Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We missed part of the interpretation. If you would please repeat yourself, we could have the interpreter follow the whole thought.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay.

The question was whether we had thought about what we could do in the House when someone disappears. It doesn't happen every day. We're looking into that, but I don't have a solution yet. It's very important that we take that eventuality into account in the procedure of the House so that members can reconnect and complete their remarks if they lose the connection in the middle of their speech. We have to make sure it works.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd also like your comments on respecting the parliamentary calendar. In your opinion, should the virtual Parliament comply with the parliamentary calendar as it exists, or should it be possible to hold virtual meetings outside the parliamentary calendar?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The parliamentary calendar exists. That's a decision of the House, not the Speaker. Parliament can be called at the request of members that Parliament. I don't have the power to do that.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd like to know if you've already started thinking about the possibility of amending the Standing Orders for the holding of certain votes. I'm thinking in particular of a vote of confidence that would be held in person, but with a reduced number of people. A question was asked about this last week.

Should this vote be considered valid, and should it be allowed to happen?

Has this issue ever been considered, given that this is a minority government?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

That's a decision that must be made by the House and not by the House Administration. The current rules were put in place a long time ago. Some of them reflect the reality of 1867, and much has changed since then. Some of the rules of the House have changed.

If we ever wanted to change the rules, that would be a decision for the House. It couldn't come from outside. If the House wants to have votes, whether they are confidence votes or not, it's the House that has to make the changes. The House has to determine its own rules.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rota.

I think I'm running out of time, Madam Chair. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I interrupted you for about 30 seconds, so....

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'd have time to ask a question, but not enough time for an answer. So I'll give it up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I thank all of you so much for being with us today.

You know, the reality is that as I go through this process, I feel very strongly that the more I learn, the more questions I have. I feel pretty strongly that this is not the end of the study. I'm wondering if you could speak to whether or not you would advise this committee to continue to do some of this work, noting that the reality is that we could have a second or third wave of COVID-19 and we don't know what other potential challenges we may face in the future that would provide us an opportunity to look at a virtual parliament.

Could you speak to that, Mr. Speaker?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I encourage the committee to continue with this to find alternatives, virtual or whatever else might come up, certainly, and to continue to look at what procedures we do have in the House. Actually, as I said earlier, there might be some spilling over into the House, because if you do an in-depth study and find out what works and what doesn't work in other places, it's something that you can bring back here.

When we look at the situation that exists now, you were given a very short time as a committee to come up with what is, I'm going to say, a macro-level solution. Now, once that report comes in, there's implementation, and we will need more in-depth answers to that macro solution. I would hope that the committee would continue to look at what we have, how we can implement it and how it will make not only virtual meetings but also actual in-house meetings better.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I also want to express my appreciation for your talking about the need for regional representation in this pandemic, and that's why virtual sittings are so important. As a person from British Columbia who represents a fairly large remote and rural riding, the realities in my riding are very specific, and I feel that it is my most important honour in this role to represent the voices of my constituents.

One of the things that we've also talked about is really needing a framework of standing orders so that, if we ever hit a situation like this, we have something we can pull off the shelf that provides a great way for all the House officers to start having that negotiation and that discussion. I'm wondering if you could talk about whether or not you think it would be appropriate to have standing orders that are ready for this kind of issue and if there are recommendations from the Speaker's office and from the clerks around what specific challenges we may have in some of those standing orders.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

There's no question right now, and that's what the standing orders are about. if you look, the standing orders we have now are not the same standing orders we had back in 1867 when they were first put in place. As time goes on, we modify things. Again, Parliament—the House of Commons—is a creature of the House itself, the members, so as things go on, whether virtually, live or a hybrid of some sort, those standing orders that you're going to suggest as a committee or the Clerk and his staff will suggest.... I would hope that, working together, we can come up with something that works very well so that the next time something like this does happen, a crisis, we will be ready.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

When we talk about the need to explore voting, I think the other part that has come out in these meetings is the requirement for committees to meet in camera and have a higher level of security. This is something I am concerned about in terms of voting as well. I want to make sure that voting is done as safely as it possibly can be done.

I'm wondering if there is there any work being done around looking at other ways of making sure there's that level of security, which we are not sure Zoom has, especially around things like in camera meetings and voting, specifically for this study.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

It's definitely something that is being looked at by our technical staff, and there are examples of technology that exists out there. It's just a matter of taking it and modifying it so that it works in Canada with, as I said, our vast geography and our time zones as well.

We do have five time zones. I don't envy MPs who come from B.C. I envy their weather in the middle of the winter, but other than that, having to travel to Ottawa and to have that time difference makes it difficult. As soon as you have a vote that might be at a certain time, it really doesn't make sense in B.C. versus Newfoundland, and that's something to consider as well. It's something that we have to look at.

One of the other things that we have to look at, as I mentioned, is that the rules were mainly created in 1867. We talked about Parliament, and that was basically an assembly of people. That's what we were looking at, bringing people together in one place, but what was the intent? Was it to have them physically there or have their minds there? That's something we have to examine and determine. Is a physical presence necessary in order to vote and in order to speak, or is the person being there in spirit, through virtual connection, really good enough for what we are trying to accomplish? That's something we have to come to an agreement on. Right now, it is a physical presence in the chamber.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I'm a big fan of the physical presence. I think it's important for MPs from different parties to talk to each other.

Right now we're in a minority government, and when we look at the level of collaboration that has been happening, I think all Canadians are feeling assured by that, but I'm wondering about structures in terms of making sure the collaboration continues whether or not we have a majority or minority government.

Have you guys looked at that in any way?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time we have, but maybe we can get the answer to that in our other rounds.

Next up we have MP Tochor.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the presentation.

Thank you to the other clerks who are here today.

My questions are on the contract with Zoom.

How long has the House of Commons been working with Zoom?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

For this one, I think I'll defer to Monsieur Patrice or Monsieur Aubé.

Mr. Aubé, I'll let you answer the question.

[Stéphan Aubé, Chief Information Officer, Digital Services and Real Property, House of Commons]

Madam Chair, thank you for the question.

We have been working with Zoom over the last six weeks.

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

Do we have a contract with Zoom?

[Stéphan Aubé]

I don't want to have a discussion on terms, but we actually have a licensing agreement with them to use their products right now. We don't have a master agreement, as they would say in the IT field, with that company yet.

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

Who would sign that contract, then, or that agreement?

[Stéphan Aubé]

Actually, I am personally responsible for the purchasing of the licences that we have right now. If we were to have a master agreement put in place, both the CFO and I would be the signing authorities, as we usually are for contracts.