Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2020

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Was the remote voting system robust?

[Harriet Harman]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Was the remote voting system tested?

[Harriet Harman]

Yes. We had three tests, and there was a whole load of mistakes in the first, and fewer mistakes in the second. By the time we did it for real, it was sorted.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Did the remote voting system feel familiar to MPs?

[Harriet Harman]

Once we started doing it, there was a bit of a moment of terror when you think, “Am I going to press the right button? Am I going to vote the wrong way?” You know, we're all used to trotting through the division lobbies. There's this unfamiliarity, big time, but once we did it once, we then thought, “We can do this; it's easy”, and we all took to it like ducks to water.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

You talked about having discovered that remote voting worked well and it happened flawlessly. Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Harriet Harman]

We don't have a great record on technology in Westminster. You can't get a mobile phone signal properly in my office, so my expectations were on the floor.

Somehow they rose to the occasion. This ancient Parliament leapt hundreds of years forward, and the technology worked well. Nobody has complained about the technology. The remote voting's falling foul of the government's determination that we should look like we're back at work, albeit the government's public health advice is that you should work from home if you can. A lot of people have pointed out that we've proved we can work from home and that therefore we should.

It's a shame that there is a row going on about it, but the remote voting worked for everybody. It worked flawlessly, and there have been no scandals. The Chancellor voted the wrong way by mistake on the first one, but I'm pretty sure a lot of other people did as well, possibly.

What happens is you get the whips' suggestions of how you vote at the same time as the vote, so you look at what the whip says, you look at the voting aye or no, you press it, and then that's it.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Before I turn this over to my colleague, could you give me a short answer on the MPs' response to this system? You talked about it being amazing and working “flawlessly”.

[Harriet Harman]

I think there was panic and apprehension that we would all suddenly shame ourselves by showing that we couldn't operate very basic technology, and a lack of confidence in the centre to deliver it properly. We all discovered that we were better at technology than we thought we were and that the centre had done a good job. Everybody felt quite empowered by it.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you so much.

With that, I'll turn the floor over to my colleague Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Duncan.

How much time do I have, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You have one minute.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Okay. I'll ask just one question, then.

Thank you very much, Ms. Harman, for being here with us again, especially since it's Friday night for you.

You're saying now that you're operating in a hybrid model. Do you think you could operate in a hybrid model without the option of remote voting?

[Harriet Harman]

Yes, we could, but there would be no justification for that. We already have proxy voting and in-person voting. I think it makes sense to have in-person voting and proxy voting, but also remote voting and remote speaking as well. It's not just about voting; it's about speaking in the chamber, in debates, and asking questions.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Perhaps you could summarize the answer to my next question: What is your advice to us?

[Harriet Harman]

I think my advice is to do what was suggested by your colleague Ms. Blaney, which is to do what's necessary in the emergency now. I would definitely say to have remote voting, but afterwards have a real and deliberative process in which you work out what lessons you can learn to bring about better accountability for the future and deliver what the public wants.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Madam Normandin is next.

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

Thank you so much.

I'd like to linger a bit on what Mr. Tochor asked.

We have constraints now with logistics. We cannot hold all of the standing committee meetings together right now, just because of the logistics. However, there are things that could be done in a virtual Parliament that were chosen not to be done. For example, we don't really have take-note debates and we don't have opposition days, but it has been said that it could be done technologically.

I'm wondering if you consider one of the keys to the success of your collaboration to be the fact that in the virtual Parliament, you really tried to imitate what was done in the real Parliament.

[Harriet Harman]

We did. We had all the select committees operating. As soon as we had standing committees in legislation, they were all operating. We had questions, we had urgent questions, we had debates on legislation. We had the whole structure, but it was unrecognizably changed in procedures. We still have all the basic elements, such as early day motions and all the sorts of things that help us express our views and express the views of our constituents. They're all there, but they're all done rather differently.

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

Thank you so much. That was my only question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney is next.

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

Thank you, Ms. Harman. I really appreciate your quoting me there. That was fantastic. We always enjoy that. I'm sure, just as for Mr. Brassard, it won't show up in the report, unfortunately, but I appreciate it.

With regard to remote voting, we've heard from several members about issues of predictability. I'm wondering how that was addressed.

Right now, of course, if we were all back in Ottawa, we would have 15- or 30-minute bells and we would all run to our seats and do our vote. One of the challenges right now is that people are at at home. They may have different child care challenges because their children aren't able to go to school. They may have other commitments. They may have a connectivity challenge. Several of our members live in regions where connectivity could be a significant challenge for them. They may need to get somewhere to actually do their vote.

I'm wondering if there was anything around the predictability of voting. How did you address some of the multitude of issues that arose and that are not necessarily the same issues you face when you're all in one place in your Parliament?

[Harriet Harman]

It honestly wasn't a problem. We have MPs with brand new babies and we have MPs with serious illnesses, and basically we wouldn't know when the vote would be, because they're not necessarily time scheduled, but we didn't have a problem. We would just have to have our smart phones with us.

Also, sometimes the whips would warn us in a text that they were expecting the votes to start at 2:30 and that they might go on to 3:30. We would get general warnings from our whips, and then we would just have our phones with us. It's before my time, but people can do everything now with a smart phone in their hands, and they do, and that's all they have to do.

I wouldn't worry about those technical difficulties or predictability. It's often easier than actually running from a committee room to get through the division lobby before the doors slam shut. That hasn't been a problem at all.

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

Okay. That's good to know, although in my riding, if I drove 20 minutes in one direction I would have no cell reception at all.