Well, I have been concerned for a long time about the unintended consequences of electronic voting. I say this as someone who was part of the McGrath committee back in 1985-1986, which initially recommended electronic voting. The reason the committee did that at the time was that we were hoping for a Parliament in which there would be less party discipline on a number of issues, and we thought that electronic voting might facilitate that, in the sense that it would get rid of the situation of members who wanted to dissent from the position of their party having to stand up and listen to the applause from other parties or look at the frowns on the faces of their colleagues.
That was the intention, but over the years, as it wasn't immediately implemented, obviously, I came to the view that one of the unintended consequences—and certainly other witnesses this morning have spoken about it—would be that we would lose that time in the parliamentary life when the bells are ringing, people are on the floor and a lot of business is done.
When the bells are ringing and people are gathering, it's a time for members to go over and talk to people on the other side or to talk to cabinet ministers to whom they might have no other access. I felt that the price for adopting electronic voting was just too high, and so I changed my mind on it. As the House leader for the NDP, I was often able to stand in the way of its becoming a reality. I continue to hold that position.
What I had to say today was that if people have the agenda that they want electronic voting in Parliament, they should not use the pandemic as a way of importing an agenda they would have in a normal Parliament into this particular temporary measure. That was the point I was trying to make today. I'm not accusing anybody of that; I'm just saying that it is a danger and perhaps a temptation on some people's part. Let's look at what we need for the pandemic, and when we get back to a normal Parliament, we can continue to have these other discussions.