Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

[Andre Barnes]

Not necessarily. These are all recommendations. The sentence has to begin with “that”.

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

Okay. I suggest the following:

That the Committee bring to the attention of members that, during the COVID-19 situation, the burden of translation from English to French is heavier for francophone interpreters, which could be mitigated by witnesses and members opting to use French when possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I was complimenting the good job that Madame Normandin had done in composing that and putting it all together, and then I saw everyone shaking their heads and thought you were not agreeing that she had done a good job. I'm glad that's not the case.

Is there agreement to adopt this recommendation as amended?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right. Apparently—and this is one of the changes, as I mentioned before—at virtual committee sittings we won't be able to record this vote on division. We will have to go to a recorded vote in order to accurately capture the members' votes.

We will have a recorded vote on BQ 5 as amended.

Yes, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Just to avoid this circumstance in the future, because I don't want to waste time here, if in the future one of us has objections but sees that there's a will to move forward, could that person perhaps, rather than stating “on division”, just be given the floor quickly to say, “I don't support this, but I'll let it go ahead” or something like that, so we can avoid having to do recorded votes for a number of items? Would that alleviate this concern in the future?

[The Clerk]

If that's the will of the committee and the way they want to proceed, essentially it turns the decision into a kind of informal consensus to go forward. That would be fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. We have an informal consensus to move forward, I guess. Is that how you'd like it? Okay.

BQ 5 as amended is adopted.

NDP 6 was already adopted.

NDP 7 is very similar to—

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Madam Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. It's very similar to NDP 6. I think you added language in that which covers this now.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I think we can just add the word “witness” to NDP 6, so that it's “any member or witness participating”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think we already did.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Andre, did we not already add “witness”? Yes, I think we did. It takes care of NDP 7, so we can eliminate that. We've essentially combined NDP 6 and NDP 7.

Okay, we now have LIB 6 in section (e), which states, “Ensure all public hearings of the House of Commons should be made available through webcast and/or broadcasters, and strive for full accessibility.” It's very similar to what we've been doing so far in some of our committee hearings and COVID-19 hearings. Is everyone in agreement to adopt this one? Okay. LIB 6 is adopted.

NDP 5 has already been moved and adopted. It was moved up in the report.

We're moving along. We're on section (f) and LIB 7. The recommendation is on page 38 in the English version.

Here, I did find that LIB 7 and BQ 12 again have a lot of similarities. I don't know at this point. We could just adopt them individually and have redundancy. It's up to you guys. I'm just pointing it out.

Are there any comments on LIB 7?

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I agree that they look like they could be combined. I think BQ 12 covers a bit more than LIB 7. What I like about LIB 7 is the reference to the “requirements for usability, functionality, and security”. I would say that the only difference I see in them really is that one is more about the digital platform selection and the process for that, and the other one seems to be more about defining a “protocol” and “technical guidelines”.

Maybe they should be separate. I don't know. They overlap a bit, but it might be fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

They overlap, but it might be okay. Let's go with that.

Is there agreement to adopt LIB 7? It looks like there's mostly agreement. Okay. Seeing that there's no disagreement, LIB 7 is adopted.

BQ 6 states, “That the House of Commons provide technical support to interested parties to assist them in choosing a secure digital platform that they can use for their caucus meetings.” This one is particular to caucus meetings. Is everyone okay with adopting BQ 6? Okay. BQ 6 is adopted.

On BQ 12, I think essentially there was agreement before, so BQ 12 is adopted.

NDP 8 is very similar to BQ 6 as well, but this talks about in camera proceedings rather than caucus meetings, so this is different in that way. Is everyone okay with NDP 8?

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I get that we've already agreed on BQ 6, but I might suggest here that it might be better and it might flow a little easier in the report if we were to just add “caucuses” to this one. It reads really well, so we could say, “That the Clerk of the House of Commons ensure that all committees and caucuses have access”, etc., and then we just have to take out the second instance of “committee”, so it would just be “where meetings are not possible in person”.

We can capture caucuses and committees in the same way, rather than in two different recommendations. It's a little stronger that way. It's not just, “Well, make them work with the caucuses”, but a requirement. Caucus meetings are a pretty important function for all of us as members of Parliament. Rather than going with BQ 6 and NDP 8, we can just combine them by adding “caucuses” to this one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Justin, can we go back and make that change, then, for BQ 6? We could remove BQ 6, and then add “caucuses” after “committees”: “That the Clerk of the House of Commons ensure that all committees and....” Should we say “party caucuses”?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sure. If you want to say “party”, that's fine, too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

So it would be, “all committees and party caucuses have access to a private, secure platform for meetings”.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Again, it can read exactly as it is now, except for taking out “committee” in front of “meetings”—that would obviously be caucus or committee—and saying, “where meetings are not possible in person”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Perfect. Done.

Andre, do you have that? All right. Is everyone okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. Essentially it covers both things. That's great. Great work.

All right, we're moving on to the health section.

This recommendation, LIB 8, reads pretty much exactly like the heading.

Andre, it's mimicking the heading. I don't know if you're still keeping the heading in that same format, but I was wondering if, after “parliamentary precinct”, you could add “and remotely”, so that it mirrors this.

I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. It would depend on whether this is adopted, really. Otherwise, it could be left with “precinct”. It was just a suggestion when I was reading it.

Yes, Dr. Duncan.