Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2020

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

To Mr. Turnbull's and Dr. Duncan's point, I agree about trying to have some consistency. I think the comment that Mr. Brassard and I would agree with is that in the last few days, which I think is important, each province is looking at their own situation with the pandemic and what works for them, but I think what's omitted here is that several legislatures are looking at going back in person, probably. We have Manitoba. We have Quebec—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

We have British Columbia. [Technical difficulty—Editor] we acknowledge those who are doing that safely. Their own decision, I think, does show that there are examples of that happening, with the most updated information.

Andre does have my sympathy. This changes by the hour. I'm sure by the time—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Duncan, it's not because of what you're saying and I don't want to have to interrupt you, but there's no translation, so not everyone can hear what you're saying right now.

We're going to suspend just for a few minutes so that the technical team can help us resolve some of these issues. I think in your case, Mr. Duncan, you had the headset plugged in and then you removed it. Something happened with your system there.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Yes, they're going to try to call me again here. I apologize. If I have it plugged in, it gets a lot of static.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It's not a problem. We'll just suspend for two minutes.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We are going to resume the meeting. We'll carry on with Mr. Duncan's remarks.

Who just said “Madam Chair”? Was it you, Mr. Brassard?

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

No, it's Mr. Tochor. I'm taking part in the COVI committee. Garnett Genuis is going to be logging on here shortly to sit in for me on this committee. After I'm done with the other committee, I'll come back here and take part again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Sure. Could you just stay on while Garnett is logging on? Once he's fully logged on, you can leave.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. That's perfect.

We're going to resume with the comments made by Mr. Duncan.

You can repeat some of your comments so they can be translated.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be brief.

Respecting what Mr. Turnbull and Dr. Duncan had mentioned, I agree that the situation with all the legislatures is evolving on an almost hourly basis, but I think it is important that what is omitted right now is the acknowledgement that British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec are coming back in some form of a physical presence a couple of days a week. If we could acknowledge that where it's applicable, I think that is important for context as we continue our conversations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

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

I want to say that I do deeply agree with Dr. Duncan. We need to also reflect what's happening within those provinces around COVID-19, because some of those decisions are made for different reasons, and I think measuring the action with the outcome is going to become a long-term part of the responsibility of all parliamentarians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] I don't know what's happening there.

I don't know how to proceed, really, with these sections right now—

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

Madam Chair, just to make a further point, I appreciate where everybody is coming from on this, but I don't think we're asking for anything more than to accurately reflect what is happening across the country with respect to provincial legislatures. It's widely reported. It's in the news. Premiers and house leaders within those provinces have come out every day and have said “This is what we're doing, and we're doing it for this reason.”

To have it reflected in this report I think accurately reflects what's happening across the country. After all, that's what we're trying to do here. It's to provide Parliament with a report on what's going on. I don't see any real issue with doing that. Everybody knows that we're in the midst of a global pandemic, and each province is responding differently, as it is their right to do, but the fact is that they are responding to opening up their legislatures.

The report goes to Parliament and is to be tabled on Friday, and we should have an up-to-date report on where the legislatures are at. I don't think that's asking for much other than the truth, quite frankly, of what's going on and what's reflected across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

We'll go to Mr. Duncan and then Mr. Turnbull.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Could I suggest a compromise?

If we're adding into those points what Ms. Blaney and the others have mentioned, then perhaps at the beginning of section F, before we start listing the details of each province, could we allude in a sentence or two there to how the situation is evolving in each province and each legislature, as are the pandemic situations in each province, so the responses are varied? I have no problem acknowledging that, yes, it's different in P.E.I. from what it is in B.C. and in Quebec. I don't have a problem with acknowledging something at the beginning in order to allude to that situation as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Next we have Mr. Turnbull, and then Dr. Duncan and Ms. Blaney.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I appreciate the comments made by my colleagues, Madam Chair, and I appreciate Mr. Duncan's attempt at a middle ground or a compromise solution.

You know, I was the CEO of a company for over a decade. We did 350 research reports over that time, so I have some expertise in this area. I would never ask an analyst or researcher who did not do the original research to go and update that information with some simple Google searches just because the client didn't particularly like the results that were reported.

I'm pushing back strongly against this suggestion because I feel that it puts an added burden on the analyst to supplement research that he himself did not do. It doesn't stay true to the integrity of the research that was done at a single point in time, and just in general I think it creates additional work.

If we were to do it justice, we'd really have to look at.... To Mr. Duncan's point, having a general statement about the context being different isn't quite substantial enough for me to feel confident that the decisions that those provincial legislatures were making are adequately represented in context, because I'd really like to see an overview of what the public health scenario looks like, how many cases they have, what the trends look like, what the specific risks were for them, what their public health professionals were reporting and so on.

I think we risk creating an added bunch of work for the analyst to do right at the last minute before the report is produced. I think this information was presented to us quite a substantial number of weeks ago, and if it were the desire of the committee to have it regularly updated until the finish line, we should have expressed that in advance, in my opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right.

Let's have Dr. Duncan and then Ms. Blaney, please.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I too am concerned. We asked Andre to do this work. That work has been done in a consistent manner, and now it appears that some of us don't like some evidence or want other evidence added in. That is not how things are done. It should be a consistent approach.

While I too appreciate Mr. Duncan's suggestion, unless it's a full public health picture of what those cases look like on the ground—and I'm not sure that we've had any of that testimony at the provincial and territorial levels—I think we should stick with the analysis that was done. It was consistent.

If you're going to start cherry-picking evidence—and that's what it looks like—I think it's really important that we have that public health information for context, but I would be comfortable staying with what was initially given and what was requested.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

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

I think I need to clarify something first of all.

I do agree that there should be an addition to the provinces about the process for their legislatures to return. As far as I can see, all of those provinces that have a plan have developed something that they are presenting, so it isn't up to us as parliamentarians to decide if provincial governments did it the way we wanted.

I know that in B.C. the plan deeply involves the public health requirements. We have a method of measurement and there's a slow rolling out of the process. There's a lot behind that, so I just want to make sure that both sides of those are recognized.

I also want to take this opportunity to respectfully disagree with Mr. Turnbull. The reality is that we are trying to do something in a very short time that is connected to the essence of our democracy. The fact is that we're forced to get this report done in this time, and I respect the need for it, but I don't think it helps any of us if we don't recognize how many flaws will be in our report. We simply don't have the appropriate time to do the work we were tasked with. That's nothing against the analyst, who has been amazing through this process, but as we do this report, I don't think adding that little extra about how our provincial and territorial governments are making decisions is too much to ask.