We have all read about Parliament being dysfunctional and MPs being nobodies 50 feet from Parliament Hill — to the point that both notions are clichés. But regardless of what you might have read, Parliament has been changing rapidly, with ordinary MPs gaining power for several years.

Even before the current era of successive minority governments, Parliament was getting more and more congressional, with MPs being fed up with strict parliamentary discipline and seeking the independence of their American counterparts.

But after six years of minority Parliament, every MP knows his or her vote can count — particularly on private member’s bills, which, by tradition, are not subject to direction from the party whips.

As a result, private member’s bills, which almost never used to become law, are playing a much larger role on our national scene — a role that should not be overlooked.

There are almost 500 private member’s bills stuck in various stages on the House of Commons order paper, compared with a handful of government bills. With a minority government putting forward so few pieces of legislation, private member’s bills have a better chance of being debated and winning second and third reading.

A case in point is Bill C-501, which would move pensioned employees to the front of the creditors’ queue in the event of a company going bankrupt. Introduced by New Democrat Party MP John Rafferty with little fanfare, C-501 overwhelmingly passed second reading last May, even though the government opposed it. In fact, 12 Conservative MPs voted with the Opposition to pass it.

This bill may be well intentioned. But with pensioned employees ahead of bondholders and other preferred creditors, C-501 would wreak havoc in capital markets.

As former finance minister John Manley has warned, this bill would make raising capital more expensive because bondholders would want a much higher interest rate to cover their increased risk. C-501 could hurt the Canadian economy and, ultimately, the very people Rafferty wants to help.

C-501’s introduction and passage had caught Bay Street napping. There is now a furious lobbying effort to stop it at the Commons industry committee this fall before its third and final third reading.

NEW CENTRES OF INFLUENCE

Another example is Bill C-300, introduced by John Mackay, a Liberal MP who has already ushered two private member’s bills into law. C-300 would impose sanctions on Canadian mining companies if a complaint adjudicator finds anything wrong with an overseas operation in terms of environmental, labour or social standards.

Bill C-300 represents the mining industry’s worst nightmare in terms of compliance management at overseas operations. The government hates this bill. Yet a Tory MP actually voted for it at second reading and helped send it to committee for study.

Unless the Opposition takes a sober second thought with respect to the far-reaching implications of this proposed legislation, C-300 has a very good chance of making it to the Senate.

Again, this bill had caught the mining sector by surprise, probably because the government had already implemented a much milder regulatory regime for mining companies with overseas operations.

Companies that confine their lobbying activities to the ministerial level should probably rethink their government-relations strategies to include ordinary MPs.

Another change on Parliament Hill has been barely noticed but could also have far-reaching implications.

At the Conservatives’ summer caucus meeting in July, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his government is setting up advisory committees of MPs and Senators to advise each minister on policy. They would be chaired by parliamentary secretaries.

Traditionally, parliamentary secretaries have been the Rodney Dangerfields of Parliament. Basically, their job was to read prepared answers during Friday question periods after their ministers had left for the weekend.

If this new system survives, parliamentary secretaries will have as much influence on the Hill as the standing committee chairs and may eventually function like junior ministers. The government says it has created these new committees to give its backbenchers a bigger role.

That is likely true, because government caucus members have been chafing under a centralized, all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office for months. But the government probably also wants to replace at least part of what the existing standing committees do in the House of Commons now.

In a minority Parliament, Opposition MPs often dominate standing committees, depending on seat counts. And this government has been trying its damnedest to marginalize the standing committees — to the point of issuing its MPs with instruction booklets on how to disrupt meetings.

But despite the government’s efforts, committees on the Hill have been getting stronger, mainly because Opposition MPs are determined to push back. As a result, the Opposition has been able to inflict more damage on the government during committee meetings than it has in question period.

When someone finally does win a majority government — and that could be many years away — it will be interesting to see how much power and influence the backbench MPs will be willing to give back. IE