Our Parliament, Its Organization and Work

MR. JOYCE: We are very fortunate in having as our speaker today, a man who is well known as a radio commentator and is a writer of note--Mr. J. B. McGeachy, member of the editorial board of the Globe and Mail, Toronto.

Born in 1899 in Scotland, Mr. McGeachy came to Canada with his parents at the age of 14. He earned a B.A. at the University of Saskatchewan, then an M.A. in Modern History at the University of Toronto and took post-graduate work at Princeton University.

Mr. McGeachy has been in newspaper work since the age of 22. He was editor of the Saskatchewan StarPhoenix from 1923 to 1927 and later correspondent for the Sifton newspapers in Ottawa (1930-31), in Washington (1931-34) and in London (1938-1940). In 1937 and 1938 he covered the Rowell-Sirois Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, travelling Canada from Charlottetown to Vancouver.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939 he joined the B.B.C. in London and was chief overseas commentator from 1940 to 1946, broadcasting daily talks on war and world politics to audiences in Commonwealth countries, the U.S.A., the Middle East, and other places.

Mr. McGeachy returned to Canada at the end of 1946 and joined the Globe and Mail editorial staff.

Most of you will have heard Mr. McGeachy speaking over the C.B.C. on Sunday nights in Weekend Review. He also broadcasts frequently in Now I Ask You, News Roundup, and Citizen's Forum, is a regular broadcaster on C.B.C.'s International Service, and has appeared on a number of T.V. programs.

MR. McGEACHY: I am honoured by your invitation to speak to you here today. After thinking about several possible topics, I decided that some reflections on Parliament, meaning the Canadian Parliament, might be in order. Parliament is in the news. It has just assembled for its 1955 session. This is its first year on the new salary scale-$10,000 a year or an outlay of $3,670,000 for the services of MP's and senators-and I suppose it's just possible that the Canadian public is looking for especially meritorious and energetic performances by both Houses.

But the best immediate reason for talking about Parliament is perhaps that in various ways the House of Commons is giving thought to improvements in its procedure. This strikes me as highly important and significant. I will come to the suggested reforms in a moment. First of all, let us look at Parliament in the setting of contemporary world politics.

All of us here were brought up to regard Parliament with profound respect, with awe and reverence if these emotions happened to be within our scope. Parliament is the palladium of our liberties. It is the grand assize of the nation. It is the true sovereign in our national affairs, as the great Dicey explained in his Law of the Constitution. And once upon a time, if not today, it was regarded as a sign of healthy ambition in a young man, rather than an eccentricity, if he aspired to be an MP.

For one reason or another, I think most of us would say the prestige of Parliament is no longer what it was. How many men of our time in Canada have won national fame as great parliamentary men? How often do we find our pulses quickened and the glories of our blood and state recalled by a rousing parliamentary debate? How true is it nowadays that Parliament is the guardian of our liberties and of the public purse?

Whatever answers you might be disposed to give, I think you would agree with me that the institution of Parliament, and the very word itself, does not stir and enchant us as it once did.

Perhaps this is only because none of us here today is in the first flush of youth; and we must beware of romanticizing the past. Here are two famous statements about the British Parliament, written in past centuries.

The first: "What is the thing called a parliament but a mock, composed of people that are only suffered to sit there because they are known to have no virtue?"

The second: "A Parliament. speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the 27 millions, mostly fools."

The first of these quotations dates from the Cromwellian neriod when politics were highly inflammatory. The second, published in 1950 is from the pen of that old Scottish curmudgeon, Thomas Carlyle.

These voices from the past remind us that speaking ill of parliament is an ancient pastime and that our free institutions have always been open to criticism and even contumely. If we of 1955 are not wholly content with Parliament as we know it, we have precedents.

But it seems to me that, if Parliament is less honored and esteemed than it might be, we have more reason for concern than our forefathers had. Democracy, popular government, the parliamentary system, whatever you choose to call it, today has a formidable competitor, and this competitor has a philosophy, a body of doctrine, more persuasive--to many minds--than the apologies for tyranny that were current in previous centuries.

The believer in totalitarianism, whether Fascist or Communist, argues that government by talk is today quite obsolete because it cannot cope with the complexities of a modern industrial state. Indeed we find writers who are by no means totalitarians, of any stripe or color, indulging in melancholy reflections about the decay of parliament. We find members of our expensively educated youth viewing democratic politics with disdain and indifference. This is a more dangerous symptom than the vigorous denunciations of parliament the Victorians were accustomed to. And it is surely a disturbing fact that the countries where as few as 50 percent of the eligible voters go to the polls are those with a long experience of self-government, like Canada; whereas the countries that can show an electorate 80 or even 90 percent active are those that are just discovering democracy.

This contrast, I think, must shake any complacency we might feel about the perfection and immortality of our institution. In the great struggle for men's minds and allegiance that is now world-wide, the cold war or the ideological war as it is often called, we are apt to assume that our answer to the political needs of humanity is forever and inevitably right; indeed that our ancestors found the perfect formula when they invented parliament centuries ago. Perhaps they did, but nothing can be more certain than that this institution must adapt itself to changing circumstances if it is to survive and flourish. I suggest that this adaptation is a matter of urgent public concern, today and always.

