Evidence of meeting #9 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Yes, absolutely, Mr. Turnbull. I'll put you on next.
I see that panning out. I do think feasibility will be woven into almost every meeting. Every witness will probably have comments as to feasibility, be they the IT experts, the technology experts or the security and safety experts, and even the other legislatures and parliaments. Feasibility will be a question you'll be able to ask any witness. We don't necessarily need a meeting alone for that, but I can see how we could probably set aside separate time to explore just the alternatives.
Thank you for that, Mr. Richards.
Mr. Turnbull—
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Sorry, Madam Chair, but could I ask a question in relation to what you've just spoken about?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
This is just to clarify what I was getting at with the idea of feasibility.
Technology was specifically mentioned, and it is part of that grouping. I suppose you could say it's technology to some degree, but what about things like translation? Maybe we could have someone from the Translation Bureau give us some sense of the challenges they might face. That would be one example. Maybe someone from the media could give us a sense as to the challenges there would be for them to be able to report on the proceedings of Parliament.
It's things like that. I don't know if those fit within technology. That's why I suggested expanding it just a bit and calling it feasibility. We could call it whatever you want. I agree that everything is tied into feasibility, but technology would be one part of the focus. Those are a couple of areas I thought of. We could call it technology and just have the understanding that it may include things like that as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Absolutely.
Okay, I will move on. We were on the same topic. That's why we were having a bit of a back-and-forth, in case anybody is wondering.
Next on the speakers list is Mr. Turnbull.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Madam Chair, thank you very much.
I really appreciate this discussion. I think it's really worthwhile. In particular, I appreciated Mr. Gerretsen's comment about international best practices, and I know that has been picked up on.
In terms of having themed meetings and understanding how many meetings we will have—it sounded like there would be four or five—I have a clarification question and then I'd like to make some follow-up comments. Is that really determined? Is the final meeting necessary for making recommendations, so all of us can talk about what we've learned from the study and make final recommendations? Would we reserve the fifth meeting for that purpose? That's just a question for clarification. Do you have any thoughts on that? Then maybe I could make a couple of other comments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Maybe we could hear some thoughts from Andre Barnes on this one to help us out. Perhaps the clerk or the analyst could help us out with that.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, I'll just jump in quickly before Andre talks.
I can provide a bit of information to Mr. Turnbull, but it also may be of interest to the other members of the committee: The deadline to report back to the House that was stipulated in the House motion from last Saturday is May 15.
If we work back from that, taking into account the production time needed for the report, which includes various aspects such as translation and formatting and then of course the drafting that the analyst needs to do, we are looking at about four meetings at which the committee could entertain witnesses, or possibly pushing that to five. All of that would suggest the committee would probably need to be starting to consider a draft report sometime during the first week of May so that the committee could properly assess it and make any additional changes that members would want to make to it, including possible recommendations they might want to put forward.
Once that part was done, it could then go back to be re-edited, changed, altered with all of the translation that is needed with respect to that, and then undergo the production process that's needed so that a final, fully adopted report could be deposited with the Clerk of the House by the deadline of May 15.
Conservative
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Sorry, Mr. Richards.
I'm just wondering if I can finish my comments before Mr. Richards asks his clarification question.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Yes, I'm very sorry about that, Mr. Turnbull. I forgot that you were the one who was intervening at this time.
Mr. Richards, could you save your intervention for a little bit later and we'll carry on with—
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Sorry, Madam Chair, but it's a very brief question just to clarify something he said. I'm not looking to jump the line here; it's just a clarification of what was—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
We're in the middle of an intervention. This was a question asked of the clerk, so there is still a back-and-forth going on. Right after that we will go back to you, Mr. Richards. Could you just hold that thought for a couple of minutes? Thank you.
Go ahead, Ryan.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just to finish my thought here, I really appreciated what Mr. Richards was saying about feasibility.
