New House of Commons Estimates Committee could be 'biggest committee in town': Minister Don Boudria Meeting six hours a week, new committee could operate as 'second Chamber,' says Boudria By Bill Curry The Hill Times The new House Committe on Government Operations and the Estimates could end up acting like a "second Chamber," says Government House Leader Don Boudria and the committee's first chair agrees.

"It could almost be the committee of committees. That would be the biggest committee in town," said Mr. Boudria in an interview with The Hill Times. "If all the estimates are reviewed by the same committee, if a lot of time is spent in there and if they do careful scrutiny of every single department, or just about, it would really take on quite a life of its own."

The Government House Leader described the committee as a "second Chamber" last week during the question and answer portion of a speech at the National Press Club. Mr. Boudria promised that Parliament will become more engaged in government policy this fall, thanks in part to the new committee. He predicted the new committee will allow for more detailed debate of issues that don't always make it to the floor of the House of Commons.

The Parliaments in Westminster and Australia have both experimented recently with a second Chamber that allows MPs to debate issues in detail that might not otherwise be raised in the main House. Mr. Boudria was impressed when he visited the one in Britain, and said it looks more like a committee room than the House of Commons. He said he will let the committee be creative and experiment with different ways of doing things.

Liberal MP Reg Alcock, who pushed behind the scenes for the new committee to be created and is now the chair, agreed with Mr. Boudria's assessment, promising that it will function unlike any other committee.

The work of the committee will follow the cycle of the estimates, he said, meaning it will study departmental performance reports in the fall and the estimates, or blue books, in the spring. Roughly half of the committee's agenda will be directed by the opposition and he would like to see a seating arrangement that breaks away from the adversarial pattern commonly used in other committees.

Instead of plugging away for months on large reports that no one reads, said Mr. Alcock, he would like the committee to produce frequent, short reports, perhaps even summarizing every meeting.

Also, to help build a collegial atmosphere, Mr. Alcock is hoping that the first meeting or meetings in the fall will be field trips or at least take place off the Hill. When MPs are on trips, he said, they tend to get along much better across party lines.

The committee will also study and hear from officers of Parliament, such as the Privacy Commissioner and the Access to Information Commissioner, as well as the new reports to Parliament from the Ethics Councillor.

Mr. Alcock is also impressed with the calibre of MPs on the new committee.

"We've got real expertise," he said. "We've got Roy Cullen, who's a former PS [Parliamentary Secretary] to Finance; Tony Valeri, who's the vice-chair, is a former PS to Finance; Alex Shepherd, PS to Treasury Board. We've got guys with lots of management experience, so I think we've got an opportunity to really look at the structure of the organization."

Mr. Alcock said the committee will need to meet at least six hours a week because it has been given such a large mandate. But the large mandate could threaten the effectiveness of the committee, says one Parliamentary expert, who has recently released a study on the relationship between committees and the public service.

"The reason I'm concerned is that if this committee gets the same amount of time as other standing committees, that is to say, two one-and-a-half hour meetings a week, then the mandate cannot be covered, even during the remaining mandate of this Parliament," said Peter Dobell, founding director of the Parliamentary Centre. "If Mr. Boudria is right and it would become a kind of second chamber, it would mean they could meet on a much more frequent basis. Then indeed it certainly has a mandate to address many of the problems that the institution faces."

A look ahead Government House Leader Don Boudria returned to his tradition of holding a "newsmaker breakfast" at the National Press Club to wrap up a Parliamentary session.

The speech listed some of the new bills that will be introduced in Parliament this fall. The list includes new legislation from Treasury Board minister Lucienne Robillard that will deal with public service reform; a bill from new Finance Minister John Manley dealing with First Nations sales tax; a bill from Heritage Minister Sheila Copps that will designate certain areas as "historic places;" Transport Minister David Collenette will be introducing a couple of bills, one dealing with the designation of airports and another dealing with Via Rail; Justice Minister Martin Cauchon will be introducing new legislation dealing with criminal law reform as well. A story that appeared in the National Post last month listed 22 bills that appeared on a memo from Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Richard Fadden that would be introduced by late fall. The list included four bills from Justice: a Mobile Equipment Convention Bill, a Family Law Bill, a Canada Evidence Act Bill and a Canada/France Convention Bill.

In addition, Mr. Boudria also promised that Parliamentary reform will be back on the agenda this fall. There will be new changes to Private Members Business, as outlined in the recent report from the Procedure and House Affairs Committee; another round of modernizing Parliamentary rules, changes to the Elections Act for MP and party fundraising and work on an MPs' Code of Conduct.