Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. There seems to be agreement from the NDP to that change.

Go ahead, Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I'm going to be an Andre here and suggest that it say “exceptional circumstances”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, of course. I'm sure Andre would have pointed that out.

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

Omar's on fire today. He's doing great. He's a wordsmith.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay, Mr. Turnbull had also made a suggestion—or comments, really. It was not a revision.

Are we okay to move forward with the recommendation with the amendment from Mr. Richards?

Go ahead, Madame Normandin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Perhaps certain terms should be reviewed. In French, it says, “les délibérations de la Chambre se fassent en ligne”. That could be referring to the telephone or to something else. I would more specifically talk about a “Parlement virtuel”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's a good point. Andre has that correction for the French version.

We are looking at the original NDP 3 recommendation with the amendment proposed by Mr. Richards.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'm sorry. I don't mean to belabour this point, but I'm interested in understanding from Ms. Blaney what new House proceedings we're referring to. I'm not sure I understand what new proceedings are going to be added. I get that the intention of it is that it would only apply to new proceedings that are added, which is different from how I initially interpreted it. Maybe that could be clarified in some way, or you could give an example. I didn't really understand what new proceedings we were going to be adding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We'll go to Ms. Blaney and then Mr. Alghabra.

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

During the testimony, we heard from several witnesses that taking an incremental approach made sense. In some ways, the COVI committee is one step toward virtual Parliament. We're not there, obviously. This is about the steps that may be added.

For example, Mr. Bosc talked about having a proper question period and maybe having a themed process, and then, after that goes well, moving on to the next process. We tried to use language that was general enough. If you have any thoughts about how to make that more specific, I'm more than happy to consider them.

Just as every new aspect of this is added to what a normal sitting day in Parliament would be, there would be collaboration among the parties to address any issues that may arise so that it is done in a positive way. During that kind of circumstance, collaboration is just something I feel is beneficial.

I hope that answers your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Mr. Alghabra might have some suggestions.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Perhaps we could replace the word “proceedings” with “standing orders”, because in our first recommendation we refer to introducing a new set of standing orders for exceptional circumstances. Perhaps, to be consistent, we can use the same reference.

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

I'm not sure that does it. I don't know if there's advice from the clerk regarding whether that makes sense.

Right now, we're doing petitions. The next step might be tabling a private member's bill. To me, those are proceedings, and I just want to make sure that the Standing Orders would actually cover that.

Chair, if you could, advise us on our next steps there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think you're right to ask the clerk to weigh in on this matter.

[The Clerk]

If the wording of the recommendation is to cover the various activities that go on during a sitting day, "proceedings" might be the more accurate way to reflect it in your suggested recommendation.

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

Thank you.

I hope that brings clarity to the committee.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'm still having trouble with the wording “new House proceedings". I just feel that it could be easily misinterpreted. I don't have a better solution.

When I read it first, I thought it was referring to newly adopted proceedings that were normal House proceedings but that would be adopted into a virtual setting incrementally. That might have just been my bias, because looking through some of the recommendations that we made on our side, I may have interpreted it that way.

I wonder if we could clarify that these would be additional House proceedings that were not part of the regular proceedings of the House. That's what I'm hoping.

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

Would “any added parliamentary activities” be better than “proceedings”?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I would feel more comfortable with that, intuitively.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Then “proceedings” would be replaced by “added parliamentary”, or...? What was that suggestion?

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

It would be “added parliamentary activities”. We would remove “new proceedings” and then say “any added parliamentary activities to be added”. I hope that helps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Does that broaden it even more, or does that narrow it? I'm not sure.

If everyone's okay with it, I'll look for consensus on my screen. Is everyone okay with this recommendation?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

NDP 3 passes. Obviously these are going to be renumbered. The recommendations are going to look a little different in the final report, but we'll just call it what it is right now in the draft report to keep it straight. I know that I messed up earlier.

Now we're moving on to NDP 4 A. i. (b)

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

You can just say NDP 4. Don't worry about it. That was just us trying to be helpful for the analyst and say where we thought those recommendations would fit, but the numbers are correct. Sorry about that.