistently – ‘why can’t you just focus on issues that we care about? Why can’t you work constructively, yet adversarially? Why can’t you respectfully disagree and leave it at that?’ These are the kinds of things that I hear.

CI: Do you have the sense at all when you get these complaints that maybe there is a flip side to the coin, where people are trying to absolve themselves of their responsibility to pay attention just by saying ‘oh, Question Period is reckless and we don’t want to pay attention to it’, but really that is just a way to keep themselves out of the political process?

MC: I think it’s a two-way street. Citizens have an obligation to engage in the political process, to be involved and to vote – at minimum to vote! If they want to be more active citizens, they can get involved with politics or a political party. But I also think it’s incumbent on elected officials to conduct themselves in a way that is inspiring, that shows leadership, that gets people interested in their democratic institutions. So I think it’s a two-way street, but I think a lot of the responsibility has to rest with elected officials in parliament and the way in which they conduct themselves during the critical part of the day, which is Question Period.

The other thing that I would say is that other democracies don’t work this way! Question Period in other parliaments and other processes in legislatures around the world don’t work this way. Why should ours? There is no reason why ours can’t be improved.

CI: There are six points put forward in the motion. I want to focus on the first one. It asks the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to consider ‘elevating decorum and fortifying the use of discipline by the Speaker, to strengthen the dignity and authority of the House’. What exactly would be involved in that process of fortifying the use of discipline by the Speaker?

MC: I’m asking the Committee to provide direction to the Speaker. If the House concurs in the report of the Committee, and that report asks the Speaker to strengthen his use of discipline to enforce the existing rules, the Speaker will follow the House’s wish.

A lot of the issue here isn’t that the rules aren’t in place for the proper level of behaviour. A lot of the issue here is that the Speaker doesn’t feel that he has the mandate, the support from the House, to enforce those rules, to the degree to which I think they should be enforced.

CI: Is this a criticism to some extent of the way that Mr. Milliken has gone about his job, or is this a more fundamental thing?

MC: No, what he has told me is that he feels that he doesn’t have the support of the House. There are individual members, he feels, that want him to be stronger about enforcing the rules, but he feels that the vast majority of members of the House don’t feel that way and don’t want to give him that direction. I think this motion is going to focus everyone’s attention on it. More importantly I think the fact that Canadians overwhelmingly support this kind of initiative means that members are going to rethink their positions on the use of discipline.

CI: There is an article that you wrote in the Canadian Parliamentary Review a couple of years ago, and you mentioned specifically in that piece that the lack of decorum in the House, the confrontational nature of it, keeps some women out of politics because they do not want to participate in the testosterone-charged atmosphere of Question Period. Have you had female Members of Parliament talk to you about this specifically?

MC: Yeah, they have. I think it’s not just women. It’s also people whose first language is neither French nor English. We have a lot of immigrants, new Canadians in this country, many of who now are in increasing numbers sitting in our parliament. Many of them don’t have French or English as their first language. It’s a pretty intimidating atmosphere to sit in the House and to literally not be able to hear the person beside you speak, and to not even be able to hear your earpiece when it’s on full volume! I’ll give you another example. I was speaking to one of the interpreters. The noise is such that they often cannot even hear, in the booths, the floor feed, and what the person is saying.

CI: As a Member of Parliament, just to bring this to a very human level, when you are sitting there and this is going on – maybe it’s a particularly raucous day in Question Period – what are you feeling at that time? Are you annoyed? Are you frustrated? Are you just melancholy?

MC: I am often trying to focus on the questions at hand. There are good questions that are asked. There are good answers that are given. I’m trying to focus on the issues at hand, but often it’s difficult to hear what’s going on. You just have to try and follow along as best you can.

CI: I thought it was interesting to read the commentary on this issue by Preston Manning recently in the Globe and Mail. He recounts how, when the Reform Party came into the House in 1993, they made some effort to encourage more reasonable debate. I thought it was noteworthy when he said that the other parties carried on in the typical theatrical fashion, and he wrote further that ‘… the English media were especially harsh in charging us with naiveté, stupidity and ineffectiveness’. Have you had any journalists, or even other Members of Parliament, tell you that this is a naïve thing to try to do?

MC: Yeah, there is a great degree of cynicism out there that this can be changed, that anything can be done. I don’t share that cynicism. I believe that people can change things and that we can reform our institutions. More importantly I think Canadians are demanding that we reform our institutions and fix parliament.

The average Canadian, the average person on the street, may not know the exact rule, process or procedure that needs to be changed in our parliament, but they do know that something is wrong. The proof is that, in the last election, more than four out of every ten voters refused to vote! That undermines the legitimacy and the authority of Parliament. I think we need to restore and regain Canadians’ trust in their institutions.

What I see is that there is a growing gap between a public that is increasingly turning away from politics, as witnessed in low voter turnout, record low voter turnout, and a parliament that is becoming increasingly partisan. There is no doubt that parliaments of recent years are way more partisan than they ever have been. That is a growing gap between Canadians and their democratic institutions. What I’m proposing here is a small step toward closing that gap. I’m not suggesting that this is going to fix everything and restore the complete and unwavering trust of people in their institutions and in their elected officials. But I do think it is a first and important step.