Now if one takes the improvement of Parliament as a general topic, there are clearly two sub-headings under which one must organize one's ideas: personnel, to use modern jargon, and method.

I have not much to say on the first point. If we are to have better men (and women) in parliament, that must depend on the willingness of citizens of exceptional ability to run for office, and the capacity of the voters to recognize such candidates when they appear. For the encouragement of talented aspirants I suggest that boldness in speech and imaginative scope in the realm of ideas might be more effective, both in rousing interest and winning votes, than many politicians now apparently believe. I confess I was a little depressed to read recently, from a high political source, that the right prescription for getting into Parliament is to ring as many door-bells as possible.

It is quite necessary, of course, for a politician to nurse his constituency; but my recollection is that nurses do not do their most effective work by bell-ringing; nor even by the techniques of soothing.

However, it is about parliamentary methods that I wish to speak particularly. I am starting from the assumption, which is at least approximately true, that any Parliament of Canada will consist of patriotic, able and conscientious citizens anxious to do a useful job for the country. The question I am proposing for consideration is: How best can they use their time? How should they organize themselves to do the multifarious jobs that are presented to them every session at Ottawa? And these questions, as I said, are in the news because the House of Commons is thinking about certain reforms in its way of doing business.

To begin with, it seems to me, the House normally devotes far too much time to those general debates in which every topic is in order and speakers may range from the urgent need of new post-offices to the politics of IndoChina. The most conspicuous example is the debate on the speech from the throne which has been known to ramble over a month or longer. In the British House of Commons it lasts just one week or five debating days, by general consent and by arrangement between the party whips.

It is suggested that Canada adopt this Westminster practise, and, at the same time, reduce the permissible length of speeches to thirty minutes. Forty minutes, as you know, is now the time limit, unless the speaker is presenting a budget, replying to a budget as chief financial critic, moving or replying to a confidence motion.

In this matter of verbosity the example of Westminster is again instructive. There is no time limit on speeches there; I mean no time limit fixed by rule. But custom is just as potent. The British House of Commons--I speak from the experience of watching it through many afternoons and evenings--is very choosy and very easily bored. Any MP who detains the mother of parliaments for more than half an hour, except on a privileged occasion like those I mentioned, runs into emphatic expressions of disapproval. Members opposite him, and perhaps behind him as well, rustle papers, yawn, snore, walk out, heckle or otherwise indicate that they have had quite enough.

This salutary system gets results. Opening a recent volume of the British Hansard at random the other day, I lit upon a debate on a Treasury Bill, a major measure embodying important changes in purchase tax and death duties.

The Minister who moved second reading took fifty-one minutes. The chief critic following him took fifty-nine. Then eighteen back benches spoke in exactly two hours and a half. Their average length was fifteen minutes. The briefest took only five, the most long-winded twenty-nine. Brisk debates like this happen regularly at Westminster. They are, so to speak, pre-arranged by the allocation of a definite number of hours to a question and then by the division of available time among MP's who want to speak.

This system can, it is true, be carried to absurdity, as in a neighbouring national capital not so far from here. A member of Congress may rise and say nothing but "I ask leave to revise and extend my remarks" and have a long speech, an undelivered speech, printed in the record of the day's proceedings. Later, offprints of the oration circulate by tens of thousands among the member's constituents.

This American practise has been frequently scoffed at. I wonder if it is any worse that the practise of those Canadian MP's who deliver, to empty benches, long addresses about the natural beauties and the urgent requirements of their home bailiwicks. Performances of this kind are not debate at all. They are what is known as bombinating in a vacuum. Fortunately they are less frequent than they used to be.

To sum up this point, it certainly appears to me that debates on the floor of the House of Commons, especially those which have no explicit subject, could be streamlined with advantage. But I think this end could be achieved much better by voluntary self-denial on the part of members than by a rigid rule. Did you notice that the other day an MP sat down after talking for only twenty minutes, a feat considered sufficiently odd to deserve a special Canadian Press dispatch from Ottawa. Perhaps if Mr. Speaker merely enforced the rule against reading speeches, there would be no need of either self-denial or clockwatching.

But what is the purpose of shortening debates? Certainly not, as I see it, to scamp the work of Parliament and enable members to get home earlier oftener. The point is, surely, that the really important work of the Commons is done in committees. A great extension of the committee system is needed at Ottawa; and it is particularly welcome news that a committee on estimates is to be set up at the present session.

The normal method of considering estimates, when you look at it closely, is inefficient to the point of being almost absurd. The committee of supply, which means the whole House, has been entrusted with the job in the past. That is to say, the details of four billion dollars worth of expenditure are scrutinized, or supposedly so, by 265 men sitting in a vast, ornate and reverberating chamber, an architectural masterpiece no doubt but a place suited for oratory rather than studying accounts. The whole House is further disqualified for the task because it cannot summon and examine such experts as deputy ministers, chiefs of staff, technicians and others.

