Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We don't want to get into a bad habit of starting late. We're already a couple of minutes late.

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number seven of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the first session of the 42nd Parliament. This meeting is being held in public.

Our first business today is a presentation from the committee's analyst, Andre Barnes, in connection with our study of initiatives toward a family-friendly or more inclusive House of Commons.

After that, under committee business we will consider recommendations from the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, which met this morning and has drafted some work for the next month or so for the committee's approval.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I might, I want to point out for the benefit of Mr. Lamoureux that if he's looking for a role model and continues to insist on being at these meetings, I just left public accounts where Joyce Murray is the parliamentary secretary and she respectfully sat right to the very end. She did her other work and didn't speak once. It was such fresh oxygen that the committee actually stood on its own two feet, your colleagues, all by themselves. They didn't need to lean on the parliamentary secretary.

I would suggest to the member that if he insists on still coming, he might want to look at the model provided by Madam Murray, who I think showed the kind of respect to the commitment the government has made that, so far, Mr. Lamoureux has failed to live up to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

I'm now going to turn it over to Andre. He's not a formal witness, so at any time during the presentation people can ask questions. There's no order of questioners or anything. This will be a much more informal discussion.

Andre, you're on.

[Andre Barnes, Committee Researcher]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Committee members will have received a series of documents in the past several weeks that deal with different aspects of family-friendly practices in other jurisdictions. It depends on how the committee would like to proceed. I could begin by going over the document that's called “Family-Friendly Practices In Other Jurisdictions”, because that's the one that covers the most practices abroad. If committee members would like to discuss the parallel chambers in other jurisdictions, we can do that. There's also a document—and I apologize that it was sent out so late; it took a while to do—on Standing Order 31 equivalents in other jurisdictions, and sitting hours and sitting periods in other jurisdictions. That was sent out not too long ago. Members presumably have not had a chance to look at that one.

If the committee would like, I could proceed by going through this document here. Do feel free to interrupt with questions at any point. I might not be able to answer them, but I will come back to you with an answer as soon as possible.

The document covers sitting hours in selected national and provincial jurisdictions. It covers proxy voting, allowing babies on the floor of the House during a sitting, and a last catch-all category of family-friendly policies that covers what's currently in place in Canada's Parliament for parental leave and child care facilities.

To begin with sitting times, changes to a Parliament's sitting times are generally considered to be among the most common family-friendly reforms. As a place to start, it might be helpful to compare Canada's House of Commons sitting hours with other jurisdictions, in particular, the Canadian provincial and territorial legislatures, the U.K. House of Commons, the Australian House of Representatives, and the New Zealand House of Representatives.

In 2016, Canada's House is scheduled to sit 127 days over 26 sitting weeks. The Clerk of the House indicated during his appearance before the committee that generally the House sits 135 days per year. As members are very much aware, the House sits 8 hours on Monday and 4.5 hours on Fridays. By comparison, Canada's House of Commons sits fewer days than the U.K.'s House of Commons, but sits more frequently than Australia's House, New Zealand's House, and every provincial and territorial jurisdiction in Canada.

To get into the details, the U.K.'s House sits 150 days per year over 34 sitting weeks. That compares to 135 days here over 26 sitting weeks. It's worth noting that in the U.K.'s House of Commons, they do not generally sit every Friday. They have designated Fridays. For the calendar year 2015-16 they designated 13 sitting Fridays, and they don't sit on the other Fridays.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

That means essentially that half of the weeks are four-day weeks and half of the weeks are five-day weeks.

[Andre Barnes]

In fact, it's less, because it's 13 out of 34.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

It's a third. Okay.

[Andre Barnes]

Exactly.

New Zealand and Australia also sit considerably less than Canada's House of Commons. In 2015 New Zealand's House sat for 90 days over 25 sitting weeks, and Australia's House sat for 68 days over 28 sitting weeks. The reason these jurisdictions sit less than us is that they sit three and four days a week. New Zealand's House sits for three days a week, and Australia's House sits for four days a week. There was a long period when Australia's House, from the 1950s to 1984—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sorry to interrupt you, but I have a quick question.

You've indicated that a couple of them currently don't have any Friday sittings. U.K. has some of the Fridays. Is that something that has always existed in those jurisdictions, or were there at one time Friday sittings and they've gone away from them?

That's something that would be especially interesting to hear about.

[Andre Barnes]

The changes in the U.K. appear to have been made piecemeal over time. It started in 1997 and they finally made some changes in 2005, when it was recommended that the House study sitting times. The changes were finally made in 2012. They eliminated Friday sittings between 2012 and 2015

I emailed them to find out more about it, because it must have happened so recently that I couldn't find any information on it. But they did it piecemeal. In the U.K., the House sittings began later and ended later, and they gradually moved them all to earlier.

In Australia and New Zealand, their procedural manuals—their equivalent of O'Brien and Bosc—make it sound like they've sat like that since the beginning. It might not be the most useful comparison because Australia for half of its existence has had three days a week. From 1950 to 1984 it sat three days a week and more recently it sits four days a week. New Zealand only sits three days a week and it made it sound like that's always been the case.

I looked to see if anything said why they didn't sit five days a week and I couldn't find any information on it. It might be something worth asking officials from their jurisdictions.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Where the times have gone up, where they used to sit three or four days and they've gone to five, have they increased the number of hours?

[Andre Barnes]

I've found in the provincial jurisdictions that there have been increases. When you decrease, if you remove time from one time.... For example, I think it was British Columbia; it got rid of night sittings and extended the length of the day on the other days to compensate for it. I have not seen a jurisdiction add a sitting day.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Typically the trend is either to decrease the sitting days or weeks, or to rejig so that they're doing it at different times.

