Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks so much to the members of the committee for this opportunity to address you.
My name is Michael Morden. I'm the research director of the Samara Centre for Democracy. The Samara Centre is an independent, non-partisan charity that is dedicated to strengthening Canadian democracy through research and programming.
We want to thank the committee for undertaking this study. Given the scope of the crisis, the scale of the government's response and the enormous uncertainty that exists, Parliament is not optional at this time. The only question to address ourselves to is how to make it work. Arriving at a solution that commands some measure of cross-partisan support is a solemn responsibility that falls to you.
I understand that our presentation comes perhaps somewhat late in your deliberation. Nevertheless, I think it's useful to consider questions of politics and principle at the same time as technical ones, to remember why we're pursuing this, and not to miss the forest for the trees.
The Samara Centre supports a move in the immediate term to hybrid virtual and in-person sittings of the House of Commons, with remote voting for those who are unable to attend in person. We think the hybrid virtual model is the best among imperfect options.
To be clear, the best of all versions of the House of Commons is the one in which 338 individuals share a room, and there are a lot of reasons for that. We've been a consistent voice in calling for members to spend more time together in Ottawa, to facilitate collegiality and to build informal relationships between members, parties and chambers. However, given the limits imposed through physical distancing, and credible concerns about travel, in our assessment, that option just isn't on the table. We need a full-service Parliament now and, in our view, through the summer.
I hope the option of a full, in-person convening of the Commons will return soon, but we're clearly in a state of deep uncertainty. As the second-largest country on earth, we may find that we're uniquely challenged to get back to full physical national sittings of Parliament. It's a necessary step in the immediate term and a prudent step for the middle term to institute the capacity to resume full parliamentary business with remote participation.
I want to foreground the values that lead us to that conclusion. In times of uncertainty, it's often worthwhile to return to first principles. Parliament exists for scrutiny, to enable the passage of legislation and also for democratic representation. The most desirable pandemic Parliament is one that strikes an appropriate balance between all of those functions. We feel that the current approach, employing a handful of day-long sittings in addition to committee work, is not sufficient to deliver the level of scrutiny, productivity and representation that's required.
We also take issue with any approach that would convene the Commons but exclude most of its members, for example, by operating on the basis of a skeleton crew of 40 or 50 MPs. That approach facilitates some scrutiny and enables the passage of legislation, but in our view, it comes at the expense of democratic representation. Some 18 million Canadians voted last fall to send individual representatives from each of their communities to Ottawa, and it's no small thing to render the vast majority of those communities unrepresented in the Commons while these momentous decisions are being taken.
For that reason, we think the best balance between scrutiny, productivity and representation is struck with a hybrid Parliament permitting remote participation, including remote voting. The technical challenges posed by such an approach are not insurmountable. Many other jurisdictions have walked this road. There are different models available to us, as Dr. Goodman described, and the House of Commons administration deserves particular praise, in our view, for adapting and adding capacity with alacrity.
In our view, there's no question that remote voting is feasible. It's feasible to do it securely, and it only awaits a decision by parliamentarians.
In the early stages of the pandemic, we supported the notion of incremental adaptation. Moving to a hybrid virtual Parliament was never going to be as simple as flipping a switch. We now have proof of concept, both in the experience of other jurisdictions and also in Parliament's own experience of authorizing the virtual conduct of some business activity. At this point, we hope that the committee will provide the Commons with a strong prompt to move as quickly as is feasible to resume full parliamentary business with remote participation.
We believe that legislative business should not be limited to the pandemic response alone. We welcome the granting of committees the opportunity to discuss other issues. We would like to see that reflected in legislative work as well. There are a range of issues that were urgent in January and February of this year that are no less urgent now. Just as doctors warn about the possibility of secondary health crises that are a consequence of delaying treatment for non-COVID-19-related illness, Canada may also become vulnerable to multiple crises during and after the pandemic if we can't attend to the policy needs that existed before it.
We also believe that the hybrid virtual Parliament's business should include opposition days and private members' business. No one has all the answers right now, so this is a really good time for multiple inputs.
In closing, I want to mention briefly that the Samara Centre periodically surveys MPs, and we're doing so now precisely on the question of how the pandemic has affected and should affect parliamentary work. We're always keen to develop an accurate picture of members' views on this issue and develop a body of evidence, and we encourage all members to make use of this anonymous platform to share your expertise.
Thank you very much.