Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Ian McCowan]

Again, I'm not actually involved in the security determinations in terms of, for example, what connectivity is used in various formats. But yes, all of the appropriate security agencies of government are involved in that. If it would be useful to the committee, I could get you a quick summary of the latest on Zoom relative to government operations. I'd be happy to do that.

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

Yes, if you could provide that, it would be very much appreciated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Next is Madam Petitpas Taylor, please.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. It's great to be able to learn from your experiences.

Also, before I get going with my questioning, happy birthday to our Bloc colleague.

In response to my first question, I'd like to hear from all of our international witnesses, but perhaps less from Mr. Hamlyn, because we've already heard from him on this matter. I'm wondering if our international witnesses could comment on whether they had all-party consensus to move forward with virtual sittings to deal with the pandemic and to properly address physical distancing.

[Siwan Davies]

I'm happy to go first and to say yes, we did. Our business committee, which has representation from all of the parties, did agree to this.

[David McGill]

I can quickly add that it was very much the same in Scotland. We had cross-party consensus from a very early stage, and that was conducted through the cross-party parliamentary bureau.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you so much for that.

Mr. Hamlyn, I have a quick question for you.

Is your Parliament considering passing legislation virtually to allow remote participation by all members?

[Matthew Hamlyn]

We don't need to pass legislation to do that, because it would be a matter of our own Standing Orders. We already have passed a temporary order that allows remote participation in proceedings under arrangements to be made by the Speaker. That's already in place.

The House will have to review those motions, because the resolutions expire on May 12. We have our own sunset clause as well. We'll need to revisit the resolutions that allow for virtual proceedings quite soon.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you for that, Mr. Hamlyn.

I have another quick question for you. Following up on my Bloc colleague's question with respect to the hybrid model, was there a reason you chose the hybrid model for question period?

[Matthew Hamlyn]

We chose the hybrid model because the Speaker of the House didn't want to be in the position where members were actually forbidden from coming to Westminster. There's a very ancient right that MPs have—and which some of them claim—to come to a sitting of the House wherever it is, and you don't want to rule that out. Therefore, we were asked to devise a.... He also asked us to start with questions and ministerial statements, because he felt that accountability of government was the most important thing to start with. We then worked out fairly quickly that we could expand it to legislation and other business. However, we started with questions to ministers, essentially because that's what the Speaker asked us to start with, and we had to start somewhere. The hybrid model was deliberately there to provide parity for the members who are there in person and those not there in person.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Are the MPs who are choosing to attend the House living nearby? Are the members of Parliament respecting the need to limit their travel?

[Matthew Hamlyn]

I've not yet done a really detailed analysis of who's physical and who's virtual. Ministers so far have tended to appear in person, partly because the Speaker has said it's easier to manage the chamber, from his point of view, if the ministers are there.

We've had a mixture of two ministers answering questions, one virtually and one physically. It helps if the minister has significant technical problems that we have someone in the chamber, but no, some London-based members of Parliament have contributed virtually. Some members have come from a distance to participate physically. The data is all published now so people are already looking at it to see what patterns they can see.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time we have.

Next up we have, is it Mr. Tochor or Mr. Brassard?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I believe it's Mr. Tochor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Tochor, you have four minutes.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much for the presentation.

My comment and questions have to do with the quality of democracy during virtual parliaments. I'd like to hear about the experiences of other parliaments on the concerns of going virtual, right now our question period being the primary example. Unfortunately, it is going down a path of prepared questions and prepared answers, and it's not the questions per se that are the concern. It's the answers.

If we move to a virtual democracy where people will be responding to questions, I suspect it will be teams of people on other computers drafting other responses versus the minister or actual debate among members. How do we protect the quality of our democracy? The longer we go down this path of having people other than elected officials control or influence our democracy behind the scenes, I think it's a terrible direction for us to go.

If you look back to Westminster-style democracy, if you look at why a bill has three readings and why it has to be read out loud, it goes back to the belief that it's the individual member, not the team of people behind him, who is directing our democracy.

Do you have a comment on that? If anyone has any responses to that concern, I would be interested to hear them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It seems as if the question is open to everybody.

[Siwan Davies]

I might be brave enough to go first.

From our experience in Wales, albeit the participation is virtual, the members are being asked questions they didn't know of in advance and the ministers themselves are answering. Therefore, I think it isn't any different from being in the chamber.

In our chamber, for example, members will have IT equipment, so the issues about somebody sending them something would pertain there in any case. I think thus far our committees and our plenary are not disadvantaged by meeting virtually as opposed to meeting physically. As someone who's worked in legislatures in Australia and in the U.K., I think the forum in which you meet doesn't necessarily control what members will do and say, and who will direct them. I think that's more of a political question rather than one for us as officials.

[David McGill]

If I could offer an observation from Scotland, one of the things we have noticed is that because some of our question times have been out of the parameters of the Standing Orders, it has meant that the questions are not submitted and published in advance, so the cabinet secretaries responding to those questions don't have any idea what is going to be asked.

It's difficult to say whether that is an improvement in democracy, given that the subject matter is very sombre, so it's difficult to see the politics at play here. It's not a case of opposition members trying to catch government members out or holding them to account in that kind of real political sense. We have noticed a freeing up, a tendency to be a bit more flexible in that virtual space, that we tend not to be in the physical space.

[Matthew Hamlyn]

If I may, Chair, very briefly, I would agree with all of that.

We haven't changed any of our rules on the content of questions and answers, so we still have members asking questions. Ministers have not had any notice of the substance of the questions, so they have to be ready to respond whether they're virtual or physical. There has been a lot of discussion about the performance of the new leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, in the last couple of weeks. People have been watching him at question time, during the Prime Minister's questions, and noticing how well he is doing. They notice whether he's physically there or not, but there's been no feeling the new technology has changed the way the actual politics is working.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you so much. That's all the time we have.

The next questioner is Dr. Duncan.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your experience and your wonderful expertise.

I'll begin with Ms. Davies.

Is it correct you have in place remote voting?

[Siwan Davies]

We have the ability to vote through our virtual proceedings, but it's not an electronic voting system. It's weighted voting and casting the votes on behalf of their party group. They are orally being asked. There's a roll call, and they're stating that they're casting their votes in a certain way. It is remote and it's virtual. It's not electronic voting, although in our physical chamber we have electronic voting.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

To Scotland, Mr. McGill, you've changed the Standing Orders. Might you be willing to table with the committee the options you're considering for remote voting?