Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Perfect.

André, will you add that in? Okay.

We're past the U.K. now and on Wales.

Okay, everyone is good with the overview and the changes to the standing orders.

Thank you.

I'll try to get to my two versions at the same time.

All right, I think we're good for the challenges section.

As for Australia, we're heading into the new part of the report that we didn't go over the last time, so I'll give everybody a bit more time.

I hope we've all done our homework, and it seems like most of you have.

Are we good with Australia?

Yes, Mr. Brassard.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Go ahead, Mr. Brassard.

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

I thought we were still on the challenges.

There are a couple of things that I note. Page 19, line 2—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Is this for Australia?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Page 19 is Australia and then New Zealand....

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

Okay, stand by.

Sorry, we're going quickly here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

There's no problem.

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

I will have some stuff on New Zealand.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. You have stuff on New Zealand.

Is Australia good? All right.

Mr. Brassard, go ahead on New Zealand.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There are a few things to note here. On page 19, line 2, replace "be fixed". It should be "to be fixed". I don't know if Andre would agree with me on that. Add "to be fixed by the Speakers".

On page 19, lines 4 to 7, it should read, "On 25 March 2020, the New Zealand House of Representatives announced". The issue here is that the content of the proxy votes is repeated two paragraphs later. Lines 4 to 7 is replaced with, "On 25 March 2020, the New Zealand House of Representatives announced".

The other change that I would suggest is on page 19, line 11, replace "that Parliament is suspended until 28 April 2020" with "Parliament was adjourned", so replace "Parliament is suspended" with "Parliament was adjourned". It goes back to what I said that this came up earlier when the House resumed its usual schedule of three sittings per week.

The last one is a question for Andre.

On page 19, line 22, to page 20, line 2, if the resolution referred to has any prospect of being adopted, is this going through and randomly picking private members' motions off the Order Paper? I'm curious whether—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You're jumping into the United States there, right?

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

I'm sorry. Okay, let's stick with New Zealand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Let's just stick with New Zealand.

Andre, did you get the two changes to New Zealand?

Yes, okay.

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

There were three, actually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Oh, there were three? Okay. Andre has them. I only followed two.

We're good with that, and now we're going on to the United States.

Go ahead, Mr. Brassard.

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

Again, from line 22 to line 2 on page 20....

I'll wait.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Sorry, Mr. Brassard. I was just having a sidebar with the clerk.

On the United States, Andre, you have the point made there. Have you any comments on that?

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

Andre, I don't think we discussed it. We mentioned it, but then we went back.

The report refers to a resolution that was introduced in the U.S. Senate to allow members to vote remotely rather than by coming to the Senate chamber.

Andre, does this resolution have any prospect of being adopted? I'm trying to figure out where that reference came from and whether it has any chance of being adopted. Was a private member's bill put forward?

I don't know what context we got that information from and why that specific reference is in the report.

[Andre Barnes]

Madam Chair, I understand Mr. Brassard's question. This section, as well as the sections on Australia and New Zealand, was kindly provided to me by a colleague, so I'm not able to speak too intelligently about where my colleague found this information, but I can look into it.

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

Okay.

[Andre Barnes]

If it turns out that it's not worth putting in the report, I can remove it.

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

That's where I'm coming from. It wasn't evidence that came to the committee, and I don't know the context for this resolution. Is it the equivalent of a private member's bill, for example, that we would see in our Parliament, which for the most part, unless it's supported by all sides, wouldn't have a chance?

There are issues related to members of the U.S. Senate, for example, casting their votes remotely. Frankly, I don't see the need, Madam Chair, to have that part of this in there for any other reason—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

If it's found to be accurate.... I'm just trying to cover everything we're going through right now, with all the provincial legislatures that come right after this. At our last meeting the committee requested that the analyst do his own research and insert all of these because we hadn't heard from all these different regions.

Now I'm a little confused. We've had him do all this work and put it into the report, and now we're not going to find that any of the witnesses mentioned any of these other regions, other than the ones we heard from.