Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

In the last committee meeting, we started on this. You're absolutely right. I had mentioned that LIB 1, BQ 10 and NDP 2 have a lot of similarities and could be grouped together. The analyst has also included all of these recommendations on page 48, where you have suggested they might be better placed. It's up to the committee to decide. Obviously, they're already slotted in there. We could remove them from the front.

If, first, I could get some discussion on perhaps combining these recommendations, then we can decide on where the recommendations should go.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I completely agree with Ms. Blaney. I really see the merits in the three recommendations she mentioned. I think they could be combined. I have some suggested rewording for that. I thought about this in advance and thought maybe the committee would be amenable to a combined recommendation.

Can I put that forward now, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, Mr. Turnbull. Could you read the recommendation?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I would suggest the wording be “That the House establish an alternative set of standing orders which enables the implementation of a virtual Parliament so that the House can continue with its business in the event of a crisis or exceptional circumstance such as those arising from the current pandemic.” Then I would add a sentence: “The committee further recommends these modified standing orders only come into force and be rescinded at the agreement of all recognized parties.”

This includes the NDP's...the strength, I think, of Ms. Blaney's comment that “the agreement of all recognized parties” be included. It includes elements of the wording from the Bloc's recommendation, which I found very compelling, and it also stays true to, I think, the spirit of the LIB 1 recommendation, which I think there's a large degree of agreement on, based on their wording.

That's what I would suggest. Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

There is an order here, but I was wondering, Ms. Blaney, if you wanted to....

You have your hand up as well, so I will call on you, Mr. Richards.

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

Madam Chair, my hand was originally up to comment on the main recommendation, but also on the related one, too, which has already been identified as very similar.

I made some similar comments last meeting, but I'll just refresh folks' memories. I think the new suggestion, amendment, or however you want to term it, that Mr. Turnbull just made actually runs even more contrary to the concerns that I had previously. I won't dig it out and read it myself, although I do have it here somewhere. Mr. Brassard, just minutes ago, read to the entire committee the terms of reference that we were given in the order of reference from the House. It was quite clear that what we were to study was this current situation and how the House of Commons can function and continue to serve the people while the House stands adjourned. It does not anywhere in there indicate that we are to look at the future and what might be done in future situations like this one.

There's probably a very good reason for that. I can't speak to the thought process that was in mind, but I can imagine what it would be, and I would certainly share that thought process. It's that you don't look at what you can learn from a situation while you're right in the middle of it. You deal with the situation that you have at hand. You do your best to function through it and continue on in the best way that you can. Then, in hindsight, following the end of a crisis, that's when you typically look back and ask, “What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What could we do differently if we have another instance of something like this?” Then you make those kinds of recommendations.

We're still in the middle of this. We don't know how this is all going to play out. We're doing the best we can to try to function through it. That is the focus that we've been given, and I think it's the wise focus for us right now: to focus on the current situation at hand. Then, following that, if we choose as a committee to study what we might do in the future—and I think it might be a good idea that we do that—it would be something that we would do fully informed, having seen how this all played out, what circumstances arose and what unintended consequences there might have been from the actions we've taken.

Therefore, it would be not only contrary to what we've been told to do by the House, but also ill advised and a mistake to make these kinds of recommendations at this point. I, therefore, would be strongly opposed to the idea that we make these kinds of recommendations now. lt's not necessarily that they might not be good recommendations in the future, but this is not our focus now and it should not be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Your opposition is noted, but I'm a bit confused because we were asked to study how to create a virtual Parliament so that members could continue to do their work.

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

Madam Chair, I was not going to raise this today. I was maybe going to have a private conversation with you at another date, but I think maybe it is necessary because it might be helpful for us to move forward today in a timely and orderly fashion.

I really think that, in your role as chair, you are participating and engaging in debate far too much. I think that you should examine what your role should be as a chair and consider whether it is helpful for debate. Your role is to facilitate debate, not to participate in it. I say this with the best intentions. I really think you should consider that, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. I can see where you're coming from, absolutely. I have felt a need to interject at some points. I will try to do that less.

At the beginning of each meeting, I generally used to go through the motion, the order of reference that we were given by the House of Commons. In today's meeting and in the last meeting, I chose not to do so because we didn't have any witnesses or, necessarily, any new members. However, I'm trying to point back to the statement that I would have made at the beginning of the meeting, reminding us of what we were tasked to do, and virtual Parliament was one of the prongs listed.

There is a recommendation that, going through the report later on, we might want to bring this up again. It talks about future studies and visions. A virtual Parliament is part of the order of reference.

I agree with some of your other points, for sure. Let's hear from the other committee members as to where they stand on it.

Mr. Brassard.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question with regard to Mr. Turnbull's recommendation. I expressed yesterday, and I think earlier, the concern around what defines “extraordinary circumstances”. We're in the height of a COVID-19 pandemic. Parliament and the House leaders have deemed that to be an extraordinary circumstance. That's why the House is adjourned.

I have a couple of questions, through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Turnbull, because LIB 1 does mention “a fully functioning virtual Parliament”. What would be Mr. Turnbull's idea of “a fully functioning virtual Parliament”? That would be my first question, Madam Chair, to Mr. Turnbull.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Turnbull, would you like to answer that before we move on to Mr. Duncan?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Yes, I'd be happy to.

What we've heard in testimony is that many of the deliberative functions of Parliament have been replicated in a virtual setting so far. What we heard from the Speaker's testimony, and others' testimony, was that there were decision-making functions of Parliament that were not completely happening at the moment. In the recommendation it implies that a virtual Parliament would try to replicate as many of the functions of Parliament...which is what we've been asked to study, how Parliament can continue to function and parliamentarians can continue to fulfill their roles and duties. I think what we've heard in testimony is that an alternative set of standing orders is actually something that's been recommended by several witnesses. I don't think this is reaching in any way.

