Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 9th, 2020

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our guests for joining us today.

As you are all aware, the committee also has been tasked to look at potentially modifying some standing orders for the duration of the pandemic and look at ways we can make hybrid sittings of the House work and also look at enacting remote voting. We are really looking at how we can make this happen.

I think one thing that all parliamentarians can certainly agree on is that being here in person is really our preference when we can get to Ottawa, but during a pandemic, we certainly know that changes have to be made, and sometimes we have to look at things differently.

I think also, when we look at this situation, protecting the health and safety of our MPs and also our staff is a paramount priority. We need to look at that, but I also truly believe that all members of Parliament also want to make sure that we can protect the fundamental rights of members of Parliament in ensuring that we can continue to do our work either remotely or in person, and our constituents certainly expect that of us.

My first question is directed to Mr. Stutely.

Do you feel the measures that have been put in place right now allow you to securely practise hybrid sittings and also remote or electronic voting?

[Matt Stutely]

I can only really talk about the voting, because that's the piece that I've been involved in.

The way we built it, we know it is secure. Mr. Burton mentioned this a bit beforehand. We worked quite closely with our own cybersecurity team, but we also had the system verified by the National Cyber Security Centre. We had them look over the architecture of the system and point out any concerns they had for us to address. Their concerns, in the end, didn't turn out; the system architecture wasn't a concern for them at all. They were more worried about other things.

I'll give one example. We send out an SMS message to members telling them a division is taking place. When we started the process, we'd send out a URL link to the member hub system, saying, “A division has begun. Please cast your vote and click on this link.” They didn't like that because it encourages people to click on links in text, which is how bad cyber-actors get you to start clicking on things you shouldn't and start stealing your details. They asked us to change that, but it was the only really substantial thing they wanted evolved.

We had them review the system and write up a report, which was sent to our manager and director of the clerks of the House. Obviously no cyber-team is going to say a system is perfect, but they said they were not concerned about the risk of tampering with a vote or members' being spoofed or anything like that. We got that reassurance from a central government body, basically.

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

You spoke briefly in your remarks about authentication and ensuring that was secure. What steps were taken to ensure that you had system authentication?

[Matt Stutely]

The system we use to authenticate is the same one that members use for logging on to everything else. We have a single sign-on process, which is powered by the Microsoft Azure Active Directory service. We didn't try to build something of our own; we wanted to go off the back of the industry leader for this kind of thing. That's the most logical thing for us to do. It's the same thing that is used by members now. Email is the most obvious one, as they are all familiar with it.

The security we get is being run by Microsoft. We don't run and maintain anything ourselves. It's a well-known industry standard provider.

Members are given passwords, and the secondary level is a kind of multifactor authentication, much like you might get with online banking. You get a code that lasts for 30 seconds. We can send the code out by a text or through an app to your mobile device that tells you your code is “123456”. That lasts for 10 more seconds, and when time runs out it won't work anymore and you have to use a different one.

When members first log in to the system, they will be asked to type in their username and password. Then they will be asked them for their multifactor code. They have to type all that in to access the system. Then we keep them logged in for a period of time before they will be asked them again. If they don't do anything for about an hour, it will make them then re-enter that data. If they left the machine and wandered away and came back without pressing any buttons, they would have to enter it again before they could carry on.

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

I have one final question for you, Mr. Stutely. With the work that you've done on remote voting, which was the area you worked on, do you feel satisfied that the proper security measures are in place to effectively and safely do this type of voting?

[Matt Stutely]

The short answer is yes. As for the longer answer, obviously we have a lot of monitoring in place as well to keep an eye on anything. We have a dedicated cyber-team that are watching our network all the time, and they have all kinds of alerts and processes in place to look for unexpected traffic on the network. We have lots of proactive systems in place to look for anything that looks like it wouldn't be normal. We know what normal looks like and we can see if something normal isn't happening, and then we react.

Specifically as to voting, we believe it to be very secure.

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

With respect to reaction time, if there were some type of a breach, how quickly can that occur?

[Matt Stutely]

I can give you an example, although not about voting.

We have OneDrive, which we use to keep all of our files in. Everyone has OneDrive so they can get their phone numbers and documents wherever they are. Last week I was deleting a huge pile of files that I didn't need anymore, and in about 10 seconds a cyber-person had contacted me, asking, “Are you doing something on your OneDrive?” It's almost instantaneous.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Next up we have Madame Normandin.

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

Good morning. Thanks to all the witnesses for being with us. It's great to have such excellent witnesses with us today. We're very lucky.

I'd like to ask a few questions about how the voting software was selected. If I make a mistake, please correct me.

