Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

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

I'm not clear on this, Madam Chair. When Mr. Alghabra talks about a fully virtual Parliament, is that in an emergency crisis situation or is the intent here to look forward to a fully virtual Parliament as a potential replacement of the Westminster parliamentary system that we currently utilize?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It is my understanding that we're studying this.

Mr. Alghabra, maybe it needs clarification and additions.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

It is clearly meant for extraordinary circumstances. If we need to refer to recommendation one, we can do that, but it's for extraordinary circumstances that the House would adopt it.

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

Okay.

Madam Chair, I hope you'll agree with me that it's not clear. One could easily interpret this as a movement towards a fully virtual Parliament over and above any extraordinary circumstances that might exist.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, I can see that. Maybe some wording can be proposed to incorporate recommendation one.

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

We are at six o'clock. I just want to be mindful of that, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It could probably be something quite simple. We could say, “in the circumstances as outlined in recommendation one” or something. I don't know.

Mr. Alghabra, do you have any comments on that? This is your recommendation and we would only amend anything if you were okay with it.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I welcome the suggestion. I have no problem with it. I'm thinking on the fly here. I'm thinking perhaps, “undertake necessary steps to expand the House's capacity and operations to achieve a fully virtual Parliament when agreed upon” or “as per recommendation one”. I don't know if it's satisfactory to refer to recommendation one or “only under exceptional circumstances as referred to in recommendation one.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think some members have suggestions.

Mr. Duncan and then Ms. Petitpas Taylor.

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

Madam Chair, I just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Could you unraise your hands, Mr. Richards and Mr. Duncan?

Mr. Richards, I think that hand has been raised for over an hour or so now. I just want that removed.

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

Madam Chair, my hand wasn't raised.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It's never gone down, though. That's why I thought it was from before.

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

It was down. I raised it recently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Oh.

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

He's just so eager, continually eager.

I have to smile a little, Madam Chair, when I read LIB 2, which is about expanding the House's capacity and operations to achieve a fully virtual Parliament. We just voted down a recommendation about standing committees being set up and authorized to exercise all their ordinary powers and now we're talking about doing that. I'll set that aside.

We're three hours in and I don't know what the next steps are—I'm sure we'll talk about that shortly—but I have a concern with the way this reads. I think we need to have a fundamental conversation, debate or discussion in some detail about whether this is the chicken or the egg. I believe this needs to be the other way around.

We have a virtual setting right now that gives us some sense of the short term. I believe the long-term solution that is fair and encompasses all members' asks is between having a virtual option for those who can't be or don't want to be physically present and an option for those who can be. As health advice changes and when our House administration can physically accommodate more members in West Block and, by province or across the country, can allow more members, one of the things we could do is have a hybrid set-up. Over the course of time, while following health advice, of course, as we've done with everything, we could continue to build up numbers and then phase out the virtual parliamentary aspects where we may not need them.

When I look at this suggestion of employing a hybrid model in the interim, it seems as if that would go away. We can have a hybrid model. We need to have a conversation about the long-term plan. It may be months or a year before we can get back to having larger crowds or all of us together. I envy that day, whenever this may be done safely.

I fundamentally have a concern, and I think we need to have a conversation about what the best plan for Parliament is in the long run. I don't believe in starting with some sort of hybrid and then going fully virtual. I think it needs to be the other way around. We should start to build a hybrid system and make sure the technology is there to go outwards and do other types of things.

I'll leave this as a beginning comment and ask that we have some sort of conversation, because many aspects hang on this and we could have some compromise if we have a discussion among each other.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Ginette, then Mr. Richards and then Ms. Blaney.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I was just going to suggest some language to simplify LIB 2. Keep it as is and at the end after “interim”, put down “in the event of extraordinary circumstances”, and leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for that addition.

Mr. Richards, go ahead.

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

I'm going to make a different suggestion.

I'll point out first that I share the thoughts of Mr. Duncan. I found it quite contradictory to be proposing that we move to a fully virtual Parliament, yet tell committees that they shouldn't have any powers virtually. It's quite, we'll call it ironic, I suppose, rather than a word I could probably use.

I would like to make a different suggestion on this one that reflects some of the concerns that we've heard about the idea of maybe going towards a hybrid Parliament as a step during the current....

I'll make this suggestion. You've all heard my voice enough today, so I won't spend a bunch of time making the case for it other than to say that I think it will be obvious.

I would suggest we change it so that everything after “achieve a”, I would say, “Undertake necessary steps to expand the House's capacity and operations to achieve a hybrid Parliament for the remainder of the spring sitting.” That would be the full text of it if it's amended as such.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for that suggestion.

We're going to hear from Ms. Blaney.

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

I will, although I said I wouldn't belabour it with much debate, point out the reason for that. Obviously, as I've said many times today, our orders here from the House are to deal with the current crisis. This attempts to do just that, and that's why I would suggest that. I think it's realistic, whereas the other proposal wouldn't be realistic in the current circumstances, which is what we're supposed to be dealing with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Ms. Blaney, give us your comments, and then we can see if Mr. Alghabra or the Liberals—I'm not sure whose recommendation this is—are willing to take some of these suggestions.

Ms. Blaney.

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

Madam Chair, I feel that, in the study that we did, we simply did not get enough information for me to support this. There was a lot of discussion about other parliaments doing different methods. I don't think we had enough time to study that fully, and to propose this I just think goes way beyond where I feel comfortable with the knowledge base that I have.

I appreciate some of the amendments, but on the plan to go fully virtual, I feel that we did not get enough information about that. That's why in our proposal, which is in this section a little further down, we talked about an incremental approach. I think we heard from multiple witnesses that there needs to be an incremental or staggered approach where we test things and go back, so I'm not comfortable supporting this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Brassard, and then we'll find out if the Liberals are willing to take some of these suggestions into their recommendation.