Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 12th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good morning. This meeting is number 14 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, for the first session of the 42nd Parliament.

It's a very busy meeting and we have a lot of witnesses, which is great. Any time we get a few minutes, we have five or so things to get through: witnesses who can't make it, etc.; the committee report; just approving the budget for our report; the clerk's emergency motion on emergency sitting; the conflict of interest guideline; Mr. Reid's motion; and Mr. Christopherson's motion.

We'll start out. We have three witnesses in the first panel. We'll be having, first, Christine Moore, MP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue. Then we'll have the Honourable Sheila Copps, and Lisa MacLeod, MPP for Nepean-Carleton, who is joining us via teleconference from Toronto.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming. I know your time is valuable, so we appreciate it. If we could do five minutes of opening comments, and if you don't have enough time in that, then just use the time when someone asks you a question to finish your prepared speech.

Go ahead, Ms. Moore.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, dear colleagues and guests.

It is a pleasure to appear before you today. I first want to say that the comments I am going to make here represent my personal opinion on the situation, and not that of my party.

As you probably know, I gave birth to a little girl right in the middle of the last election. So I experienced pregnancy during the previous Parliament, and balancing work and family life in the context of this new one. As for my family situation, my husband also has shared custody of a school-aged daughter, which makes it difficult for him to join me in Ottawa.

The first point I would like to discuss today is parental leave. In my opinion, it is essential that we have parental leave. Ideally it should last at least six months. I would also like to add that that leave would not mean that an MP would not work. It would rather mean putting in place a series of measures that would allow him or her to work from the riding. This would mean not having to come to Ottawa, and avoiding all the inconvenience involved in that.

To achieve this, the main improvements that need to be put in place would be to establish a mechanism through which members could table various documents remotely, such as briefs on bills resembling the speeches they would have made had they been present, and a mechanism involving existing documents, for instance petitions or private members' bills. The other improvement that would allow members to work from their ridings would be the possibility of voting from a distance.

As voting in person is to me something very important and significant, I do not think that the right to vote remotely or electronically should be given to all members, but only to those who are on parental leave or on long-term sick leave. This could be done by asking the Speaker of the House, who would grant this right for a given period to those who would need it.

As for the possibility of shortening or compressing the work week, or changing the parliamentary calendar in some other way, I want to say that late meetings are extremely problematic for all of the members who have young children. Compressing the work week does not seem like a good solution to me in any way. Moreover, I do not think that Canadians want us to work less. Simply eliminating sitting days does not seem like a good solution either.

As for eliminating Friday sittings, that does not seem like a good idea. You have to understand that the fact of changing the parliamentary calendar will always have positive effects for some and negative effects for others. For instance, if certain members live too far to do the return trip over the weekend, they would not benefit from having Friday sessions eliminated, because they are here in any case. The ideal situation for them would be to sit two or three weeks in a row, stay here during the weekends, and then return to their ridings for periods of two or three weeks. However, this last solution would not be appropriate for those who live closer and want to return to their families. So it is very difficult to find a solution that suits everyone when we look at changing the parliamentary calendar. In addition, eliminating Friday sittings would be to the advantage of the party in power, because it often has to keep a large number of members here in order to avoid losing a vote, for instance, whereas opposition parties can generally have fewer members present on Fridays.

That is why the most logical solution is to see whether we can improve the daily and weekly schedule of House business. As we know that current business and question period are the activities that require the presence of many members, these two activities could be eliminated on Fridays. However, obviously opposition parties would have to be compensated for that concession by extending the other question periods to offset the loss on Fridays.

The creation of a parallel House could probably be interesting if it focused mainly on studying private members' business. This would be advantageous for the members of the opposition. When they are not chosen in the draw, they do not even have the opportunity of speaking on their parliamentary initiatives. If this were to happen, opposition parties might be favourable to changing Friday's schedule in exchange for a longer period devoted to oral questions and the study of private members' bills.

As for House business, holding votes immediately after question period would of course be the ideal solution, since this would avoid our having to leave and return. This would also allow those who do not have far to go to be able to leave earlier in the day and return the next day.

