Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is my first speaking opportunity here at PROC, and I'm enjoying this debate. I know it's not really my turn, so I appreciate my colleague's yielding the floor to me for a minute.
People are talking about schedules. I'm not sure if there is a perfect schedule. I certainly understand and appreciate the difficulties for members who travel back and forth. I am from British Columbia, and it's a bit of a trek. I go home every weekend, for a variety of reasons. I believe that I need to be in my constituency and be with my constituency staff, at least to touch base with them. Although I talk to them regularly on the phone when I'm here, it's nothing like making that face-to-face connection. Most importantly, it is to connect with my constituents. I'm sure it's like that for all MPs. When you're back in the riding, in your constituency office, your day is just jam-packed. I have half-hour and one-hour meetings all day long until the day ends, and then I attend events into the weekend.
Aside from that, of course, we have family. I have two young children, an eight-year-old and a 14-year-old going on 17. That's always lots of fun. As we talk about extending days, whether in June or in January, no matter how you slice it, for some of us it takes time away from our constituency in the riding and time with our family.
For me, personally, if we stay with the Friday sittings, as we do, I know I'm here for the week. I get home every weekend, even if it's for a day and a half. But if I lose some weeks by extending and changing the schedule in January, then I'm jammed in January. Usually, for me, it means that the kids are getting back to school and I'm trying to orient them back into the school system from the holiday period. That is never easy, because they get into a sort of slug mode over the holidays and I have to ease them back. As a part-time mom already, as it were, because I have to travel so much, I feel that I need to be there to bookend these things when they transition back into the school system. Likewise, in June, we are into the last month of school for the kids, which is usually very busy with exam time, among other things to help the kids with.
Then, as was mentioned, for our own ridings, graduation is a very big moment, and if we lose those moments and are not able to attend those graduations, it means something. In my own riding, there are several aspects to our graduations. My riding is one of the poorest in the country. Many of my constituents, family members and students, have a hard time actually making it to graduation. When I talk about graduation, I'm not just talking about high school graduation. Elementary school graduation is a big deal for me and for the kids in my riding. I try to go there to support the kids and encourage them to make it through to the next phase. Those moments are really important, and when we talk about not being able to be there for those times by stretching our days here, we lose somewhere along the way.
For me, keeping the five-day sittings works way better than stretching it out and doing this other thing.
The other thing that I think people need to remember as well is that it's not just us. I know we all think that it's all about us, but I tell my children, “It's not all about you, because the world is much bigger. Things evolve around you, and you need to be mindful of all the things around you as well.” Let's be clear. If we extend our days to make them longer, which is one suggestion that's being proposed, we have to think about the staff and the people around us as well. For the beautiful people who do the translation, it means their hours are extended and stretched, as well as for all the clerks, the pages, and everyone. We all do this together. I don't know how many hours our staff from our own offices can work. We can sort of work like machines, I suppose, in some ways—it's expected of us, because we are the elected and we're supposed to do that—but all the other people around us are doing that too. Look at all the staff sitting around here today. They're going around the clock. You have to consider them as well.
I remember that when we first came to this place, people were talking about being family-friendly. Family-friendly means more than just us. Family-friendly means all of us, the entire family that makes this place work. It is really important to never forget that, which is so easy when we are talking about changing the rules and what works, and we are only really considering what works from the government side. It's much more than that, and bigger than that.
Mr. Chair, I could go on, and I would love to have another opportunity to interject, but I with that, I want to thank my colleague for yielding the floor to me at this time.