Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 20th, 2010

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I thank you for your opinion. In my view, the problem comes from the fact that the House of Commons decided to allow members to use the technology in the House. As you have mentioned, we could change the Standing Orders in order, for example, to prohibit members from sending messages from within the chamber. They could say things, receive messages, but not send any.

It's very easy to leave the House.

[The witness rises from his seat and then sits back down.]

There you have it, I am back. Where's the problem? I think the problem comes if we change the rules, for example, to prohibit members from sending messages. Members can simply draft them and then send them from the lobby. There's nothing anyone can do about that. You can look into the House while sending a message from the lobby. Where's the difference?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

A first step would be to prohibit BlackBerry use during question period, as has been done in other parliaments. If members make the effort to get up and go to the lobby, and that becomes widespread, then we would have to change the rule. It's somewhat like with children. Parents will begin by imposing one form of punishment as a result of bad behaviour, and if that fails, will impose another. I don't think we should get too caught up in all this.

Your example is quite striking, but if each member left their seat to use their BlackBerry in the lobby, there would be no one left in the House. It would be just as well to suspend the sitting. I cannot help but think of the consequences of such a situation. If there was a prohibition and people went out into the lobby to send their messages, then that would lead to operational problems.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Perhaps, but the problem for me is to find out, for example, when and from where a message was sent. I have no way of really knowing when a member is in the House, the lobby or elsewhere.

I believe that this is an issue for the committee to consider. Should BlackBerrys be allowed in the House or not? If a message like the one sent by our colleague is so objectionable as to warrant a prohibition, then change the rules and prohibit BlackBerry use in the House.

Without such a rule, it is very difficult for the Speaker to figure out who sent what from where. That is very important to keep in mind, because a member who is outside the House can refer to a colleague's absence from the Chamber. That is not contrary to our rules. The prohibition against such references only applies during debates in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Godin, I know you've been itching to get a couple more in.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

With regard to what Mr. Hoback was talking about earlier, i.e., the use of cameras inside the House, when we are in committee of the whole, it isn't as if we were sitting as a Parliament. The House is then deemed to be sitting as a committee of the whole, otherwise we could not enter the House to take pictures. Cameras were used as we were sitting as a committee of the whole. Parliament was not sitting during the presentation of the Olympic torch.

[Audrey O'Brien]

No, you were in committee of the whole. You are correct. Camera use is also restricted in committee. You are right, members were not assembled as the House, but rather as a committee of the whole.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Prior to a sitting, as members are entering, some people can be seen taking pictures. I have already noticed that. I have never seen any rule prohibiting that behaviour.

[Audrey O'Brien]

However, once the work gets underway...

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

There is something else, and, once again, it's a bit like flogging a dead horse. The problem isn't in sending a message to your office saying that so and so is not in the House. If I send a message to my office saying that such and such a minister isn't in the House, that does not cause a problem. Even without the technology, we can do so today through the pages. A note can be sent to the House of Commons asking whether a given minister is in attendance or not. It's the same thing [Editor's Note: Inaudible] Rather, the problem arises when that information is posted to Twitter or Facebook, for everyone to see.

There is no problem when the information is used to carry out our work. It is a very different situation when I need to know whether the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is in the House of Commons or not, and I ask the question of one of my colleagues because I would like to confer with her about crab quotas. However, if debate is underway and a member indicates on Twitter that the Minister of Fisheries did not think fit to attend—I am using an example, it could be the Minister of Transport—then that is of some importance to a greater community.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I do not use it. That is why I am not very familiar with all that.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That is where I see a difference: the moment in which a person is doing something. There is a reason why it is prohibited to mention a member's absence or presence in the House. CPAC, for example, does not give a general view of the House of Commons, which would allow people to note members' presences and absences. The people who debate are those who rise and speak. We can tell if they are there or not. If a person is debating an issue, then he or she is present. The goal is to prevent members from saying who is present and who is not.

In any case, that is how I distinguish the two situations. Nothing prevents a member, in the course of his or her work, from mentioning the presence of another member. There is a difference between contacting a member's office and staff and reporting who is present or not. In my view, the reason why a member would fool around with his BlackBerry is because he isn't much interested in the issue under debate. And members can use their BlackBerrys, laptops, Twitter or other networks to report on what is going on. That member should be paid as an official reporter. That's the problem. It shows a lack of respect toward the House and his colleagues.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

You can certainly recommend a change to the rules, by prohibiting the use of computers or BlackBerrys to send messages from the House to Twitter, Facebook or other networks. The issue is submitted to the committee.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I think that is where the problem lies, not anywhere else.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I do not know all the details; I am definitely not an expert.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Monsieur Lauzon.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair. I find this very interesting.

I'll defer to your experience and your love of history. I wonder if these regulations and rules were put in place before the advent of television and monitors. I can understand why they would have a rule saying you cannot say Mr. Godin is not in the House, because up until the time of televised debates, that was breaking a confidence. Quite frankly, now I'm not breaking any confidences if I say Mr. Godin is not in the House because that's available in so many other ways.

I just wonder if we're not trying to enforce a rule that is almost unenforceable at this juncture. What the heck is the difference whether in this day and age I say Mr. Godin is not in the House? Is that as damaging today as it was when this rule was incorporated?

Is it so serious?

I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking that question. I guess that's the question I would ask: is it as damaging?

I think we're trying to get the Speaker to enforce a moral code of sorts of our conduct as parliamentarians, that we should respect each other and that kind of thing. I don't know that we're going to have a whole lot of luck in putting in a whole bunch of regulations and rules, etc., that are going to be terribly hard to administer.

This business of Facebook and Twitter and all that...I could Twitter to one of my staff and they could get it out there. If we really want to do something, we're going to be able to do it. As Mr. Dryden said, in the overall scheme of things, how significant is it? I'm just asking the question; I'm not making a comment.

