Evidence of meeting #17 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 staff.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Yes, that's right. It has the potential to be televised.
I think as a matter of practice, when we're having hearings on something that's not of a purely administrative nature, when we're dealing with witnesses on any topic—the family-friendly stuff, the chief electoral officer, or whomever—I think we just should have the practice of being televised. It doesn't involve any extra work for us.
I used to do this as a practice with the human rights subcommittee when I was chairing it. We'd frequently meet in this room. It was astonishing how often people would say, “I saw you in Parliament.” And I'd say, “You couldn't have.” What they meant was that they saw me chairing one of those meetings. I got a much broader viewership than I frankly would have anticipated, for what's that worth.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I didn't realize we weren't being televised. I have to tell you that I just assumed we were, because why we wouldn't be is beyond me. We're in the room. It's the chief electoral officer. It's one of the most important issues the public would want to watch us addressing.
Like the public accounts committee, it seems to me that if we're in a room like this and doing public hearings of any sort, we should use the camera system as a matter of course, and only by exception not do so. This really should have been televised. There's absolutely no reason why not, other than our own oversight to make it happen.
Mr. Chair, in future, maybe we could ask the clerk to help us remember to do that when we're doing actual hearings and there's a clear public interest. We're in a room that already has the infrastructure.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I have no objection. If we're in here anyway, and we're talking about something interesting with witnesses, then by all means have the cameras on.