During my pregnancy, the long vote periods were very difficult for me. We need to schedule some short breaks when voting lasts more than two hours so that you can move around if you are pregnant. It would also be a good thing for people with health problems like diabetes. This would allow them to eat a snack and avoid feeling ill because of a very long vote.

One of the last crucial points I would like to bring up is putting in place a child care service that reflects the House schedule.

The private day care on the Hill currently only takes children full-time, and only from the age of 18 months. Moreover, it closes at 6 o'clock. This absolutely does not correspond to the needs of members. This service could be very useful for members who are breastfeeding, who have very young children and who must go and see their baby every two or three hours. Such a service would also be useful for many male members who told me that they would very much like to bring their children occasionally for a week to the House. However, since there is no day care, they cannot do so and this saddens them. This would also be appreciated by male members of Parliament who would sometimes like to give their spouse a break in caring for their children. I am aware that it is a challenge for the operators of the day care to deal with the House schedule, and moreover the House does not sit every week. However, I think it is achievable.

In closing, I would like to specify that I focused on the aspects of work-family life balance that concerned procedure, which is what this committee is looking at. I contacted the Speaker of the House regarding other improvements that would have more to do with the Speaker or the Board of Internal Economy.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Madam Copps.

[Sheila Copps, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you very much for the invitation.

I've probably taken a more retrospective approach to the issue. When Christine was talking about the health breaks that are necessary and some of the issues that you face when you're in Parliament, I'd like to take you back to April 4, 1987. My daughter was born on the 26th of March and I believe it was on April 4—you can check the history books—the President of the United States was giving a speech in the House of Commons. Being a political animal, I did not want to miss that speech.

At that time, I was breastfeeding my daughter. We are talking about two-hour intervals.

We were in Parliament. Some other time I'll tell you about the speech, but in any case, he spoke. Mr. Mulroney, who was the Prime Minister of the day, introduced him. I believe the Speaker gave a speech, then Mr. Mulroney, and then the President of the United States, who at the time was Ronald Reagan.

As you know, I was in the opposition at the time. Most of the political people in opposition would go outside after any speech, kind of trolling for little nibbles, little media nibbles, little fish nibbles. I was outside with Jean-Claude Malépart, one of the French-speaking members of the rat pack, since deceased; an incredible guy. We were outside waiting to comment on Ronald Reagan's speech, of course, and all of a sudden he looked down and said, “You have a problem, Sheila.” I looked down and, because I was breastfeeding and the time had gone past the two hours, I had this giant wet spot on the front of my blouse.

I ran away to the bathroom. The situation was so bad in those days that they had women's bathrooms only on every second floor, because they didn't think you'd actually have women serving in Parliament. You had to run from the first to the third to the fifth to actually get to the bathroom, so we didn't even have a bathroom outside the chamber.

That being said, one of the first things Christine talked about was child care. I've tried to think about some really practical solutions that you might put forward. I won't speak to the issue of sitting Mondays and Fridays, because that's more of a legislation thing.

First of all, I'd like to say the Hill day care was fantastic. The board is fantastic. It really serves the employees. You're not talking about making life easier just for members of Parliament. You're talking about the parliamentary precinct, which at the time was about 4,000 employees, because it included the press gallery.

I think you need to bring in infant child care. The fact that you're not able to put your kids into child care until they're able to be toilet-trained is a problem. Eighteen months is even problematic, because the first 18 months are probably the most crucial in terms of the child's life.

I'm not sure about running it day and night, because I also think members of Parliament are in a way like small business employers. We're really quite privileged, because we have the privilege to set our own hours. When I became a minister, the first thing I said was that I didn't do breakfast meetings. At that time, my daughter was probably about nine or 10, and I said, “Mornings are really key times to get her going, so we start our day at nine o'clock.” I think members of Parliament are privileged, because even though we face the challenges of getting our children launched, we also have an incredible number of opportunities.

