Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. All right.

We'll go on to the next section, “Language rights in Parliament”.

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

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, but did we come to a conclusion on the quorum in the House?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Do you mean Mr. Turnbull's point? Is that what you're—

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

Right, because I thought Andre made a pretty compelling argument as to what the difference was, so I just don't know whether we've—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I was really leaving the ball in your court on that one. I heard no response from anybody on it, and Andre, obviously, is going to do whatever the committee wishes. He did give an explanation that it was in reference to an interpretation of the courts.

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

Right, okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I guess I could clarify.

Ryan, would you like that to be put into this paragraph?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Yes.

I definitely agreed with Madam Normandin's point as well, and I think that would also be a welcome addition. The community of spirit and the living tree interpretation of the Constitution Act is really important for how we interpret quorum.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay, thank you.

On language rights in Parliament, Madam Normandin, do you have a comment?

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

I do, Madam Chair.

The first one is in relation to the footnote at the bottom, footnote 20. When I read the first two paragraphs, it seems to me that the footnote would be better placed after the first paragraph rather than the second one. I don't know if Andre would agree with me on that or what the rationale was.

Paragraph one refers to the Constitution Act, yet the second paragraph refers to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I guess the thumbs-up means that he would be in agreement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, he's in agreement. Thanks for pointing that out. Even for seven o'clock in the morning, I had the footnotes, but I definitely haven't seen the footnotes in depth.

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

It was well before seven.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes.

Okay. It looks like everyone is okay with this section. I saw a lot of thumbs up.

Okay, Mr. Tochor, thank you.

Mr. Richards, did you already...?

Ms. Duncan?

All right. It looks like everyone is good.

The next section is “Canada's Seat of Parliament”, section B.v.

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

Madam Chair, I'm a bit of a history buff. There is a reference in line 28 to the Victoria Building. When the fire happened, it was the Victoria Memorial Museum that Parliament ended up going to. The Victoria Building is on Wellington Street. That's just for clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's a great catch.

Andre, did you get that?

[Andre Barnes]

I would only say that I looked that up and, darn it, I got it wrong.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thanks for bringing that up. I think reading some of these sections about the Constitution and the history of Parliament makes you realize what a special place it is we work in and what a privilege it is to be a member of Parliament.

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

I wouldn't want senators to be upset with the report when they read it, given that the reference to the Victoria Building would create confusion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes.

We're on section C, “Procedural considerations of modifying sittings of the House in response to COVID-19”.

Go ahead, Madame Normandin.

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

Going back to the previous point, I was wondering if this is where it is supposed to go. I do not remember seeing it anywhere else. It seems to me that Dr. Raymond suggested that it would be difficult to move the seat of Parliament right now because it would be impossible to enforce public health regulations elsewhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That is correct. I think we move on to looking at procedural and technological considerations—I'm just trying to refresh my memory—but not the physical....

Go ahead, Andre.

[Andre Barnes]

I will certainly add Madame Normandin's point here, but what she is asking about does appear later on in the report, where Dr. Raymond speaks about an audit. He said to look beginning to end if you're going to change locations. You have to consider everything, not just the building. It does appear later on in the report, but I will certainly put it here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for the point.

Is everyone good with this section? I see some nodding, some thumbs up. Perfect.

Thank you, Mr. Richards, Mr. Alghabra and Mr. Brassard.

We'll move to section D, which is on technological and practical considerations—sorry, I'm jumping ahead of myself. We're still on procedural considerations. I gave a lot of time for that little section before. In my head I was going through the next section already. I'm guessing many of you have already had time to review this section again.

Is everyone okay with this section? Everyone seems to be good.

We'll go to section D. Now we're on the technological and practical considerations.

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

Madam Chair, as we get down to lines 33, 34 and 35, I recall that Mr. Patrice was asked this. It has, “For example, the number of support staff for virtual meetings was double that required for in-person meetings.”

Andre, correct me if I'm wrong, but did we not hear that the number was roughly the same to support both virtual and in-house sittings? The number was roughly 55. I think that needs to be corrected to reflect the accuracy of the information we received, Madam Chair.