After we have had the numerous meetings and we have heard from witnesses, heard all of the testimony and gathered all of the evidence that we can, just understanding the structure, I wonder whether we could consider feasibility as part of the lens that we look through to make recommendations, as part of the analysis. As you said, Madam Chair, feasibility will be something that comes up and on which we will be gathering intel all the way through.
That would be my preference. I think feasibility is really important and I think there are trade-offs with any technological solution that we'll consider.
I want to make a couple of other points. I would opt to begin the process with those international best practices. I think we're going to get the most value out of this study if we really start at that place. That starting point is going to elucidate all kinds of opportunities for further inquiry.
The other thing I would mention is that I strongly agree with the general structure that has been emerging here. I see it as international best practices. There obviously has to be some consideration of the various technological solutions out there and a bit of an analysis of those. I think all of my colleagues here today have made some very good points on procedural changes and the parliamentary role in any function-related implications of doing this or of considering a virtual parliament.
Security and confidentiality also come up a lot, and rightly so. We all have concerns there.
I also wonder, if we were pressed for time, whether that could be condensed into the feasibility analysis that we do as a group. I do think it's an important issue, so it may merit a meeting on its own that might also become part of the later phase of the work as we analyze the different solutions and their implications.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I will be putting you back on the list.
Dr. Duncan, I was just going to say that after we hear Mr. Richards' question, I actually have a question out of my notes from something that you, Ms. Blaney and Ms. May have said, so I'll interject with that question right after we hear from Mr. Richards and his question for the clerk.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Mr. Richards.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
In the interim I've had the opportunity to expand a little bit on my thoughts on this. I guess I'm going to throw out a bit of a suggestion and then ask the clerk a question.
From my understanding of his timeline, we would want to have at least the beginnings of a report by the first week of May. That was how I understood it. If I understood that correctly, what I might suggest, given the time we would then have.... Obviously our meeting next week, which would be the 21st, I guess, would be the first meeting with witnesses, with the Clerk and the Speaker and other officials potentially. That would leave us with potentially four meetings if we were to follow our regular schedule. It sounds like we may want to cover slightly more than what those four meetings might allow.
What we might want to do is to look at maybe extending the meetings by an hour on the 23rd, 28th and 30th of April, and the 5th of May. We could have three-hour meetings and have two panels of one and a half hours each on those days, which would essentially give us four meetings times two. That's eight panels, which would give us enough time to cover some of those things with a couple of panels, and others where we don't have as many witnesses with just one, and then still allow us to bring back the officials one more time if we needed to ask any questions there. Then we could use May 7 to consider the first draft of our report.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you for those helpful suggestions, Mr. Richards. The clerk and I will explore that with the technical team to see if we can manage it.
My question is related to some of the notes I have from the comments made by Ms. May, Dr. Duncan and Ms. Blaney. There were some references to health and having witnesses around that, and then also the private sector was something you stated, Ms. Blaney.
I'm going to go to you, Dr. Duncan, and see if you can help me tease that out a little bit, or if you have other comments. Then if Ms. May or Ms. Blaney would like, they could interject.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yes, I think this is fundamentally important. It is a pandemic. It's a public health crisis. I can't be clearer that the most important officials are our public health officials. Some provinces are showing signs that Canada's battle against COVID-19 may be taking a turn for the better, but we're not there yet.
Canada's chief public health officer said this Wednesday in a press conference that there's reason to be cautiously optimistic that the spread of COVID is slowing with cases in the country. Doubling rates are about every 10 days now, compared with three days in late March. However, the public health officer has warned that it's too soon to leave physical distancing measures and doing so would “be like making our way down from a mountain in the darkness”. I think it's very important that we hear from the chief public health officer for Canada, as well as other officials. I think they have to be among the first people we hear from, because we have to respect the public health, we have to respect the timing and we have to stick to the evidence.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you, Dr. Duncan. We always respect your thoughts in these matters because you have a wealth of experience in this field.
Ms. May or Ms. Blaney, your comments were around this too. I apologize; you said them at the beginning of the meeting and you might want to tease them out a bit.
Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.