I remember when my daughter was growing up, and she was the first child born to a parliamentarian. She had friends in British Columbia and she had friends in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, because I used to take her everywhere. I breastfed her in the meetings. If she needed to be breastfed, I just started breastfeeding. A few eyes popped out at the time, and we had some issues, but we got through them.

I think it's much more difficult for the lady who was fixing the table here. She cannot tell her boss, “I'm sorry, I can't come in because my daughter's sick.” That goes for regular employees in both the House and the larger world. I think the committee should probably take a look at the child care family-friendly provisions that exist in the House of Commons rules. To my understanding, there are virtually none. They don't exist.

That also speaks to the second issue. How do you define “family”? A family can be two partners without children. A family can be partners with grown children or small children or parents.

I was just chatting with David Christopherson, an old colleague of mine. My mom served with him on council, and she's in a home for dementia now. I know the sandwich generation. There are many issues for families. I think the committee should take a broad look at having a family-friendly policy that would actually be instituted by the Speaker, with the potential for I wouldn't say an ombudsman but for some kind of review, because things have not changed since I was here.

Most of the responsibilities for creating a family-friendly environment rely on the individual member of Parliament, and you have a lot on your plate as well—not just for yourself, but for your staff. If there was a third-party process, it could actually give you the list of what you're entitled to and what makes a good family-friendly policy. You may want to look to the crown corporations, because I'm sure a lot of crown corporations have family-friendly policy items.

That would also deal with safety in the workplace. When you're dealing with a family-friendly policy, you're also dealing with policies on sexual harassment, and sexual harassment in the workplace. It's an issue of not just making sure your kids are safe but also making sure your employees are safe. Again, there is no real policy on sexual harassment for members of Parliament.

I'm going to close now because I realize I've broadened the mandate of the committee. I remember—and Larry Bagnell, your chair, will remember because he was around maybe not as early as I was—there was a member of Parliament in my caucus who was well known for being abusive to employees. I won't go into the names or the details. It's an old history. That person lost many employees because they were being asked for sexual favours on the job, and there was nowhere they could go. I remember arbitrating some of those myself, or trying to help because they'd come and they'd be crying to me. Women would be crying and saying, “What can I do?”, and we'd be trying to make solutions.

At the moment having a template for family-friendly policy, and also a safe workplace, would be excellent work and a good outcome for this committee. I commend you to those experiences. I know I said I'd be brief, but the other thing is that you have to be strong in insisting that....

I used to bring my daughter to all the committees. I can guarantee you that if you're sitting in night committees.... I brought her to all the committees, and if she was crying, I'd say, “Go for it.” Because you know what? That's the way to let people know that if you run a committee until 11 o'clock at night and then you start the next morning at seven o'clock, you're not running a family-friendly operation and maybe you should revisit some of the committee schedules, and they did. So good luck.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Lisa MacLeod, MPP for Nepean-Carleton. She's joining us by teleconference from Toronto for five minutes.

Lisa, you're on.

[Lisa MacLeod, MPP, Nepean-Carleton, Legislative Assembly of Ontario, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good morning to all of your colleagues.

I was asked to say a few words about my work in Ontario at a time when I was a parent of a young child. I was a young woman, and I was the youngest person in the Ontario legislature. While my name is no longer synonymous with the word “young,” I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about the work I did a decade ago to make our legislature in Ontario more family friendly.

As I said then, and I am going to repeat it today, you shouldn't have to choose between being a good parent and a good parliamentarian. Let me speak from the heart and from experience as I explain that.

When I was first elected in a by-election 10 years ago—in fact, just this past Sunday was my 10-year anniversary of being sworn in—I had eight days to move my family to Toronto, find an apartment, open two offices, begin work as a parliamentarian, and understand what I had fully gotten myself into. This was all done, of course, with the support of my family and a very dedicated staff. When it came to my unique needs as a young mother and an MPP, travelling five hours to and from Toronto, the legislative assembly really offered no support and no resources for finding what the other two speakers talked about, which is adequate child care, despite the urgency and despite my being a newcomer to Toronto with virtually no transition time. I found I was on my own.