I'd like to hear your comments on that.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm sure the rule was here before television came along. I'm not advocating getting rid of the rule: I think it helps maintain order in the House if members don't refer to the absence of members. If that rule weren't there, we'd hear a lot more of it.

I can just imagine in question period, say, when a minister is saying he can see why the member from so-and-so is asking this question because his colleague isn't here, and name the victim, and the member saying he wants to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works and she's not here, so he'll have to direct it to somebody else. It would happen every time--it would be just great. So I think we're better off with the rules we have in that respect.

How much difference does it make to order when things are happening in other ways? As I've said, it's never been improper for reporters to say who's there or not. You'll frequently read in news accounts--not that I read these every day--the minister of such-and-such answered the questions in the absence of the Prime Minister or the Minister of Justice, whoever wasn't there. Big deal. This happens. It's just part of the way Parliament functions. In my view, it's quite normal that everyone is not there every day. We all have lots of other things to do.

So I think that because it isn't out of order for them to do it, it's a question of how much members can say when they're not in the chamber, and that's been my point throughout this thing. Does typing it on a machine and sending it out mean you're doing it in the chamber? That's the other side of it.

As I say, I think you can consider whether you want to limit it, but as you point out--and this is what I don't know a lot about--if you send something on Twitter to one person only, and then that person disseminates it, then bingo, it's out. I don't know how that system works. As I say, I'm not using it. On the other hand, you could send the e-mail to your staff and they could copy it to everybody on your mailing list, I suppose.

I don't know; it's a tough one. That's why I thought having a discussion in the committee would be useful from the point of view of settling what members would like. It may be that the committee simply makes a recommendation that members not do certain things in order to protect the institution or protect its reputation, and then hope that members comply without having a strict rule that is then enforced by some punishment if the member doesn't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Based on your last comment, Mr. Speaker, I very respectfully disagree with you in one sense.

I think we have to come to two things here. One is to determine whether we think there is a problem or a potential for difficulties in the future. If we think there could be, and I personally think there could be future abuses of this, then we have to take some sort of pre-emptive action. It's always been my experience that if you have recommendations as opposed to strict rules, and if the recommendations have no real consequences to them, then the frequency of the abuse becomes greater and greater. I think that's what the potential is here. I'm not suggesting there should be a ruling from the Speaker; I'm suggesting that probably something should come out of this committee, either a very strong recommendation or perhaps a change of the rules and how we operate.

With the prevalence of the electronic devices that we have now—and who knows what we're going to have five years from now by way of devices we can't even imagine today—I think the temptation will be there. The potential for abuse is there because we have no real consequence. No one has said, “You can't do this.” We have rules stating that you can't say something in public in debate, but there's nothing to say what you can and can't do on your BlackBerry. As one of my colleagues pointed out—and it's absolutely true, and I think we all know this—if someone were to stand up in debate and say, “I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Finance, but since he's not here I'm going to ask his colleague”, that's going to be recorded in Hansard. But if you Twitter it, who knows?

If we want to comply with the rules as written today, then we have to look at electronic devices and how we deal with them, and we have to give some strong direction to members, for example, stating that you can't do on electronic devices what you're not allowed to do by speaking. I think that's a matter for a full discussion by this committee. I don't have any ready solutions for it, but I think it's something the committee should deal with.

If I'm reading the committee correctly, I think everyone has identified some problems, but really no one has come up with any solutions. Rather than trying to put the onus on you, Mr. Speaker, it's something this committee should deal with. I think we should give some very serious reflection to it. I'm concerned probably as much for what may happen five years down the road with the devices we can't even imagine today. If there are no consequences, we're going to see the examples of some people tweeting or Twittering information that will be considered to be confidential. And there are no consequences for the member to be held accountable by.

I think this committee has to deal with this. I agree with Ken. I don't think it's really a major problem in the House right now, in terms of disruption, protocol, or decorum. It's very minimal, because no one knows--you're not shouting out; you're not heckling. Perhaps if everyone were using their BlackBerrys to heckle, as opposed to just yelling out, it might be a little easier place for you.

But I think there is potential for abuse, and big-time potential for abuse in the future. It's something this committee should consider very carefully.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have no one else on my speakers' list. Is there anyone who has a one-off question?

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would like to come back to Mr. Lauzon's comment. Perhaps the rule was brought in after the arrival of television in the House of Commons. Prior to that time, members could say that someone was there when in fact that was not the case, because Canadians had no way of knowing. That would be interesting to know, because the rule does not appear in the Standing Orders. I think that, with the advent of television cameras, some members would rise and point out that other members were not in the House. Before that, no one listened anyways.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Mr. Chairman, let me just comment, through you, on Mr. Lukiwski's comments.

One way the committee might want to consider proceeding is to come up with a recommendation that is generally phrased concerning the appropriate use of electronic devices, with the idea that you would return to it if and when particular problems were to manifest themselves. One of the difficulties that happens, if you try to codify offences, is that you just feed the imagination trying to find clever ways around it. That is my sad experience speaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll hear Randy and then Massimo, please.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm just throwing this out as a question. Have you looked at new technology to solve some of these problems? I can remember being in a movie theatre in the U.K. I walked into the movie theatre and all of a sudden my BlackBerry didn't work; it had no signal. But it worked when you walked outside.

[Audrey O'Brien]

I'm sure if I talked to the CIO, there would be a dizzying array of technological solutions. Somebody yesterday was telling me about a spy store that existed on Bronson Avenue, but we won't get that into that.

What we try to do is make everything as accessible and as open as possible, so that members have real liberty of action, and it's up to them to decide how to proceed.

I'm still reeling from the notion that “tweet” is now a verb that's associated with adults, but never mind.