Bill No. 107 - House of Assembly Act. - Second Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, the member for Clare-Digby asks: What more could the government do to help with transparency? That is a timely question. If he would like us to table a list, I could do that. It will take me so long to prepare that list that it might be a few days.

In the meantime, to this bill, I want to say that - first, I would like to correct the record on a few things that were just said. Number one, I want to note that our caucus also brought forward a bill that amended the Accessibility Act calling specifically for the Law Amendments Committee to be more accessible, and to be more accessible for all bills, not just those related to disability issues.

I have to say that unless some change happened with no announcement and no communication, my understanding is that the Department of Justice is paying to televise the Law Amendments Committee meetings where Justice bills are being considered. I commend them for that leadership, and I think it's very connected to the Accessibility Directorate and the work of Gerry Post. I have not been informed, including in a response to my letter directly to you, Mr. Speaker, that there has been any further expansion of televising. If I'm wrong on that, I will applaud and be happy to hear about it, but that is my current understanding.

When greater accessibility was provided in the Law Amendments Committee process around the Accessibility Act, and there was advocacy when that Act was coming through to ensure that all parties impacted by that Act could at least witness the proceedings of that committee, it dramatically improved the government's final bill. They had tons and tons of people come forward and speak about how that bill was going to impact them. Something that I have never seen happened, which is that the government sent the bill back to the department. Then something else actually happened which is amazing, and we ended up with an Accessibility Directorate, which ironically, is now paying to televise some of the Law Amendments Committee meetings. You see, it is imperative that these committees be as transparent as possible.

Since then, we have made several motions at the Law Amendments Committee calling for proceedings to be broadcast. As I mentioned, in our bill that we have brought forward, we would go further. While televising is good, I think the goal is accessibility. To that end, we would add CART services to make sure that these proceedings are, in fact, accessible to all Nova Scotians.

As New Democratic Party House Leader, I wrote to you, Mr. Speaker, to advocate for this greater transparency and accessibility in our committee work. On February 12th, I contacted you, Mr. Speaker, in particular around the curtailing of the Public Accounts Committee meetings, specifically mentioning the excuse put forward - or I should say "rationale," to be kind - by the member for Clare-Digby for the changes to that Public Accounts Committee, and that rationale, Mr. Speaker, was cost, which I think we heard again today in this Chamber.

I will quote the member for Clare-Digby from my letter, but it can be found in the proceedings of that committee that day: "As the Speaker has mentioned to us, there are consequences of televising, those are financial and we aim to find a balance and be cognizant of that. Again we are the first to have a Health Committee and we have also agreed to televise that," I think we heard echoes of this today, "which I think is an excellent thing to do but we need to understand that that creates pressures, and we need to find a balance."

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I don't think that the televising of committees of this House would imperil the government's balanced budget. I don't think that the televising or greater accessibility of the proceedings of this House would be a political issue. In fact, quite the opposite. Given the concerns that we have about low voter turnout, which the member for Dartmouth East referenced, we need to be doing as much as we can to engage people with our political work and this is one way of doing that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the member for Clare-Digby contends that the sole purpose of the committee is so that as members of this House, we can acquaint ourselves with the facts that are brought forward in those committees and that that can lead to better legislating. Well, with respect, on this side of the House we're not given any opportunity to have any impact on legislation at all, or very little at least, as long as I've been here, but further, that's not the entire truth. In particular, the Law Amendments Committee exists in order to be accessible, it exists in order to allow people to come forward and to give us a different lens of experience about the bills we are discussing.

Mr. Speaker, you may be familiar with the commonly used slogan in the disability community and in other communities: Nothing about us without us. As legislators, at this moment in history, that is so important, that the bills that we consider as a Chamber of mostly homogenous people with a mostly similar set of circumstances, that we take every opportunity to hear the voices of Nova Scotians who can tell us about how the bills that we are considering are going to impact their lives.

Back to Law Amendments Committee, Mr. Speaker, Law Amendments Committee is special. Given what we've seen with the Public Accounts Committee, which the member for Clare-Digby says that he has improved, and I agree with him, time will tell if that's the case, but I strongly disagree with the premise. The denial of access to this committee, to Law Amendments Committee, that we saw around changes to the Education Act, that we saw around changes to the Film Tax Credit. You know, I want to say on the record that televising and accessibility may be the least of our worries. Law Amendments Committee is one of the last spaces that has not been, how do I say it in a parliamentary way, messed with by this majority Liberal Government that likes to steamroll through their legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the other point I want to make around committees and around televising committees is that right now, we say that those committees are open for everyone to attend, but they happen in Halifax, they happen during the day, and they often happen with very little notice, particularly Law Amendments Committee. The reality is that even Nova Scotians who don't have mobility issues or other disability issues, just may not be able to get here. If you live a considerable drive from where we are now where we find ourselves in Province House, the constituencies that most of the members of this Chamber represent, that's a big thing. You'd have to take a day off work, you have to have access to a vehicle, you have to get yourself here.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, again I'll disagree with the member for Clare-Digby, I believe that those committees exist so all Nova Scotians can better understand our legislation as it moves through the process of becoming law. The more that that's the case, the better opportunity that we will have to pass good legislation and as much as I might have differences with many members of this House, I believe that we are all here to pass good legislation. We have our own pre-existing ideas of what that good legislation looks like, but I also would give every member the benefit of the doubt that upon hearing directly from parties who will be impacted by that legislation, that those views could change. Those views could shift, Mr. Speaker.

I think that not to allow people to come and listen and acquaint themselves and, in some cases, present and speak and to be able to give that opportunity to all Nova Scotians is a real loss.

Mr. Speaker, I won't belabour the point. I won't talk until I have one second left. I will close by saying that I think the time has long since come when the work of this House should be accessible to the people of Nova Scotia; this is the people's House. The work we do here, the work that we do in committee we do on behalf of all Nova Scotians. We do it on behalf of our constituents and every single one of our constituents should have the opportunity to and should be encouraged to follow and participate in those proceedings.

With reservations we support the bill put forward our colleague, but we think it doesn't go quite far enough. We believe that we need to have completely accessible committee meetings throughout this House.