Evidence of meeting #7 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 sitting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
That's what I'm wondering. We can't dictate to the day care that they need to take as many kids that come their way for as many hours we give them, for example.
Committee Researcher
Under the committee's mandate, PROC does have a special relationship with the Speaker and the Board of Internal Economy whereby it can make recommendations to the Speaker and to the Board of Internal Economy, but those are just recommendations.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Okay. So we can also make recommendations broader, like the minister said when he was here, such as more special points and this kind of thing. That can come out of this committee as well. For someone like me, who has a riding of 20,000 square kilometres, just travelling around the riding is a huge burden on the family.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I want to pick up on this point about nursing mothers and mothers of infants, or fathers of infants, for that matter, because it's not just about being present for voting. It's about being present for the decision-making and for contributing to debate. I know anecdotally of one jurisdiction where a cabinet minister took a one-month leave of absence when she gave birth, and while she was away, cabinet made a decision in her jurisdiction that she didn't agree with. It's a matter of not being present to be able to have your voice heard.
I'm just speculating here, but in many other areas.... I know that when I was with the United Nations we did all kinds of international conferences with people from five continents by using technology, using video technology and using Skype.
Going back to this parallel chamber, is it possible that you could have a virtual parallel chamber where you could actually give a speech that would be on the record? Because it's a minimum of three people for a quorum, it would actually be quite easy to set up some kind of video conference session. People could be in their constituency, or in the case of mothers with infants, they could be with their infants but still be able to get on the record.
I don't even know if this is something that would be possible technologically, but is this something we could consider? I'm just throwing it out there.
Committee Researcher
This is a big question that I don't have an answer for.
Liberal
Committee Researcher
It gives a person pause. I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable, knowing all the difficulties and when you consider the traditions of the House and the Standing Orders...you might find that some might say that anything members would like to do is possible. I truly don't know.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I want to follow up on the point that Anita just raised. I want to express my support in principle to the concept—so I can put it on the record—that we look at alternative ways to participate through video conference. I certainly did it in the private sector through video conferencing and through Skype.
I think the real issue that we must be mindful of at the end of the day as parliamentarians—and Mr. Lamoureux raised this with me in an earlier session—is the importance of making sure that we do not act under duress. For example, we could confirm who we are by biometrics or whatever and confirm that we are in fact there, but unless you're actually physically present in the chamber, you don't know, for example, if off camera someone has a gun to your head and is making you say or do something that you don't agree with.
I'm raising that as a theoretical possibility, right? Perhaps the reason the convention exists that we have to be present is to establish the fact that we act freely and independently as members when we're here.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
It's a fundamental tenet of our membership as members.
Committee Researcher
One of the most important parts of parliamentary privilege is a member's free access to the parliamentary precinct.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Yes. I've known of the concept since at least the seventies, that concept of perhaps voting and participating via video conferencing from your constituency, let's say, as an example. Again, it gets back to the issue of duress. Can you be guaranteed that we're free from duress when we're participating? It might be one thing to put your thoughts on the record. Voting might be another issue.
I raise that just so we're mindful of that principle.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I'll throw the question back to our illustrious analyst.
What ideas do you have to study that we haven't thought about so far?
Committee Researcher
Of the other items mentioned in a document that a colleague and I prepared about gender-sensitive parliaments, one was harassment policies. A subcommittee of this committee put together a report that ended up turning into a code of conduct for members on sexual harassment. It's appended to the current Standing Orders as of the start of the 42nd Parliament.
As for other items that I've read, having read the IPU report recently, I note that you can get into other more far-reaching ideas. I'll just put forward for the committee's consideration some that I've read about.
In other jurisdictions, there are discussions about the number of women and men chairs, for example, or the chair occupants in the House and whether or not there needs to be some sort of balance—you can make the balance whatever you would like it to be—and about officers of Parliament roles for members as a possibility.
Then, if you wanted to get very far-reaching, the IPU report gets into ways to make Parliament more inclusive, to get more different kinds of members elected. That involves a number of different ideas, but presently those are the purview of individual parties and not necessarily of Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
As I specialize in suggesting ideas that haven't been mentioned before, has anybody anywhere that you know of ever considered doing Debates in writing as opposed to orally? That gets rid of all the time limit constraints. We could have a specific issue debated directly in Hansard without having to actually rise in the House to say it.
I know that Kady is going to hate this, but it's food for thought. It's a way of getting in additional debate without additional time.
Committee Researcher
I could give a historical note on the reason why first reading, second reading, and third reading occur. This is a holdover from the Westminster parliaments from the days of old, when people couldn't read. It was also very expensive to print things. They would read the bills either because members couldn't read or because it was too expensive to give everyone a copy.
This would be going to the far end of that.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Mr. Barnes, I want to ask you a quick question about child care spaces with respect to our processing times. It's my understanding that the waiting list is up to two years. How are other jurisdictions dealing with it? I know that in part it's because there are only 34 spaces, but how do other jurisdictions operate? Do other jurisdictions actually have child care spaces? What are their practices?
How do we address that? Is it a functional problem here in that we only have so much space to accommodate children? Do we need a bigger space? What's the challenge that we're facing here in this House of Commons?
Committee Researcher
I will come back to the committee with an answer to that.
Liberal
