Evidence of meeting #10 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was panel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Sure, and that was one of the reasons for my suggestion that we move the administration officials from the second half of the 30th to the 5th. That way we would have time for another panel, so we could add additional witnesses on the 30th.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I do see the witness you're talking about on the witness list, Mr. Richards: Citizen Lab. I've made a note of that, and we'll do our best to fit them in and also to make some of your changes that you've suggested after we hear from the rest of the committee members.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
To be clear, the other witnesses I mentioned, the former clerk and the former law clerks, would be a priority over the latter two, from my perspective. However, it would be good if we could have them all. I do see that we have some fairly large panels. It's why I'm suggesting we should allow that second half of the 30th for additional witnesses rather than the House officials, who could come on the 5th, obviously.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you for that. I have marked all of them off and made note of your suggestion of shifting the dates.
I did want to point out one thing that hasn't made it onto these lists yet. Because we are keeping the panels thematic, the House panel, which is the first portion—and we can get back to the suggestion you've made of the length of that first panel—may have more than just that one witness on it. We have reached out to occupational health and safety within the House of Commons as well. Considering we have so many other administrative officials in different categories, it seemed only appropriate to also bring the administrative officials for health-related reasons into that panel. So that panel may not be just one witness. I was told that I could suggest a witness, so, after discussing it with the clerk, that seemed like an appropriate witness to put into that thematic panel, occupational health and safety for the House administration. That may be the second witness.
I believe there are a few other people who would like to speak at this time.
Ryan Turnbull, please.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Madam Chair, I just wanted to support the suggestion of that public health panel. I'd like to make several suggestions for names for that panel. One is the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Tina Namiesniowski—oh, my gosh, I really did a bad job of pronouncing that last name, so my apologies. Others are Howard Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, and Stephen Lucas, the deputy minister of health. I was thinking maybe of possibly, if others support this, considering having one of the previous chief public health officers, Dr. Gregory Taylor or Dr. David Butler-Jones, on that panel.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Madam Chair, I just have a couple of questions.
First of all, the first couple of panels are three-hour sessions. Following on what Mr. Richards was asking about, the length of those panels and whether we were going to have conversations about how to break them up, I notice that on April 28 and after, it's only two hours. I'm wondering where we are on that. Is that something that we're still discussing? The more people we can see the better with this short timeline that we have.
I also agree that if we could bring in the officials who were with us today on the 5th, it would give us more time to have the other folks there.
Those are my comments. I'm wondering very specifically about what the two panels are going to look like in a three-hour session, and if we have to go down to two hours on the 28th because there is some sort of reason from the House.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, I have some information about that.
At this point, I don't have confirmation beyond this week that we would have access to three-hour virtual committee meetings for next week or the subsequent weeks. As of right now, the default is the two-hour meetings. The House administration is aware we would like to go for three hours. They're still trying to work that out, but I haven't had confirmation as of yet if that is possible.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you.
Ms. Blaney, the way it is set up right now for the three-hour meetings, each would be set up into 90-minute panels, but we're discussing that for the first meeting right now.
I want to remind you to raise your hand if you'd like to add anything on the 90-minute panels. There has been some suggestion on the timing for Thursday's meeting. I guess that's what I'm immediately concerned about, because it's the very next meeting we're going to have right after this one and I want to be well prepared for it. Should the panels be kept to 90 minutes each, or should there be some adjustment made for the health panel to be shortened and the subsequent panel to be lengthened?
Mr. Brassard.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Madam Chair, I want to make sure that as we approach the end of our meetings, the last meeting, that we do save a time slot for Mr. Robert and the Speaker. They indicated today that they would be willing to come back. I think it's important that, given the information we're going to hear over the next couple of weeks, they do come back to answer any questions we might have for them on that information.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
This is with respect to the time slots for the two panels.
Since we'll be adding some more public health officials to that list and there won't be only one speaker there, I truly believe we should keep to our hour and a half per panel. I think there will be a lot of good discussion and there will be a lot of questions that we'll have to ask those experts as well.
The Clerk
Mr. Turnbull, perhaps you could pass on to us those additional new names that we weren't aware of.
The meeting that we're talking about is 48 hours from now, or even a bit less than that, so there may be some significant difficulties in trying to secure those people for that first panel on Thursday, beyond the witnesses we have already secured. The chair has mentioned that health and safety officials from the House of Commons could be made available for that meeting. That is something they've indicated to me. We could add, theoretically, those additional people for Thursday.
With regard to many additional people other than that, since no outreach at all has been made to them, we can make best efforts, but it may be difficult to secure them in a very short period of time before the next meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you, Justin. We really appreciate that feedback.
We will do the best job possible to try to have a balanced panel, but it may be, as we see right now, two witnesses on the first panel and four to five on the second panel for 90 minutes each. That's where we stand right now.
As for the rest of the work plan, I've taken note of both Ms. Blaney's and Mr. Richards' comments about having the clerks back and the witness suggestions for the fifth, so we'll arrange that accordingly. There's Citizen Lab, of course O'Brien, and the former law clerk as well; we'll try to adjust it somewhere.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, perhaps I could confirm this one last time.
In panel one on April 23, we'd be talking about public health. In panel two on April 23, it would be legal, constitutional and procedural.
On April 28 we would be looking at a panel with the theme of Internet connection, challenges and Internet security. In panel two on April 28, it would be video conferencing platforms and feasibility.
On April 30 we would be able to look at other jurisdictions. If there is a necessity to add extra panellists—for example, I'm trying to secure additional former clerks of the House and former law clerks—we could possibly slot them in on that date.
May 5 would be reserved for House of Commons officials returning, for example, the Speaker, the Clerk, and other House administration officials more from an IT perspective.
Is that everybody's understanding?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Yes. I just want to clarify one thought with regard to the Thursday meeting.
If we end up having only one or two for that first panel, I would argue that probably, given that there will be five on the second panel, we should still look at one hour versus two hours just because of the size of the panel. Now, if we end up having four or five witnesses in the first panel, then I can understand how leaving it as it is would make sense. Otherwise, I would still argue that we would want to shorten it if we were going to have more than twice as many witnesses on the second panel.
Could you repeat the plans for April 30 and May 5? I'm not sure I quite caught it all.
The Clerk
On April 30 we would have the foreign jurisdictions. Suggestions were made about the U.K. and Scottish parliaments, etc. We could also look to supplement the second panel for that meeting with some of the additional former clerks of the House and former law clerks who weren't able to fit into the second panel on April 23. The second panel on April 23 is already up to five people.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Okay, outside of the one clarification that I just made, it sounds good to me.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I'm not mastering the unmute button as well as I would like.
I'm okay with that, but I want to let everyone know that I have had word from some of my team that ParlVU is just audio. There is no video. I just want to bring that to our attention and find out when that's going to be fixed.
Otherwise, I appreciate very much the clerk's update on the schedule. I agree that if there is a smaller number rather than a larger number on Thursday, maybe we'll have the time and have some flexibility in that area, because we want to get those good questions asked, and a smaller group doesn't need to talk as long.
Thank you for that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you, Ms. Blaney.
You can also use your space bar to unmute if it is for a short intervention. Just hold down your space bar. That makes the process a lot quicker than clicking on mute by moving your mouse around.
Mr. Gerretsen, you're next.