CI: I find it fascinating how often mention is made of television with respect to this issue. The concern that is most often expressed is that the presence of television cameras perhaps encourages the more theatrical elements in Question Period. The reason that I find it fascinating is because there is a new medium. It struck me that there might be some way of using the Internet to cover Question Period in a new way. What I envision is a website set up to post, on a daily basis, full statements and responses and maybe even allow comments by viewers. It would be great in the schools, I think.

MC: That’s interesting.

CI: I thought that might strip the nightly newscasts of some of their power to distill what happened in Question Period down to a seven second sound byte if people could go and find everything on a daily basis as it unfolds. Has there been any conversation around that, any consideration given to how the internet might be used to help reform Question Period?

MC: I haven’t heard any discussion about how the internet could be used. I know that the proceedings of Question Period are available, streamed live on the internet through CPAC’s website, but I have not heard of some of the suggestions that you just talked about, which I think are great ideas – to start debates and blogs and comments on the issues of the day. I think that would better focus Members of Parliament on the issues of the day if they are actually asking and answering questions about things that Canadians care about. You could get a full debate on those blogs on the internet. So I think it’s a great idea.

The other thing that I would say is that television has often been blamed for the lack of substance and decorum in the House. While it’s a contributing factor, it’s not the main problem. The proof is that many other legislatures around the world are televised, and their proceedings don’t carry on the way ours do. So if television was the root of all the evil in the House, then you would see a similar dysfunctionality in other parliaments and in other legislatures around the world – and you don’t. In some cases you do, but more often than not you don’t. I don’t think television is the problem. I think it’s a contributing factor. I don’t support taking television out. It provides transparency and accessibility to Canadians.

The third thing that I would say, as far as the six second sound byte or the sound byte for the evening news: elected members are masters of the sound byte. They have presently, and they will have even if my motion is adopted, ample opportunity to provide those sound bytes in the foyer during scrums after Question Period. Often they do. That opportunity is still there.

CI: Getting back to the motion specifically, perhaps you could just explain the benefits of dedicating Wednesday exclusively for questions to the Prime Minister.

MC: Well, there are two reasons for proposing this. The first is that the current system uses an inordinate amount of government resources very ineffectively. Most Canadians would be astounded to find out that the average cabinet minister – and there are about forty ministers in the cabinet – the average cabinet minister spends about four hours a day either preparing for Question Period or in Question Period. Preparation for Question Period starts around noon. From noon to one o’clock you get briefed by your department. From one to two o’clock you get briefed with your cabinet colleagues. From two to three, you’re in Question Period. Then there is an hour afterwards of follow-up and fact checking and getting back to your office as a minister. So from start to finish, it’s about four hours.

What is astounding about that is that, in a typical Question Period, only about five or six, sometimes as many as eight or nine, out of the ministry of forty ministers, will actually get asked a question. The other thirty ministers who have prepared for Question Period, and spent four hours of their day consumed with this forty-five minute period, really have used all this time and effort for naught.

I think by allowing the Prime Minister once a week you allow him to attend to the affairs of the state on the other days, and allow him to better use his time. You don’t in any way diminish the Opposition’s ability to ask him questions because the second reason for it is that it would better focus the Opposition on a major theme, or major themes, for that one day a week. The Prime Minister currently answers about forty-five minutes of questions across four days of the week, whereas in my proposal it would be forty-five minutes in one day. It’s no less time for the Opposition to hold the Prime Minister and his government to account. For those who would say that because it’s not daily it’s not as timely, it’s not as accountable, I don’t agree. I would put to you that, in the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister has Question Period once a week and the U.K. government is no less accountable and no less timely than our government. In fact, I would argue the opposite. I would argue that the media attention on the Westminster Parliament in London is a lot more intense than here, and that their government is just as accountable.

CI: Now by concentrating all the questions for the Prime Minister on one day, it would make it a fairly strenuous day. Have you heard from the man himself? What does he think?

MC: He thinks some of these are interesting ideas. He’s aware of the system in the U.K. I think that he is of the general view that it works better than the system we have here. So I think he’s open to these changes. Obviously it affects his schedule. He is interested and I made sure that I showed him the motion before I submitted it to journals!

CI: Last question for you, one that I usually try to throw in at the end when I speak to politicians: outside of the business, what do you find yourself reading these days for pleasure?

MC: What do I find myself reading? Well, I haven’t had a chance to read a lot recently. I read a very dark book about a year ago that I quite enjoyed called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. That was an interesting book.

I am actually rereading right now a book that has long been a favourite of mine called Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, who was an American environmentalist ahead of his time who wrote about the twelve months and the change of the seasons on his farm in northern Wisconsin. That is what I’m currently plugging away at, but most of my reading is pretty boring briefing documents and reports from committees. One of the things I miss in this job is the luxury of being able to sit down with a good book and read.

Date of Interview: 05/27/2010
Location: Confederation Building, Parliament Hill, Ottawa
Link: www.michaelchong.ca