Yes.
Evidence of meeting #147 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #147 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
There is that, but there is also the fact that the family roles of men and women have changed and evolved since the House of Commons was created. The rules have not been updated and this will need to be addressed.
11:45 a.m.
Clerk of the House of Commons
Of course, we can propose amendments to improve the situation of members of Parliament with respect to their family life. The House has already started working on that.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
We'll have to do more, because our voting marathons are not very healthy, in my opinion.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
The National Assembly of Quebec does not sit later than midnight. They continue the next day.
11:45 a.m.
Clerk of the House of Commons
Normally, the House adjourns at about 8 p.m.
11:45 a.m.
Clerk of the House of Commons
This decision was made to facilitate family life for all members of Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
We have no family life if we finish at midnight.
You said you've been here for a long time. I know you were in the Senate before, but how long have you been here?
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
11:45 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
To summarize, we will have to decide what our objectives are.
Thank you.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I just want to make a comment and then maybe get a comment from the Clerk.
Ms. Duncan asked what the role of the public would be in this chamber. Previously we had been talking a little bit about petitions. I believe the U.K. parallel chamber deals quite a lot with public petitions and then they're able to debate those issues.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Oftentimes the petitions we see, the online petitions through petition.org or the ones that come formally to us, are on the burning issues of the public. If this chamber could accommodate a lot of seating, or if through television the public could see that their issues were being debated, rather than just everyday government or now and then a private member's bill, I think that would really involve and connect the public a little bit more to what we are doing.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I wonder if you have any comments on that or suggestions as to how much of this parallel chamber should be dedicated to something like that, or whether it's really not important.
11:50 a.m.
Clerk of the House of Commons
I believe it really depends on how and whether you as parliamentarians think it's important. The parallel chamber is being designed to accommodate—let's be bolder about it—the frustration you may feel in your life as a parliamentarian and what would help to validate and address the challenges you have as parliamentarians.
If you feel that petitions are important, that they are an expression of a democratic interest in various topics, then allowing some time in a parallel chamber to debate those petitions that meet a certain threshold of support would be useful.
As we mentioned earlier, how you would handle debate on complex legislation, how you could have a parallel debate that would give members a greater opportunity to participate in what they believe to be important legislation when they have a point of view to express—this is also a way the parallel chamber could provide some assistance to alleviate that sense of frustration that members may feel.
We sit 100 or 135 days in a good year. We sit during fixed hours. There is a lot of stuff to be done in a short amount of time. If the legislation is becoming increasingly complex, as it appears to be, then how do you want to manage that?
The government is not going to become smaller. It's not going to become simpler. Legislation is not likely to be as easy as it was a few years ago, or many years ago, when a bill 10 pages long was a big bill. In the 19th century, most of the legislation considered by Parliament was private. It was not government. Government was too small to actually involve itself in a tremendous amount of legislation. That was also one of the reasons that sessions were relatively short. I think in one case we had four sessions in one year, and that means four Speeches from the Throne.
April 4th, 2019 / 11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I'd like to address something mentioned earlier, the whip situation. I don't think you do this in a vacuum unto itself and exclude the whips. In my humble opinion, I think you create something here that avoids the pitfalls through which a whip can get in trouble, as it were. So the whip has to make sure the votes are there, the people are there for the votes, the legislation is moving through. I'd say whip and government House leader as well, of course.
I don't think the parallel chamber should be something that interferes with their function in any way, shape or form. If we're doing government legislation of the day in the parallel chamber so that other people get to speak, then if I don't get a chance to do it in West Block or in the House of Commons, I will get a chance to speak on this issue in the parallel chamber. But again, that would still be subservient to the House of Commons proceedings.
I champion the cause for backbenchers, but I wouldn't want to take away the essential functions of the whip or the House leader for reasons that are obvious.
By the way, somebody else brought up votes and the marathon votes and that sort of thing. Well, that's something we also have to look at. That's something entirely different. I've told this story before and I'll tell it again. I had three or four members of the European Parliament come over to witness question period. Following question period, there was a vote. This one individual—I forget her name now, but she's been in the European Parliament for almost two decades—said, “It was a fascinating experience. I like your question period, because the questions are limited to 35 seconds.” I told her why and she said, “Well, it's very exciting. You debate like it's the 21st century, but why do you still vote like it's the 19th century?” That's true, because of electronic voting, but that's a whole other issue. I thought I'd just throw that in there.
When it comes to the parallel chamber, though, what about the idea of witnesses? One of the advantages we have here with committees, including committee of the whole, is that we're able.... As a former chair of the fisheries committee, I can talk about what experience fishermen go through on a daily basis, but when I have a witness from Toogood Arm—that exists, by the way; it's a town—who comes in and says, “This is what's actually going on in the ocean right now,” that is a huge advantage. They can come in and give us the most vital experience, such as we're going to see with Samara next. They know what they're talking about.