To be truthful, for a period of two and a half years my office became a makeshift nursery to accommodate my growing baby and my demanding career, and I continued to search for child care. In the end, it was only with the support of my dedicated husband that I was able to find adequate care. My husband decided to sacrifice his career and stay at home to raise our daughter. Each week, usually late Sunday afternoon, the four of us—my husband, my daughter, our dog, and I—piled into our car in Ottawa and drove to Toronto for the entire week. This went on for the first few years of my daughter's life, until we started her in school at home in Ottawa and my husband was able to resume his career on Parliament Hill.

I look back at those days, and I am still worn out thinking of them. It is with semi-humour—because it is in part quite funny, and in other parts quite astonishing—that I say I'm not sure who took longer to get used to whom: the legislature to me, because it is an institution that has been in existence for over 250 years, since 1792, or me, the 31-year-old mother who showed up with a baby, to that institution, which is 250 years old.

I think we have to talk about some of the systemic barriers that women and young parents in general face. Obviously, we enjoy a parliamentary system that has endured the ages. It has produced good governments and great leaders. It has produced sound policies and often rigorous debate, but that doesn't mean our parliamentary system doesn't need a fine-tuning every once in a while to reflect the changes in our society.

In Ontario, making the legislature more family friendly did not mean we overhauled our parliamentary system or disrupted over 200 years of parliamentary tradition. Nor did it mean eroding government accountability tools, which are vital for good governance and effective opposition. Rather, it was more about refining and modernizing the way we conducted business in the assembly to better reflect our society and the real demands of being a good parliamentarian and a good parent.

Overall, improving the way the institution functions makes parliamentarians effective representatives and better policy-makers. In our case, the Ontario legislature would routinely begin at one o'clock in the afternoon and sit until 9:30 at night or even midnight, Monday through Thursday. We often would debate closure motions in the evenings for about three hours. A simple change to the standing orders, which was not actually that simple to make, required that we shift our hours to nine to six with evening sittings only by unanimous consent or in the last two weeks of the session. That ensured we had more reasonable work hours. I think it became abundantly clear that those measures made for a better balance in this assembly.

At the same time, and this is key, it did not compromise our debate time on actual legislation, committee work, or private members' business. This is absolutely fundamental, and I urge any changes that might be made to the House of Commons in this pursuit to respect the role of Parliament and the duties of all of its members, government and opposition.

Other common-sense initiatives we brought in at the time, which seem simple but weren't then, were changing tables and high chairs so that we would be more welcoming.

The one initiative our government of the day brought in that I did not agree with, and I still do not to this day, is moving question period into the morning. I urge the House of Commons against this for three reasons. I've noticed a decrease in the public attendance in the gallery throughout the years, making the legislature less transparent and accountable to the public. We must take into consideration our political staff and parliamentary staff who will be affected, and they will be. Finally, there is less preparation time for members of the opposition to respond to daily issues. I have never sat in government, but I imagine it's the same for the government members.

While making Parliament more family friendly is not only a women's issue, I think it is important that our assemblies respond to the reality that, now more than ever, women—young women and women with children—are making the decision to stand for public office.

We're winning in greater numbers and we're now a better reflection of our broader society. As I often say, it is not solely about getting more women elected, it is also about keeping us here.

I want to congratulate this committee for your thoughtful consideration of initiatives toward a family-friendly House of Commons. In 2016, we do not judge our ability or our electability by our last names, our genders, or our pay scales. But if there's one thing we can take away from trailblazers like Sheila Copps, Pat Carney, the Orange Crush, gender parity, and Rona Ambrose, is that women with families aren't slowing down in politics, we're just getting started.

I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much.

Just before we go to the rounds of questions, I'd like to welcome to our committee Madame Boutin-Sweet again and also Mr. Ron McKinnon.

We'll start the first round of questions with Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, and I want to thank all three of you for coming before the committee and for being so candid about your personal experiences, which affect quite a few and a growing number of members of Parliament.