A historian of the British Parliament, Kenneth Mackenzie, wrote: "The unsuitability of a body of more than 600 members for the scrutiny of the details of national expenditure must have been apparent from the beginning." By "the beginning" Mr. Mackenzie means the middle of the 18th century when parliamentary procedure began to take its present form. We are now in the middle of the twentieth. It took Britain a long time, indeed until 1920, to correct the deficiency noticed in 1750. It has taken Canada even longer.

Still, better late than never; and I think we should be pleased that the most important single parliamentary job, the examination of estimates, is at last to be assigned to a committee of the Canadian House of Commons. But once again I think we have something to learn from Westminster. Under British practise one large estimates committee divides itself at each session into about half a dozen subcommittees, each with a group of related departments as its field of inquiry. Canada, I suggest, should follow this method of having every item in the estimates studied. The current Ottawa proposal, that our committee should confine itself to a few departments not including the largest spenders, does not go far enough.

But there are, we should remember, two houses of parliament at Ottawa. There is the Senate as well as the House of Commons. Many unkind things are said about the Senate. There was a London story about the House of Lords which went like this. One noble lord said to another in Whitehall; "You know, I had the most extraordinary dream the other night. I dreamt I was speaking in the House and when I woke up, by Jove, I was." This anecdote originated in London. It was long ago transferred to Ottawa, with two senators as the dramatis personae.

I don't think it's fair to the elderly gentlemen of our Upper House. There is still a lot of vitality among them, as well as ability and public spirit. But I wish that Mr. St. Laurent would bring their house up to its full strength; and I wish the government would give them more work to do.

The British North America Act, as amended when Newfoundland came into confederation, says that there must be 102 senators; but for a long time there have been only about 80. It cannot be good for the Senate's morale to feel that the government thinks empty chairs just as valuable as chairs with senators in them.

There is sometimes, indeed, a reason for hesitation in filling a Senate vacancy. A long time ago Sir Wilfrid Laurier, with a Quebec senatorial appointment to make, could not decide between the merits of two claimants.

They were so nearly equal in vigor, wisdom and party service that Sir Wilfrid was unable to make up his mind. To solve the problem he named Monsieur Hvppolite Montplaisir, a deserving gentleman of 80, on the assumption that when, in due course, this Nestor among legislators had been gathered to his fathers, the close contest would have settled itself in one way or another.

Many years later, gentleman, M. Montplaisir died at the age of 103. Sir Wilfrid and the two rivals, by this time, had long ago gone to their long rest. A Senate seat is a great aid to longevity.

Mr. St. Laurent perhaps has similar conundrums before him as he surveys the yawning gap in the Senate's ranks, but I am sure that any one of us here could quickly find the answers for him if requested to do so. As for me, I would like to see him establish a new precedent by paying scant attention to political activity or affiliation and nominating men, and women, who have given distinguished service in other fields. I don't want to overdo the idea that Westminster sets a good example: it would take up a long time to produce a replica of the House of Lords even if that were a good idea. But it is no longer true that the House of Lords, in the words of Gilbert, makes no pretense to eminence or scholarship sublime. Its membership includes soldiers. churchmen, jurists, no professional poets (Tennyson, I think, was the last poet in the peerage) but scholars, teachers and scientists. And a debate in the Lords, though it. may be attended by no more than forty or fifty out of about 800 members, can be an intellectual treat.

I suggest that the Canadian Senate should be fortified and enriched by the appointment of such distinguished non-political figures as appear, from time to time, in the British honors list. And I suggest that the improved Senate be then put to work at its constitutional job of revising and initiating legislation, holding inquiries into matters of public concern and illuminating great issues by independent debate. It is absurd, or so it seems to me, that Senators should be obliged to spend a large part of their time in studying the evidence in divorce cases; but that is a separate and a difficult controversy.

To sum up the argument I have tried to present: If parliament is to survive, except as an ornament, the talents of all its members, in both Houses, must be used with maximum efficiency in checking the operations of the executive. I think it important that parliament should survive, if we are to win, or even live through, the cold war.

I am going to wind up with a quotation from Edward R. Murrow, a name well known to you. Mr. Murrow was in London throughout the Second World War, broadcasting his reports and comments to a great audience in the United States. When he left England for home in 1946, he delivered a farewell broadcast to his British friends; and he said this:

"I doubt that the most important thing was Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain, El Alamein or Stalingrad. Not even the landings in Normandy or the great blows struck by British and American bombers. Historians may decide that any one of these events was decisive, but I am persuaded that the most important thing that happened in Britain was that this nation chose to win or lose under the established rules of parliamentary procedure. It feared EMPIRE CLUB YEAR BOOK Galley 41 Nazism but did not choose to imitate it. The government was given dictatorial power but this was used with moderation; and the House of Commons was ever vigilant. Do you remember that while London was being bombed in the daylight, the House devoted two days to discussing the conditions under which enemy aliens were detained on the Isle of Man? Though Britain might fall, there were to be no concentration camps here."

So spoke Mr. Murrow, a friend of Britain and the Commonwealth. Let us remember that liberty, the opposite of concentration camps, is our creed and that parliament, when it rises to its full height and glory, is indeed the custodian of our freedoms.

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Mr. John W. Griffin, a Past President of the Club.