Procedure and House Affairs Committee on July 6th, 2020

[Stéphan Aubé]

I am always of the premise that the members are honourable and will follow the regulations.

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

That's a very good point.

To that end, Mr. Speaker, we have had a number of cases within the House of Commons, from time to time, where it wasn't clear if somebody was in their seat or what the rule is or if they heard the question.

It seems to me in the limited experience that I've had during the past five years that what it really comes down to is the member doing what is the honourable thing. If the member says they were in a certain position at a certain time, the rulings from the Speakers have usually been to trust the member in that regard. Is that right?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

It would be very difficult for the Speaker to have his eyes on every member, where he is, where she is, at that time. We do call them honourable members and we are all honourable members. I rely on their being honest.

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

The reason I bring this up is that there appear to be two different themes when we talk about security. Some members of this committee talk about security from the perspective of the infiltration of third parties to disrupt our democratic process, but other members of the committee seem to be more concerned about whether a member would give their device to another person or another individual who would then utilize that device to vote on their behalf.

From a security perspective, from the Speaker's perspective, which of those two are you more concerned about? Are you concerned about individuals coming from the outside to disrupt our democratic process, or are you more concerned about questioning that honour that you mentioned of the members?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The main concern that we have when putting a system together and making sure that it works is infiltration from the outside. If someone comes in from the outside and disrupts how things are going or skews votes or arguments a certain way, then it really does interfere with the process.

Concerning the voting itself, there's enough in place where a member will have passwords or will have a certain number of safety measures that will avoid someone breaking in and taking his or her vote away or his or her debate time away. To me, it is up to the member to protect that.

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

On the topic of virtual voting, during the discussions of virtual voting we seem to be going down two paths. Do we do this through an app-based application or do we do it through some kind of visual process, like on Zoom?

I want to understand. The way we do it in the House of Commons when we have a standing vote, which takes eight minutes, is that we go down rows. The Speaker and the Clerk's staff can see ahead of time who's coming up next, who might be absent, who might not.

Have you even thought of how you would practically implement that system on a platform like Zoom where you have 17 or 18 pages of thumbnail pictures and you wouldn't necessarily have everybody lined up the way that it has to go? Has that been a consideration? Have you thought about that much, Mr. Aubé or Mr. Speaker?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

It's certainly been a discussion at the table when we are talking about different options and how we will handle that. I think we're capable of it but it would certainly take a little bit longer.

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

What would be your preference, Mr. Speaker? Would it be to have an app-based vote or would it be to have people standing? And I don't mean your personal preference. Based on the discussions you've had on administering the vote, what is the simplest way for the Speaker and the clerks to handle that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time we have. We don't have time for the answer to that, but maybe we'll get that on the next round.

Mr. Duncan, please.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm in my constituency office and I've cut out four or five times, so I apologize if we have to suspend.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker and the House administration team, for your leadership in this evolving situation. I think every job in Canada, including ours as members, has been evolving these days.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a note about the various in-person, app and electronic options we're looking at. Would it be fair to say that these options aren't mutually exclusive? You've talked about different options for different circumstances and times. Would you suggest that in-person voting in September be the natural preference and that we go into remote voting if need be? Can you talk about the exclusivity of these options and the ability to change?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The ability to change is really up to the House and the individual members. Can you blend them? Yes. It would probably cause a little bit of confusion, but overall whatever this committee and the members of Parliament decide to go with, that's what our staff is ready to go with.

Is it better to meet in person or virtually come September? COVID has been changing so drastically along the way, it's very difficult to predict what will happen in a month and a half or two months from now.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Sure.

For the options for in-person voting, one of the things I made a note of was about voting outside the chamber. Is there any consideration of having a camera installed to perhaps capture the voting process? I don't know if that was noted in there at all.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I'm sorry, you'll have to clarify that question on the camera. Where and how exactly do you mean?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

For example, for the queue voting, we talked about the option presented that it could be in the Sir John A. Macdonald Building. Has there been talk of having a camera in the queue, for example, for the public to see that process?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

It's not in the proposal. It's something that could be considered as an extra precaution, but that's something you may want to bring forward, Mr. Duncan, when the report comes forward. It's not something that has been discussed.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I appreciate that.

I'll switch to electronic voting for the roll call voting. You've mentioned the extended on-camera presence that would be required for voting that way. That's the way to identify the MPs' identities, correct? Would having that physical presence on Zoom be the way of validating that?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

That would be one of the ways of validating, yes.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

By comparison, on the remote app it would be the sign-in and not the member's physical presence. I do respect that we all are honourable members. I have no reason to suggest otherwise, of course. It would be based on the trust or honour of the members that we wouldn't see or necessarily be able to see. That would be the disadvantage of the app, so having that in-person camera would make the validation much easier to do, correct?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

That is correct. There is a confirmation process when someone signs into an app or through electronic voting. Again, we're back to the integrity of the individual members and the honour of the members, which I trust wholeheartedly.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Yes.

Then again, with in-person votes or with the use of the facing camera, we wouldn't have to deal with that or really question that at all.

I'll just switch to committees. You may wish to defer to some of your colleagues about the virtual capacity for committee meetings. One of the comments I had written down was about the capacity of the technical aspect—and I give kudos to interpretation and all the technical teams doing this stuff.

What's the plan in the fall when we come back? Whatever we choose in terms of the technical capacities.... I think of all of our standing committees, the House and those types of things. Are we adding staff? Are we adding capacity for the short term? What's the status update on both the IT and the staffing aspects?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I'll defer this one to Mr. Aubé. I'm sure he'll be able to answer that with much more detail than I will.

[Stéphan Aubé]

We are currently in the buying process, to ensure that when we return in September, we can offer a capacity similar to our pre-COVID capacity, unless the environment changes from now to then for the worst. Our goal is to put in place the proper resourcing model to support you with the appropriate capacity for supporting all committees as we did previous to COVID.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Sorry, you just said that includes both the physical IT and the staffing requirements to administer that. Is that correct?

[Stéphan Aubé]

We're looking at that.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

And you hope to have that by September 21.

Is that the capacity of the full-day or half-day virtual hybrid sittings and all the committees running? You're saying that you're trying to get that all lined up so we could be at full capacity with everything on September 21?