You are the ones who have made it work. You're the ones who have blazed the trails and have succeeded as members of Parliament, as legislators, and also having young families. But I'm concerned about the deterrent effect on others when they see the struggles, when they see how difficult it is, particularly the sitting hours. What do you think we can do, not just to make it easier for them once they're here but to make sure that young families—young women and also young men who have families or aspire to have families—are not dissuaded from running because of a lot of the discussions we're having and a lot of the difficulties they have in terms of the impact on their time?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

We just have to act. We have the time. We have four years. I said at the beginning of my mandate, it's the time to act and to make Parliament family friendly.

We already did a lot in just a few months. There's now parking for women with baby carriages or pregnant women. We have high chairs in the cafeteria. We have a family room now. In just a few months, we made some gains.

I think for people who have an interest in politics, for sure it could look difficult. But we are about to change and we did. I hope this committee will be about making change, so the next legislature will be ready to be family friendly.

[Sheila Copps]

I think you have to be realistic about the world. My daughter turned 29 last week, and this place was very welcoming to her 29 years ago.

I remember the day I brought her in. She spit up all over John Fraser, the Speaker and it was about five minutes to two. She was like the rock star because she was the first child born. It was a huge, positive thing. John Fraser invited me to bring her over to the Chambers just before question period. Then, as babies do, she had a big blast of white crap. She shot him, and he didn't have any baby towels on. It was two minutes to two and all of a sudden his black robe was covered in white baby sputum, so he ran and changed it.

The bottom line is that it's a difficult life. For most of her early years I was a single parent. I didn't have a spouse. I remarried when she was about seven, and that was absolutely fantastic because then you have the support system.

It would be remiss to leave the public with the impression that this is not a family-friendly place, because it's a lot more family friendly than working at the steel company, for example, or a lot of other work places. I think I'm trying to direct the conversation toward the whole parliamentary precinct, because as members of Parliament we can choose our hours to a great degree. We can't choose the committee hours per se, but committees can also be responsive.

I think the biggest challenge for a family-friendly environment is for the employees of members of Parliament, not for the members of Parliament themselves, because we are the boss and we can make accommodations.

Like Christine said, you end up.... For the first year and a half I had a crib in my office, so I made accommodations. There were times that Pat Carney.... I remember one time. In those days we had the circular revolving doors, and we were all rushing out of a vote. It had been a long vote, and my daughter wasn't feeling well. You could extend the hours of the child care to maybe 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.

It was a six o'clock vote, and she had a fever. There was no baby stuff, so I gave her this grape juice. All that was in the anteroom was coffee, or cola, or stuff like that. I gave her grape juice. When we were coming out of the revolving door, right in the door, whoop, she had a giant grape juice explosion in the middle of the revolving door as everybody's rushing out from the vote. Barbie McDougall who was a minister at the time—I think she was foreign minister—ran and got her driver. She brought some water. She sat down with me and we cleaned the vomit up off the floor. People are willing to pitch in.

I go back to the fact that as a 29-year-old, she's very flexible now because she lived a life where she learned to sleep like a carney. She can sleep in a drawer. She sleeps like a baby anywhere now, so there are some positive aspects too.

Structurally you do need to look at child care hours, in particular child care for infants, and also the family-friendly policy as it applies to employees. Is there an overlay, and is there somebody you can go to if you feel your family hours are being disrupted because of your employment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Lisa.

[Lisa MacLeod]

Thanks very much.

I tend to agree with both Christine and Sheila on a couple of things. I think child care is something that acts as a deterrent, if a lot of women with a baby or who were having one knew when they got elected that they would be needing to find two child care spaces. Obviously I live in Ottawa; I serve in Toronto. That was eye-opening to me. I think Sheila also makes a wonderful point. My daughter walks around Queen's Park now at 11 years old knowing every member of all of the caucuses, and they've watched her grow. It's a tremendous privilege, in fact. She knows two members of this committee, both Anita and Scott. I think in and of itself that's important.