As I understand it, when the report was written, the possibility of electronic voting was so remote that you didn't select voting software. Afterward, steps were taken and software was chosen. The choice was based mostly on the fact that staff were already familiar with the software. If I understand correctly, the procedural rules were not changed to determine that this software would be the one we'd be using.

I'd like to know how this was agreed to with MPs' involvement. What happened? As I understand it, this choice was not made because of recommendations in a report or procedural amendments.

[Karen Bradley]

Shall I take that one?

There were actually changes to the procedure in the House of Commons and a temporary motion was laid by the government on April 22 that enabled there to be remote electronic voting.

Now if I would have a criticism of that motion, it would be that it only allowed for remote electronic voting and it didn't allow us to test any other systems. I think that perhaps having not had the ability to test, for example, extending proxy voting, which is what we are now doing, we are trying to do some things without having been through the proper processes, which I think we should do to gather the evidence and make sure members are happy.

You're quite right to say that when that motion was tabled, there was no division in the House. It was agreed by the chief whips of the main parties and what we call the usual channels, which is our terminology for it, so that it went through without there being the need for division. There was a temporary change in procedure that expired by default on May 12, I think it was, and then was renewed to expire on May 20. When we came back on June 2, that motion was no longer there and we were back to only being able to vote physically in the chamber, which is where we've created these problems for ourselves.

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

Thank you very much.

My question is a follow-up to what you just said.

You used a temporary amendment to implement an electronic voting system. Would it make sense for you to adopt a permanent set of alternative procedural rules? Would that enable you to switch to them quickly if another event were to occur? Are you looking at criteria for a permanent amendment?

[Karen Bradley]

I think the House of Commons wouldn't accept a permanent amendment to the way we do this. They've been willing to accept as a House to do things for the period of the pandemic.

My committee will look, inevitably when we're through this, at whether the changes need to be made for what we would call normal times, but it will be a matter for the House of Commons to decide whether it actually wants to implement those changes.

I do understand the point that there may be some benefit to having a motion that allows the change without the need for further motions. However, I don't believe the House of Commons would accept that.

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

I want to make sure you understood my question.

I'm talking about having permanent rules that set out what would trigger their application in an emergency situation, not a permanent switch to an electronic voting system.

Is that something you've considered?

[Karen Bradley]

We haven't, and it goes back to the point of what we've introduced in terms of temporary procedures are specific to this pandemic, so the social distancing and the other measures have meant that we've had to change certain procedures.

While I can see there might be some logic to having a sort of civil contingency type of motion in our procedures that would mean if something happened in the future we could very quickly change, actually we can change our procedures very quickly anyway. It's not a difficult thing to do. I think it would depend on what the specifics were at the time of the crisis as to what changes needed to be made. I think it would be very difficult to persuade the House of Commons to introduce something today that was discretionary, yes, but an opportunity for changes to be made in the future that MPs today may not be happy with.

I hope that answers the question.

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

I believe my time is up, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

My timer didn't go off. Thank you for keeping track of the time.

Next up we have Ms. Blaney, please.

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

Hello everybody. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I have several questions.

First I want to say that these are challenging times for all of us and it's interesting as we figure out different ways to do business. Canada has the uniqueness of being a very large country, with connectivity challenges. I live on the west coast. The island that I live on has not had any new COVID-19 cases for almost three weeks, so we're doing very well. Of course, for me to travel across the country—right now the amount of time for me to travel would be at least two days—it's very concerning to think about bringing anything back home.

One of the things, Mr. Stutely, that I found very interesting about your testimony was that you talked about providing demonstrations to multiple committees and different groups. Something I definitely want to see happen more, as we move forward, are those demonstrations as we develop new practices.

I'm just wondering if you could speak to us a bit about how people or committees or groups were decided and what kind of feedback you got from them.

[Matt Stutely]

I suppose the obvious point is that the decisions were made primarily by other people. The clerks—we don't have any Commons clerks, unfortunately, on this call—who kind of run the division business know who the key stakeholder members are. The most obvious people were those on the Procedure Committee, because they are responsible for making recommendations to the House about what they should do. So the Procedure Committee was the first and most obvious group to show it to.

What we did first was to pick a couple of members—the chair and a couple of others—from that committee, just to have a little look to see where things were, to get kind of an initial view, I suppose both to take away the fear of what is possible and have some reassurance that something was being done and that it was moving forward, and also to get their initial feedback. It was kind of leaning on—perhaps not the right term—a number of clerks to say to us, “And these are the other people..”.

The thing that's kind of missed, as I said earlier, and that was really key to the success of this project, was our partnership with the senior clerks on the Commons side who are responsible for running divisions. There were a couple of them who were heavily involved in this. It was a real, proper, full-on partnership of the procedural side and the technical side coming together to come up with a solution that would work for members. The clerks' involvement was really key to our getting the right people involved.

