Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, I want to briefly draw your attention to the second report of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament with respect to the role of non-affiliated senators.

You will know there are two kinds of reports that the Rules Committee can table in the Senate. One is like our first report, and that is where we recommend rule changes which have to, of course, be adopted by the full chamber.

This second report is of the other kind, which is simply tabling for your consideration the views of the committee with respect to a subject matter that has been drawn to the committee’s attention, and that is the role of the non-affiliated senators.

I don’t want to take much time going into detail, but I simply want to remind the Senate that the committee dealt with this issue over nine meetings. The committee heard from 13 witnesses. Of those nine meetings eight of them involved 12 witnesses and were held before the study lapsed following the prorogation of the First Session of the Forty-fourth Parliament. The committee resumed its study in the Forty-fifth Parliament, and the results of it are contained in this report.

Rather than make recommendations for rule changes, which the committee viewed as not being required, we did outline a number of best practices. I only want to reference one because I want to encourage that be read and proceeded with by the Chamber Operations and Procedure Office, COPO with the co-operation of the Government Representative’s Office, GRO, and the scroll process. That is, we should:

. . . develop a formalized practice to ensure that all senators, including non-affiliated senators, receive timely, updated, complete, equal and consistent information on statements, debates, votes, bills, motions and chamber agenda changes. The leadership representatives from other recognized groups and parties may be included in the development of this practice.

The committee requests that this formalized practice improve mechanisms for communicating last-minute changes by providing an online version of the daily scroll notes that is updated in real-time . . . .

I bring this to your attention, colleagues, because I think, while this measure is under the rubric of non-affiliated senators, it is a measure that would help us all follow the proceedings as they evolve.

So I commend the report to you. I invite those who are referenced to particularly pay attention, and I encourage them to follow up.