I think if there's one thing I could impress upon, it would effectively be trying to find a way for new members or sitting members who do have children to understand that Queen's Park child care and the House of Commons child care are not something that would be suitable for our children. Not that it's not quality care; that's not where I'm going. But in terms of our work hours it's the fact that we would have to have two spots. We only sit four days a week, not the full five days as you folks do, but that's certainly a consideration. We had a period in 2007 where five women from the government of the day didn't re-offer. That's why I always come up with this line: it's not just about getting us elected anymore, it's also about keeping us here. The issue each one of them cited in 2007, which was my second election, was that they had to spend more time with their families, so it's striking that balance.

Some of us, Anita, have to find different ways in order to accommodate our growing families. For example, on PD days I try to take a day with my daughter because I know I'm away all week, and she has one this Friday with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. My new MP Chandra Arya is going to be opening up his constituency office, and she will be going. It's highly likely that Victoria Varner will be with her mother that day. We try to accommodate little things. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. But we're very fortunate to be able to call this our career. It's just that it would help if sometimes our institution tweaked some of the things, like having a bathroom, or having a change table, or having a high chair, or having a resource where we could find child care in the city that we're not from.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

I now move on to Mr. Schmale. You can direct your questions to whomever you want, or to all members.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to each of you for attending here today, and thank you for your feedback.

I'm the father of a four-year-old son, so it's been a balancing act for sure. I remember after being elected I asked my predecessor what he did with his family, what was the best. His answer was that for every option you choose there isn't a perfect one. It's going to be bad either way. It's going to be the least of the bad, if you will, and you make a decision based on your own situation. So that's what we did. My family is back home and we try to do the best we can with that.

I'm just curious actually because I was listening to Ms. Copps and Madame Moore speak about a spouse being away from Ottawa and being a single mother for a number of years. I thought to myself, what would happen if something happened on my end and I became a single father with sole custody? What would I do? I was just batting around the options as everyone was talking and thinking that it would be extremely difficult. Especially with day care, you said it ended at six o'clock and sometimes we have votes until seven. I'm just actually curious, what do you do with your daughter when we have votes and day care ends?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

With me for the votes, I have no one. Sometimes I try to hire a nanny. I have never found one who was able to do the job with the schedule and everything. Some weeks I have my mother or some family member who just comes to help me with Daphnée. At that time she just stays with my mother, for example, my aunt, or different people who are there to give me a hand. But if I have no one available that week, I don't have a choice. I bring Daphnée with me for a vote. I try to avoid her crying too much. It's why I asked my whip for me to be seated at the end of the row, so she is not in the middle of the House. That way maybe the crying could be less disturbing. I don't have any choice because I cannot leave the baby in my office and just close the door. I don't have the choice, so I bring Daphnée with me. That's why she's with me. I try to be discreet but she's a baby so you cannot control babies crying. I have her with me. Sometimes I breastfeed in the House because we have a vote. I try my best to manage it.

[Sheila Copps]

When I was a member of Parliament, the child was not allowed to step into the House. You had to pick up your child by I think 6:15—the child care closed at six, but they had some flexibility—so you could run over and run back. Honestly, the parliamentary pages—and the interns, because they had interns also—were fantastic. They would bounce her on their knee or whatever, because she'd be in the other room while I was inside. Sometimes the votes would be really long, and she'd start bawling or whatever. Everybody became conscripted between six and seven.

I think that even allowing the baby in is a big plus, because the baby is actually with the mother, whereas when we were there, they said no strangers were allowed in the House. That was the rule.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

What we have asked is to be allowed to have the baby until they turn one year old. That's usually the period during which we breastfeed. This is what we have asked for, and it is tolerated by the Speaker.

Right now, she's young so she comes with me, but later she will stay with her dad.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I'm just going to bounce around here quickly.

Ms. MacLeod, you were talking about how moving question period to the morning affected not just the members but also the staff. I'm curious. Obviously, with question period in the morning, because there's prep time, staff might have to come in a little earlier. That means that those with families would be affected, but does it also mean, for members such as you, Ms. Macleod, that you came in earlier yourself and then missed that time with your family in the morning?