As well as the Procedure Committee, as I said, we talked to the Administration Committee. We talked to the chief whip and the leader of the House. We also spoke to a number of government ministers.

The other part of this was speaking to some government ministers, whose job it is to get legislation through Parliament. That was a view that we hadn't understood in detail. Say I'm a minister and I'm trying to move this bill through the House, what would I be doing? Because in this virtual world, my whip isn't here saying, right, these people are going to be here at this time.... It was understanding from them what they might need, what are they to understand...because they know how to get their business through.

I guess the answer to the question is that it was reaching out to as many people as possible to give them relatively small personal demos, and giving a more detailed demo at least once to the Procedure Committee. Then we ran drop-in sessions, for want of a better word, on Microsoft Teams, much like a Zoom call. We opened up the invitation to all members to drop in between the hours of 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. We would take their details, call them back and give them a one-to-one demonstration.

So taking it through the key stakeholders, we gave all members the opportunity, if they wanted, to call up and have somebody take them through the system and show them how it worked. It was to build that familiarization, because even though it's familiar, it's challenging and different.

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

Thank you. That's really perfect.

One of the other challenges we've heard from members is around predictability if we do any kind of voting virtually. We have people working from home who have commitments, maybe home-schooling their children, maybe other challenges. The other reality is that we are in a country with multiple time zones, and that can be a consideration. What we've asked for is predictability, so people know when they're going to have to vote. This is very important.

Right now, of course, we have a bells system and it lets us know...but if you're in a remote part of your riding, you may not have that connectivity.

I'm just wondering if there were any concerns—and it's open anyone to answer— around predictability of times when there would be virtual voting.

[Karen Bradley]

I'm happy to say from the point of view of the Commons, there were absolutely concerns about this. I'm sure you've been in the same situation in that, from a constituency point of view, none of us have been busier than we have been, dealing with COVID casework. Everyone was in a mindset of being in their constituency offices. Whether they were at home or wherever they are based, they were basically focused on their constituencies. To try and then get people to move into thinking of the sitting hours of the House of Commons, which are not the same as working hours, and to think that votes may be coming at 10 o'clock at night, five o'clock in the evening or seven o'clock was quite something. The whips have to work very hard with each other.

The other thing is that when members are physically in the chamber, the whips can manage the timing of the business because they can get people in to speak. We can do interventions to keep people speaking. The whips, as you say, can make sure that people are physically in the room. That's not as easy if you're relying on people making contributions down the line. You're relying on the tech to work, you're relying on people using the full amount of their time so that you can then calculate when a vote comes.

I can tell you that when we did the remote voting from our constituencies, we spent an awful lot of time receiving text messages, SMS messages throughout the day from the whips warning us about the likely time of votes and making sure we were alert to it. I know it was a significant change in mindset for people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you so much, Ms. Bradley.

Next up for five minutes of questioning we have Mr. Tochor.

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

Thank you so much to the presenters today for answering our questions. It's interesting, to say the least, to hear what our mother house is doing.

I have a question for Ms. Bradley about deferred on-division voting. We talked about the lobbies, and I was lucky enough to be over in London to tour the very historic and very interesting building.

I'd like you to talk a little about the deferred on-division voting. You wouldn't go back into the lobbies, if I understand you right, but there would be other spaces where you could safely cast votes that may have been bunched together, so that you could do a week's worth of voting. Could you elaborate on how that's worked or hasn't worked or how we could utilize that during a pandemic when we need to be separated?

[Karen Bradley]

We have deferred divisions. We have certain orders where the vote cannot be taken as a live vote, it has to be taken as a deferred vote. We generally do those votes on a Wednesday between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. One of the division lobbies is set aside for members to go and vote using a piece of paper with “ayes” and “noes” on it. We cross one out, sign the piece of paper and hand it in.

We haven't actually had any deferred divisions since the pandemic started. My committee has made the point on a number of occasions that we would need to change our Standing Orders, and there would be some real benefit to changing Standing Orders. This evening, for example, we are debating the counterterrorism bill. If there is a vote on that business, it will be a live vote at 7 p.m. My view and the committee's view is that there is some benefit in turning that into a deferred vote. It doesn't matter, nothing is going to change if the vote happens tomorrow over the course of a couple of hours in the “no” lobby. It would mean that we would not be keeping people in the building.

The point was made earlier about staff. We have the minimum number of staff in the building, but we're still all acutely aware that is more staff than we would need to have if the House were not sitting physically. Every time we have any kind of need to bring more members in for divisions, we require more staff to be there. We're really trying to look at how we might be able to manage voting. As you say, we do a block of voting, lots of different votes—