Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 4th, 2020

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I have to jump in because I have one more important question for you.

You talked about the Standing Orders and how you were looking at a whole bunch of different things.

Can you tell us the top three standing order changes you've seen as necessary for a time like this?

[Siobhan Coady]

Voting would be the number one standing order.

How do we ensure that the privileges of members are met so that they have access and can participate? How they participate would be another.

The third is making sure we have the right platform and the right technology to support the privileges and the ability to advance legislation and to advance scrutiny, which is very important.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Madame Normandin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us. Not only does their experience give us insight into what works, but it also helps us learn from any mistakes.

Ms. Coady, you said something that struck me, and I'd like to ask you about it. I thought I heard you say that all the members of the House of Assembly will be meeting in person on June 9. You're still going to explore the possibility of virtual voting, even though you're all able to be physically present.

Unlike us, the members of the House of Assembly are all able to meet in person, without putting members' parliamentary privilege at risk. That's something we can't do right now. What led to your decision?

[Siobhan Coady]

Certainly we realize we're not through the COVID pandemic yet.

We're concerned that, as we keep hearing from public health officials, there might be a second or third wave and we want to ensure we have a virtual capability, especially coming into the fall. We have not passed our budget yet. We have interim supply until the end of the September. With an abundance of caution and making sure we have that virtual, potential opportunity, we can have all members of the House of Assembly involved.

That's the motivation behind it. We keep hearing that we don't have a vaccine yet, so we're making sure we have that availability even in the likelihood of something else happening. As we continue to evolve in the House of Assembly and in parliamentary procedure, the possibility is that you may use a virtual Parliament for reasons other than a pandemic.

I'll leave it there, but we want to make sure there is an abundance of caution and that we have an alternative.

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

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Polak.

Ms. Polak, you said that, generally speaking, not all members sit at the same time. I imagine that, where voting is concerned, all members are in attendance. Can you confirm whether that's true and whether voting is a key point in your proceedings?

In terms of where you stand on virtual voting and parliamentary privilege, would you say there are members who would like to be present despite the public health concerns? What are people saying about virtual voting versus voting in person?

[Mary Polak]

In our simulation, we practised this with some people in the chamber and some people virtually. The roll call vote worked exceptionally well. It does take quite a lot of time, but that's a small price to pay for making sure that everyone has a chance to participate.

Where we are still challenged and are trying to work out the bugs is on a voice vote. How do you conduct a voice vote when Zoom selects out the speaking voice of only one or two members and then slots them in? You get this cascade of “aye”, “aye”, “aye”, instead of the one vote. We have a few ideas as to how to do that, but voting on substantive issues, where you would typically have the bells ring and people come, certainly involves everyone.

The way we are considering it at this stage is that we have duty teams, some in the House and some virtually. If members are not on that team and they are called to vote, they would have access to Zoom in their offices, even if they're at the legislature, so they could vote there, but it would be a roll call vote with no one excluded.

Again, there are bugs still to be worked out on the voice vote.

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

Thank you very much.

My next question is for the members of both legislative assemblies.

One major difference between your legislative assemblies and the federal Parliament is the distance members have to travel to be present in the House of Commons and their ability to do so in a pandemic situation.

How do you determine which members will be physically present and which ones will participate virtually? In our case, distance is one of the reasons why members can't go to Ottawa. How do you deal with that? Who makes those choices? How many members are allowed to be physically present?

[Mary Polak]

Go ahead, Mike.

[Mike Farnworth]

It would be up to each caucus to make that decision. Also, we've done it on the advice of the provincial health officer and it's also up to each member. As we've said, members can be present in their offices or in the chamber.

We also have to travel significant distances in British Columbia, but we're not anticipating that to be a problem, and none of the members at the House have really said it's going to be a problem.

[Siobhan Coady]

It's the same here in Newfoundland and Labrador. There are great distances and it's up to the caucuses, but you have to remember that individual privilege. If people want to be present, they must be allowed to be present, so it's about that individual privilege. The key issue is making sure that you have the platform available for all parliamentarians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Next up we have Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you, everyone, for being here today. I found your testimony very interesting and compelling.

I would like to start with Minister Farnworth.

As we're doing this process in PROC, we're looking at structures for how we can continue to keep the communications open and transparent and to make sure there is recognition of all the different recognized parties. It sounds like British Columbia has done a really good job at that.

How are you navigating that? How are working with the House leaders and what are the structures around that?

[Mike Farnworth]

I would say, first off, that we meet literally every day, often in the House, prior to question period or just before business starts. I will let Mary, and Sonia from the Green Party, know how many bills.... We work together on what the order of the estimates will be, recognizing that even in a regular session things will come up. I sometimes will want to move something back, and she will say, “Look, we will need to move something”, and we'll trade. A lot of it comes down to having a good working relationship and making it clear to your respective caucuses that when the House leaders make a decision on order, it's not changing. When the House leaders tell the opposition, “This is how something is going to be”, that's how it's going to be. That takes place on a daily basis. We talk several times a day.