[Lisa MacLeod]

I worked on Parliament Hill right up until my by-election was called, so I was used to coming in at seven—in fact, I was in at about seven this morning—but it was a change in culture for members who had been here for many years and many meetings. It did impact members in terms of question period preparation, in terms of their scheduling with stakeholders, attending events, that whole sort of thing.

The other thing that we noticed, and I was talking about this with my House leader earlier today, is that not only have we seen a decrease in the number of people who show up in our public galleries to view question period and to make us more accountable to the public, but also we have noticed that there has been a change among the media. In fact our press gallery attended when we were making the family-friendly changes at Queen's Park, when the government was suggesting moving it to the mornings. Our press gallery actually appeared as a witness and said, please don't do this.

We're noticing that there has been a change as well in the coverage. Usually by about one o'clock or two o'clock, there's a shift in terms of the public reporting of what's been happening at Queen's Park.

There are a whole host of changes, then, that occur as a result of that one change in the time when question period occurs. I can't speak from a government perspective, as I've only ever served in opposition, but I can tell you that it requires everyone to be in earlier, be on top of their game, and respond in some cases to media reports or issues that happened the evening before in their local constituency.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Many of us are parents. I look across the table at Ms. Sahota and Mr. Chan. We've all gone through it. It's something we all need to balance. I think there is no easy answer, but I thank each and every one of you for coming out today. Thank you for your comments.

I only have a minute, so there's no use really in asking much of a question.

Ms. MacLeod, if you could say hello to my provincial counterpart Laurie Scott, that would be appreciated.

[Lisa MacLeod]

I'll do that in caucus this afternoon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Now we'll move on to Madame Boutin-Sweet for the NDP.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the committee for allowing me to appear today.

As a point of information for Ms. Copps and Ms. MacLeod, I am the NDP whip, and as such, I submitted a report to this committee about a month ago. As Ms. Moore was saying, we have already obtained several things by discussing things with the Speaker of the House, who has been very cooperative on these matters. We already have a room, crossings and parking for parents, as well as high chairs that are more appropriate in the cafeterias. Several things have been brought in, but there is still work to be done.

One question we discussed at some length with the Speaker, which I hear about a great deal here and which still has not been resolved is the matter of the day care. The Speaker has offered to help mothers find nannies, but as Ms. Moore was saying, it is, among other things, difficult to find French-speaking babysitters in Ottawa. And so we are going to have to find other solutions. One of the problems is that the day care only offers full-time spaces. Certain parents, such as fathers, would like to bring their children here a few weeks at a time, or a few days, but cannot do so because of the day care hours and the age of their children.

We have discussed this a great deal, but I would like to know if you have any suggestions or concrete solutions to propose to help solve this problem. We have to keep in mind that the quality of workers is important because they are going to be taking care of our children.

[Sheila Copps]

When I started, I said that I would not hire a nanny because I did not want a nanny to replace me. I had decided that right from the beginning. There was a woman who lived close to me who spoke French fluently. There are a lot of francophones in Ottawa.

If we have a day care, it is thanks to Jeanne Sauvé, who was Speaker of the House. She started this over 30 years ago, but since then, the status of the day care has not been reviewed.

First of all, things have to be broadened. We have to have something for the younger ones, because it is harder to find someone to care for children between 0 and 3 years of age.

Afterwards, I think it would be easy to set up a list. The Speaker could perhaps review the hour when votes are held and extend the sittings in light of that. I am not saying that we should sit 24 hours a day, but we could perhaps sit until 8 p.m. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg. It also depends on the hours when the votes are held. Why not hold them until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and invest a bit more money in the day care so that they could also take babies?

As for the nannies, the Speaker could easily keep a list of available persons for that.

At top speed, I'm sure they could have a list of available professionals who are available to do that on a short-term basis. I think that would be a nice way to supplement. If you didn't want to expand the garderie hours, it would be a way to supplement for the small number, because remember the garderie is also for all the employees too and not just the members of Parliament. The waiting list when I was there was two years to get in. Obviously it needs an expansion. It hasn't been touched in terms of the structure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Do you want Lisa to comment on that?