Evidence of meeting #14 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 interpreters.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Yes. Would the Clerk have any last words for us before we look at our draft report and make recommendations?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I think that the approach that you've taken so far, to gradually and slowly become adapted to the technology, is very important. There are some members who are rightly dissatisfied with the risk that comes into being if the technology is not really satisfactory. That, I think, has to be taken into account.
Once that hurdle is cleared, then it's really for you to decide how you want to adapt the current rules with respect to issues like notice, the structure of the order paper and how other information is conveyed to you through your devices. There are all sorts of features that involve technology, which I'm not particularly good at, that might be part of the rules that need to be changed to make a virtual parliament a comfortable environment for all the members.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you so much.
Thank you to the Clerk, to the Speaker, to the law clerk and the entire team. It's been a real pleasure to have you here today. You've given us a lot of insight for our report.
At this point, our witnesses can definitely sign off. I will ask the rest of the committee members to hold on just for a little while longer. We have until five o'clock, and I want to discuss a few things regarding the work plan moving forward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you.
Mr. Duncan, did you have a point you'd like to address?
Mr. Duncan, go ahead.
Mr. Duncan is gone. Maybe he was waving goodbye rather than waving to get in a point of order. Hopefully we can get Mr. Duncan back on. Maybe one of the other Conservative members could message him and let him know that his input would be needed to move forward. It's okay if you guys are good to speak on his behalf.
Next, I want to find out if you had a chance to look at the table of contents that was provided by Andre.
Andre, do you want to walk us through a little bit of this? Before we go through it, I'd like to let you know that we have a full meeting on Thursday to look at the draft report. By Friday, by the end of this week, it would be ideal if we could get the recommendations from each of the parties. I know that's a very tight time frame and it doesn't give you a lot of time to look at the draft report, but maybe Andre could walk us through some of the steps of what would help him in order to be able to produce the draft for us by next week.
Andre Barnes Committee Researcher
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I don't have a lot to say. Hopefully, the table of contents made sense to everyone. Really the only thing I would add is that about 26 pages of testimony have been sent to the translators, but it's just testimony. It's trying to capture what the committee heard.
If the committee wanted to make recommendations, you could look at the table of contents and try to slot in where your recommendations could go. They can go anywhere in the report—at the beginning, the end, the middle, or wherever you feel they would fit.
It's kind of difficult to describe in the abstract what is in the report without actually giving you a copy of the it, but hopefully you can look at the table of contents and get a sense of the structure of it, the direction of it, and what would be in the report at present. Not to continue to ramble, but if you would like to see something in the report that isn't in it now, it's your report and I'd be more than happy to add it, if that helps as a starting point.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Andre, when will you be able to get the first version of the draft report to us? Will that be tomorrow?
Committee Researcher
Translation has received a draft report that has the testimony from Thursday's meeting and Wednesday's meeting, but not today's meeting. They have not got back to me to let me know what they'll be able to provide to us for Thursday's meeting. They've had 17 pages of it for over a week. It's whether or not they can include the nine pages that were added this week and this morning.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Okay. You're saying we'll most likely have at least 17 pages of it by our Thursday meeting.
Committee Researcher
Yes, it certainly should cover, and I hope it would cover, everything except for Wednesday and Thursday of last week, but it might even include Wednesday and Thursday of last week.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
That would be excellent.
Our next meeting is on May 7, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. The whole meeting is going to be on consideration of the draft report. The committee can choose how we wish to go about going through it. We could go through it line by line, make proposals for recommendations, or just talk it out and have our proposals submitted by Friday. We could even talk about that at the beginning of Thursday's meeting. I wanted to put the ideas out there so that you're thinking about them and you come to Thursday's meeting prepared and having thought it through.
Go ahead, Ms. May.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
As a non-member of the committee—and I've been so grateful for the latitude and generosity of so many members to let me participate—is there a way in which I could submit notes to Andre or have access to the draft report to submit thoughts in time for Thursday's meeting? I've been pulling together sort of a framework of analysis for myself and I don't know if that would be of use to the committee. I would like to be helpful.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Are there any comments from any of the members on that?
Just a moment. Maybe we can hear from the clerk on that.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I'm kind of a policy nerd. I love Parliament, so if I can help, I'd love to.
The Clerk
The short answer generally would be that it would be up to the committee to make a decision like that. Members of the committee know that on consideration of a draft report, any decisions related to its contents would be for the permanent members to make or any member properly substituted for a permanent member.
In terms of decision-making, unless Madam May were substituted for one of the permanent members, that would not be something that would generally be envisioned. However, the committee could always make a decision to share the draft report with another member or with Madam May.
As well, there would not be anything stopping Madam May from making suggestions to the committee if she wanted to. She could send suggestions to the committee for them to consider and then accept or reject.
NDP
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
The committee may want to discuss that question without my being online, so I'm going to leave so that you'll have the freedom to discuss it. If it's all right, I'd love to see the draft and I would love to know the best email address to send some thoughts, knowing that they are not going to be translated. I hope they will be useful in framing what we might want to do with the report.
I should leave in case you want to make a decision on whether I can see the draft.
Thank you again.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
To sum up, I want to remind everybody that we're going to have two entire meetings to consider the draft report and then adopt it. The first of those meetings will be this Thursday, and then the next meeting will be on either May 11 or May 12.
After that time, there is going to be a very tight time frame in which to submit supplementary or dissenting opinions. Those supplementary or dissenting opinions cannot be longer than 10 pages, or the same length as the initial report, which we know is going to be longer than 10 pages in this case, so you're fine with that. It will be no longer than 10 pages in this circumstance.
That's about it. Does everybody understand what we're looking at in the next couple of meetings?
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Madam Chair, I don't know if there's a moment for me to ask a couple of quick questions about the outline. First, I'm just checking to see if there's a section that includes a discussion of the platforms and the confidentiality aspect. I just want to make sure.
The other thing is on guiding principles and regional representation. I'm wondering if that's captured in one of these categories.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Regional representation seems to be a very important consideration. Andre, can you respond to whether that can be included?
Committee Researcher
Yes, Chair, I'm just trying to flip back and forth between the document and the screen.
The technological part will be under “ensure digital security of proceedings”.
The regional representation would be under “ensure accessibility of proceedings”.
Those would be the two places I would look at putting that information.