Critical in our legislature, in part because we are a minority Parliament, is that we have to be cognizant that every member's vote counts. People told us we wouldn't last three months, and here we are three years later.

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

One of the challenges for me, as a British Columbia member of Parliament, is that to get to Ottawa would take close to two days now, which is not usual, and would require me to go through multiple airports as well. It is a long trip even in normal times. When I look at the great work being done in British Columbia to keep COVID under control, it's important to me to not present risk to my constituents. Of course, this is why we're having discussions about virtual and hybrid forms of Parliament.

You talked earlier, Minister Farnworth, about modifying and adjusting standing orders. When you look at the spring sitting that's going start at the end of June, what standing orders have been modified, and, again, how has that been done in a collaborative manner?

[Mike Farnworth]

We are looking at introducing a sessional order, so that the changes will only apply for this session of Parliament. It's been done very much in collaboration and co-operation with the opposition House leaders, in terms of how we make this work.

What worked in the March 23 session, and what has the provincial health officer told us that she wants to see in terms of the capacity in the chamber and the capacity of staff to maintain proper social distancing?

Having been in opposition, I know that the opposition members want question period; they want to make sure they have the ability to scrutinize legislation. My job in government is to ensure that the government's agenda goes through. One of the key things we did last time was to, on a confidential basis, share the legislation we wanted to get done on that day so that there were no surprises. That's the approach we've taken. As much as possible, it's to keep the sessional order similar to Standing Orders so that everyone can understand what it is.

The biggest change I think is in terms of voting. We will be deferring votes to a set time of the day, so that all members know that if the votes are taking place at six o'clock, they need to be in the chamber or on the Zoom screen to be able to vote. That's probably the biggest change that we've initiated.

There are still lots of other things to work out, but that's how it's taking place.

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

I know that predictability is really important. For our Parliament, one of the biggest challenges is the multiple time zones. How do we make sure that when there is a vote, people can attend, that all the members have that capacity? I appreciate your talking about that importance.

I think predictability is also important in the context of the new reality of members working from their homes and having child care concerns, having to deal with partners who are working at the same time, using the technology. How do you make that all work?

I'm wondering whether you could speak to any challenges you've heard from your caucus on manoeuvring that. After you're done, I would like to go to Ms. Polak on that.

[Mike Farnworth]

One of the things we've learned just in regular sessions is that members like structure.

In our House, everyone has their duty time. You have from 10 until noon, two until four. We can't expect members to sit in front of a screen for eight hours; they're just not going to do it.

What you can do is to work with the whips' offices, to tell the caucus that members have their duty time, and “During that duty time, if you're not in the chamber, you will be in front of the screen, whether in your office or at home, and the whips will be ensuring that is taking place.” That is going to give members the flexibility they need at home to deal with those issues.

In our case, it's a bit of an improvement. Previous to this, because we're a minority, we weren't allowed to leave the chamber because a vote could take place at any time. Now, with votes being deferred to a set time every day, members will be able to leave the chamber or leave the buildings, which many are quite looking forward to, for lunches and such.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for that, Minister Farnworth.

We are going to continue into the second round of questions.

Looking at the time, we are a bit behind, as we have committee business at the end as well. I am wondering if it is okay with the committee members that we shave off one minute from the five-minute round.

Is that okay, for four minutes each?

Mr. Tochor, you're up next.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

No. I'd like to see where the questions go first. But if time is of the essence here....

Minister Farnworth, thank you so much for being here today. I think it's commendable for the B.C. government to be transparent and working with the other parties. It's amazing what you can get done when you let other parties take part in democracy and decide on how you will manage yourselves during these unprecedented times.

I'd like to get Mary Polak's comments on this. As an opposition party, was the government trying to jam you, or jam you in different ways, on how things would proceed during this pandemic?

[Mary Polak]

No, not at all. It truly has been collaborative. We've gone back and forth sharing ideas about how different elements could work. We're not done yet, so maybe tomorrow Mike will throw something at me that I don't expect, but I don't think so. Part of that is what Mike alluded to. We've developed a high degree of trust, and while Mike and I can both be hyper-partisan when we need to be, we know when it's time to take off the company T-shirt and get some work done.

The rules of Parliament are there to ensure that every member gets a chance to participate and that the opposition has the tools it needs to do its job. It's in my interest, as an opposition House leader, to ensure that the House runs smoothly.

They haven't jammed us. Everything so far has been very collaborative.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

That's fabulous. So they haven't restricted the topics you could raise as opposition?

[Mary Polak]

No.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Moving on to the other coast, it's interesting that a budget is going to be presented and passed shortly, or hopefully shortly. I wonder if the honourable Minister Coady could speak about what change is being considered so that a budget can be passed. Obviously we know we're spending a record amount of dollars right now as a nation, and there's going to be a time that a budget will need to be presented here and scrutinized to ensure that the best interests of Canadians are being considered.

What are the main differences that appear between the budget coming up and the last budget? How many restrictions have been put on either time or format?