Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
On the chamber reform, there are a number of open comments. There were dozens, and I'm not going to go through every single one, but there were quite a few comments that talked about heckling and even applause. The idea was that we could actually make Parliament more friendly, more amicable, if there were less heckling. This particularly came from a number of women's caucus members. I think the reason for that, of course, is that we want to attract more people to Parliament, and seeing that kind of behaviour is not something that entices a lot of women or a lot of other individuals to run for office or to become members of Parliament.
Certainly, we've all had the case where we've had school groups who are looking at the behaviour in the House, and this is something their own teachers don't want their students to be learning. At one point Samara was doing a Twitter chat, and there was a 13-year-old girl in the lobby—the daughter of one our members—and I asked her what she thought about it. She said, “Well, if I tried to do this in my school, my teacher would dock me marks.” So I think this is just in terms of the lessons we're showing to the young people who might aspire to politics. Actually, there were quite a few comments about the decorum, the heckling, the game-playing, and the posturing.
But the one that surprised me a little bit was the applause. There were quite a few people who said we could save a lot of time if we didn't do standing ovations every time somebody spoke, with whom we agreed, and particularly in question period, where we regularly see that we're going over time. That's something that I actually see as a positive thing, but if it's something that's taking away from our work, that was certainly something that was brought up.
Video conferencing technology was brought up both in the discussions we've had in caucus and also in the comments. I think there was a lot of support for the idea that, you know, we're all sitting around the table right here. If one of us had something, an emergency with our family or something very important in our constituency.... I know a number of my colleagues who are women had to fly back to their ridings to do International Women's Day events on Tuesday and then fly back. In fact, one colleague said her flight was at something like six o'clock right after the House adjourned. Then she flew home, did a 7 a.m. event, then did another one at 9 a.m., and then went straight to the airport to fly back in time for question period. People do have to be away. With the committees, there's no reason why we wouldn't be able to have video conferencing. We allow the witnesses to video conference, but we're not allowing our own committee members to video conference.
That was something about using technology more, the recognition that this institution is still working exactly the same way it did 150 years ago. That was a time when, if you wanted to come and have a talk with one of our colleagues, you actually had to get on a train and come to Ottawa and then spend the time here. Today, we can have a teleconference in which all of us could be in completely different parts of the country.
There was a strong sense that we need to modernize Parliament. Most businesses, certainly when I was working internationally.... At the United Nations, I had staff on five continents and we were able to function predominantly through Skype, and we were functioning as a coherent group and knew each other as if we were sitting side by side. That was probably the largest one, and I do know that there was a draft report of an all-party women's caucus that talked a lot about the use of technology. So that would be something I think we could delve into.
Then, there were a number of suggestions about improving technology on the Hill, including the idea of electronic voting. But notably, 63% of our caucus members believe that you have to be here in person to vote. Then there was another 30% or so who said you can use technology. If you're on the Hill somewhere, you can vote, but you have to be somewhere in the Parliamentary precinct. So for instance, if a young mother is with her child but she's at least here in Ottawa in the Parliamentary precinct, there might be a mechanism of voting that way.
Then of course, the votes after question period was another one that came up. I know we've been doing that.
I want to specify, Mr. Chair, that none of these things affect me. In some ways I'm the ideal spokesperson for this because my stepdaughter is grown up. I don't have dependent children, and I live in Ottawa. My home is a 15-minute drive from here unless there's snow or traffic. In most circumstances it's a 15-minute drive. I'm not speaking to this because of any personal interest.
I think it was indicative that some of my caucus colleagues didn't want to speak publicly. They only wanted to speak privately about this or through the anonymous survey because they felt if they were to raise this kind of issue they would somehow be seen as lesser or not wanting to do their work. There were a number of people that responded privately to the survey, but didn't want to say it publicly.
I agree with some of the comments that came up through the NDP, as well as about the sixth floor and things like that.
I don't want to take too much of the committee's time. We went to a lot of effort to put together this report, and I think it was worth it to be able to go into it in some detail.
Thank you.