The other thing about exceptional circumstances that I will say is that I think there are extraordinary, exceptional and emergency circumstances. There's a little difference in language but I think the spirit in all is referring to the same thing. Part of the job of creating an alternative set of standing orders in the future would also be to create the criteria of those exceptional circumstances, define what that means and define how this set of standing orders would be triggered by parties through some sort of majority vote. I think that is largely what was recommended by at least one witness, as I remember, and it seems to me it is a perfectly reasonable way to move forward. I don't think we have to have a be-all and end-all definition right now of “extraordinary circumstances”, or even the criteria at the moment. We know a pandemic is included, but there may be quite a number of other emergencies—second waves of a pandemic, third waves, etc.—that could be included as extraordinary circumstances.

Thank you.

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

I appreciate that clarification, Mr. Turnbull.

Through you, Madam Chair, again to Mr. Turnbull, currently under the committee structure that we've been using, we've now been seeing virtual sittings on Tuesday and Thursday, and we've also seen an in-person sitting on Wednesday. Is that the idea of what would constitute a virtual Parliament in this situation or...? Again, the challenge that I have is that there's really not a clear definition of “virtual Parliament”. Our paradigm of what it is is what exists today, but we've also heard and seen evidence around the world, particularly in the Westminster system, where a hybrid Parliament can replicate more so the type of virtual Parliament.... Perhaps if it's good enough for Westminster then it's good enough for us.

I'm just trying to find out the paradigm of what a virtual Parliament should look like in the context of this recommendation, and I say that through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

The way I would answer that is based on the witness testimony and Samara report, which I think includes the acknowledgement that there's a continuum that most parliaments seem to be on, nationally speaking. They seem to be moving from very limited functions. The easiest to replicate virtually seems to be committee meetings, because they're smaller and they're easier to replicate in a virtual setting, so I think that has been the natural place that most have started. It seems that they're moving along a continuum to more special scrutiny sessions, or I think that's what they've been called, similar to the special committee sessions we've had on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are two-hour “question period” sorts of sessions, but they're not formal proceedings of the House.

Moving along that continuum, we'd see more fulsome debates such as what we would see in the House of Commons in the physical setting being replicated virtually, with the opportunity for electronic and remote voting that could also be implemented and included in an incremental way, which is what we've seen in the U.K.

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

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have one more question, through you to Mr. Turnbull again.

The recommendation you're proposing requires that all parties would have to agree that a crisis is over. This is why I need clarification from you, and if I'm wrong, correct me, please.

There could be a scenario where the governing party doesn't agree that a crisis is over, and they might not want to return for whatever reason. I'm certainly not suggesting this in the current government, but this could be problematic in moving forward if in fact public health agencies determine that a crisis is over and the World Health Organization decides that, but we have a political party that decides that the crisis is not over for parliamentary purposes.

How do you suggest we resolve that potential conflict?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It's a good question—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I'll let you finish, but I just want to point out, in case nobody is looking at the speakers list, that Ms. Blaney is up next to speak as well. I think the wording was from NDP 2, so she might have some more insight too.

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

Madam Chair, these are legitimate questions that need to be asked, which we would be asking in a normal committee setting. I just want to make that clear. These are serious concerns that I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think these issues have been brought up even in our questioning, so this is a good conversation.

Mr. Turnbull, did you still want to reply to that?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Sure. I can think of a whole host of ways to solve that problem. Being a solutions-oriented person, I'm asking, how we could use more data in terms of those decision-making processes and have those required as part of the decisions that were made.

In terms of the wording I suggested, I was repurposing and trying to come to a collaborative solution, based on wording from the various parties.

The issue you raise is a good one. Maybe there should be a majority vote instead of agreement of all recognized parties. That might help, or in lieu of that, maybe looking at how the definition of an extraordinary or exceptional circumstance could also include clauses or criteria for how those standing orders could be rescinded, or how the opposite of triggering, going back to normal House proceedings, could integrate scientific evidence.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Ms. Blaney.

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

I think this debate and discussion is very important. We are talking about something very fundamental as we go through this process.

First of all, I did my best to write down everything Mr. Turnbull said. If you have any wording, I would love to see it. The only part that I want to make sure is very clear.... I agree that the extraordinary circumstances could be clarified in the modified standing orders. I'm sure there are ways we can do that.

The reason why I think it's important that we have all parties participate in this is that, if we look at what's happened in Canada and in other countries, COVID-19 came very quickly. We had to make decisions very rapidly. We've done that with the four recognized parties working through their House officers to make decisions. It gives everybody a little bit of power to make those decisions. I think Canadians appreciate that level of collaboration and accountability. I think that's important.

I certainly recognize that if there are concerns about the governing party perhaps extending that, we can have some discussions about how to address that. I think every party understands that we are accountable to Canadians. If we're doing something untoward, that's going to be something that's in the public record pretty quickly. I know that, as an opposition party member, I'm certainly not shy about mentioning when I feel the governing party is stepping out of line.

For me, one of the things that are important about this is, like I said earlier, that we stepped out. We were doing the best that we could with the information that we had, but there was no structure. I think that moving forward it would be good to have some sort of structure so that if anything like this happens again, parliamentarians have something to look at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Madam Normandin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Perhaps I am the only one who feels that the debate is somewhat futile, as, according to my understanding, in order for us to hold a virtual Parliament, the procedural rules need to be changed, and that requires unanimous consent from the parties.

Whether we like it or not, we will have a new set of procedural rules. When it's time to apply them, we will either agree now in saying that it will require the consent of all the parties, or we will later amend the procedural rules unanimously to do that.

I think the work is already done, in a way. I feel like we are sort of going in circles in this debate.