Evidence of meeting #20 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 hours.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you.
I'll take up where David left off. How does travel by family work? Do the points apply to the individual, or can a whole family go on a single point? Is each dependant given their own point, or do they travel as a group on a point?
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
One return trip equals one travel point. If there's more than one individual, they're using more than one point.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
So a member with four kids will use an awful lot of points in a trip.
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
They are entitled to 64 travel points, or at least round trips within their 64-trip travel allotment. There is a list of qualifying family members who can use the points.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
How many members fly rather than drive? Federally, obviously most members fly, but in Toronto it's probably quite a few less.
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Yes, that's one other thing to keep in mind, that the federal House of Commons has a different challenge. You have members from much longer distances. I would say that we have members who, if they can make the drive within about four hours, more typically drive. For anything longer than that, they're flying back and forth.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
If they drive, do they have to report their family members in the car with them as separate points, or do they go on the one point?
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
No, they don't have to report them.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
You said that the day care is private and operationally independent of the chamber, but I'm curious, if you can answer some of the questions, about operationally how it works. Is there a long waiting list? Is there any capacity for drop-in? Does it stay open long, if the House sits long? It's this kind of operational question, about usability to members.
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
No, it's not tailored to the House, so it sits the regular hours that any day care sits. I think you need to pick up your child by six o'clock in the evening. The last time I checked, there was a wait list—not a long wait list, but a wait list nevertheless. As I say, it operates independently of the Legislative Assembly.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is it open to members and their staff, or all staff of the House? How does it work?
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
It's open to the public, but it's predominantly used by staff. There have been members who have used it. I don't think there's any member currently using it.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Understood.
On another topic, when we have a bill here, it typically takes four days to get through a government bill, this kind of thing. There are less than a third of the number of members in Queen's Park than are here. How long does each member get, because they speak more than once, and how long does it take to get through a bill, typically, in terms of sitting days or sitting hours?
12:40 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
For debate time, each caucus gets a one-hour lead-off on any piece of legislation; thereafter it's a 20-minute allotment of time. After seven hours of debate, it reduces to 10 minutes per member. Following every speech, there is then a 10-minute period for questions and comments.
As to the length of time for a typical bill, we see many bills now being time-allocated. In order to time-allocate a bill, the government has to have allowed for.... Second reading either has to have occurred, with the debate having collapsed naturally, or they have to allow for at least six and a half hours of debate at second reading before they can move a time allocation motion. Time allocation then requires a two-hour debate, and after that, whatever amount of time they've allocated to the further consideration of that bill is what we'll see.
I guess typically we would see.... I've seen bills, with unanimous consent, pass in the blink of an eye and others take months and months. If the government were pressed and wanted to get a bill through the House and committees, they could usually do it in about six days.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Okay. Thank you.
I was going to share my time with Ms. Petitpas Taylor.
May 10th, 2016 / 12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Ms. Deller, first of all, thank you so much for joining us this morning. As you're well aware, PROC has been asked to look at policies to make Parliament more family friendly. That was the first part of the work that was given.
After the past few weeks or few months, we've seen that it's more than that. It's also looking at improving work-life balance for us and also looking at making Parliament more inclusive. For that, I have a bit of a potpourri of questions for you. They may not really follow, but they're just important questions that I really want to ask.
First and foremost, what is the average age of your sitting members right now in Ontario?
12:45 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
I'm going say first of all that we don't have a defined benefit pension plan here for members, so the average age is getting higher. At this point I would say it's probably in the mid-fifties.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Do you think this is perhaps why not many people are using the Kids and Company program—because their kids are probably a lot older?
12:45 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
It could be. We haven't polled the members, so I can't really say for sure. Certainly there are a number of members with young children, but as I say, by and large they already have their own arrangements in place.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
What's the percentage of female members in Ontario?
12:45 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
We currently have 38 female members out of a House of 107.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
At one point during your presentation, you talked about washrooms, saying that all of your washrooms were suited for both men and women, if they had young children. I have a specific question: do you guys have any gender-neutral washrooms in your House?
12:45 p.m.
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Yes. We have gender-neutral washrooms, and those same washrooms are fully accessible. They're single washrooms, so that visitors and staff members who require a little bit of extra space can manoeuvre in them.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Here is one last question, with respect to decorum in the House. Do you guys have any specific policies with respect to keeping the House a bit more civilized in Ontario?