[Andre Barnes]

This is what I've found.

Also, perhaps interesting to the committee is that in Scotland when they were designing a parliament in 1999, they decided to make family-friendly sittings—and family-friendly for everyone, for staff and for members—to be one of their principles and priorities. It's something that's on the radar of these different jurisdictions.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I thought maybe I just heard a contradiction. I think you indicated that Australia had at one point sat three days a week and had moved to four. Then I thought maybe you had just indicated the number of sittings.

Did they reduce the number of weeks when they went to four days a week?

[Andre Barnes]

From what I could gather from reading their manual, from around the 1900s, when that jurisdiction began, it was four days a week. Then they went down to three days a week from 1950 to 1984, and then from 1984 to present they went back up to four days a week.

I don't know about the amount. I know about the amount of time that they currently sit, but I'm afraid I don't know much more about it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

So they've kind of gone back and forth a little bit.

[Andre Barnes]

Yes. Meanwhile New Zealand appears to have sat for three days for a long time.

In comparison with the territorial and provincial jurisdictions, 10 of 13 provincial and territorial jurisdictions do not sit on either Monday or Friday. Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia do not sit on Mondays. Seven do not sit on Fridays: Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and Yukon.

Quebec has an interesting innovation that they put in place in 2009, where they designate certain sitting periods in the year as ordinary hours and other periods as extended hours. I can talk a little bit more about that later. During ordinary hours, the Quebec National Assembly does not sit on Mondays or Fridays.

That's sort of a broad overview of the sitting times and schedules and how Canada's House of Commons compares to other jurisdictions.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I hate to keep interrupting.

The same question, I guess, applies here and to the provinces. You indicated that a number don't sit on Mondays or don't sit on Fridays, and I think there were one or two that were both.

Were any of those places that have adjusted it? In other words, did they have the five-day sittings and then they reduced it?

[Andre Barnes]

The tricky part and difficulty of researching the different jurisdictions just by going on what's online is that they don't tend to have a manual like we do with the O'Brien and Bosc, so you really have to dig around.

I did find that Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario had made changes recently. Those were changes to compress the week, but they also made up for the time.

I will mention some innovations that might be of interest to the committee that other jurisdictions have put in place. One that came up during the House leader's appearance before the committee was two distinct sitting days on one calendar day.

That happens in British Columbia. They got rid of late-night sittings in 2007 and made up for the hours elsewhere. Then in 2009, they implemented on three of the four sitting days, two distinct sitting days on one day.

So, in other jurisdictions you'll see that there's a break during the day. There are different periods during the day when you look at the schedule. Those are just suspensions. They do not count them officially as different, distinct sitting days, but they do in British Columbia.

That was the only jurisdiction I found that had brought that into place. That is on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday; they have two distinct sitting days.

Interestingly, Quebec, which I mentioned before, devised a schedule with two distinct sitting periods: ordinary hours and extended hours. Ordinary hours begin in February and end at the beginning of May. Extended hours run from late May until the end of June, and from November until December.

The other innovation that might be of note for the committee was in Ontario. The daily sittings were moved to an earlier time. Night sittings were eliminated. Question period was moved to 10:45 each morning. My understanding was that it was formally held during a floating time between 1:45 p.m. and 3 p.m.. It should be noted that the change in time of the sitting period did come into some criticism at that time because it was felt that the opposition could not properly prepare for question period, having been held so early in the morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Does anyone still sit at night?

[Andre Barnes]

There are late sittings in a lot of jurisdictions. Australia goes until 9:30 p.m. New Zealand's House of Representatives on Tuesdays and Wednesdays sits from 7:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. The U.K. sits from 2:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. on Mondays. So, night sittings still exist in a number of jurisdictions, although all the provinces appear to more or less adjourn by 6 p.m.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We sit until midnight in June as well in our extended sittings, right?

[Andre Barnes]

I did not dig into the possibility of extended sittings. The Standing Orders in the House do provide for extended sittings; on the calendar, there's a little star beside the last two weeks in June, and then around the holidays. I'm not sure if those jurisdictions have that. I can come back to the committee with that.

Those were more or less the highlights, I think, about the sitting hours in the different jurisdictions. Do members have any other questions about that?

I can move on to proxy voting. This innovation exists. It was put in place in 1996 in New Zealand. It allows one member to give their vote to another member to cast it in the chamber for them, so they don't physically have to be present. In New Zealand it did not sound as though they put that innovation in place to make the chamber more family friendly; they just did it to make it more convenient for members. Meanwhile, that was adopted in Australia in 2008. That was put in place to help mothers who are breastfeeding.

There are certain rules, especially in New Zealand, about the use of a proxy vote. It must be signed and dated. It must contain the name of the person authorized to cast the vote on the member's behalf. There's a duration of the proxy. The proxy can be open in nature for all business for an indefinite period of time.

Importantly, a proxy vote in New Zealand can only be exercised if the member issuing the proxy is actually present somewhere in the parliamentary precinct or is attending a select meeting outside of the capital, Wellington, or has been granted a leave of absence by the Speaker. So, there is certainly a very circumscribed use of it.

Meanwhile, in Australia, there was a study conducted by their procedure committee about the use of proxy votes. In 2008, they did put in place a proxy system. The way it works there is that the member may vote by proxy if the member is nursing an infant at the time of the division. The term “nursing an infant” refers to any activity related to the immediate care of an infant. It doesn't necessarily mean breastfeeding, for example; it means immediate care of the infant.

The whips only require the member to state that they are caring for an infant and no further explanation is required. The government members give their vote to the government whip members, and non-government members give their votes to the chief opposition whip members.

That is proxy voting in those two jurisdictions.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That was in New Zealand, and where was the other?