Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2024

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for their comments.

We are in a democracy. We parliamentarians represent the people. Scandinavian countries, Quebec and a few other countries have succeeded, in practice, in establishing parity. For my part, I see even further ahead. I'm talking about representing the whole population.

We can solve problems between MPs. We can help each other and remain vigilant. However, in a minority context, if we experience discrimination or intimidation, do you believe that achieving parity or representativeness of the population could change our democracy and the way we act?

[Madeline Nwokeji]

Our population is definitely changing in terms of diverse individuals, and even representatives in Parliament as well. I believe that as things changed, with Canada being a country that is very accepting of immigrants from all places, many have come here and have been able to become members of Parliament and even go higher.

With the changes in the representatives, as well as with the appropriate training.... I also mentioned earlier cultural sensitivity and cultural competency training as a recommendation. The reason is that this training will create a better understanding of the different diverse cultures that are part of the members of the House of Commons. This kind of training and understanding of the different languages and different behaviours that people bring would also create a better working environment.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Your words are music to my ears.

I don't have much time left, but I'd also like to hear what other witnesses have to say about this.

[Chi Nguyen]

Yes, we want our parliaments to look like our communities, so seeing more diversity, more women represented and people with different lived experiences around the table will strengthen our democracy. We know that diversity in business creates better business outcomes. That diversity in thinking will also help.

[Harmy Mendoza]

Absolutely, it will. Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have two and a half minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I have way more than two and a half minutes' worth of questions, so I'll try to put them together

The first question I want to ask is specifically for Equal Voice. It's about the comparison of legislatures that you did. I too am worried about the impacts that this level of hate has on the people who serve within them, and not just the elected officials. I'm wondering whether you surveyed people who work within those institutions about the impacts of harassment and what they're seeing in that hate coming toward them.

If you can, I would also like to talk about how we were seized in this Parliament with foreign interference and the roles of foreign governments in disinformation and that fuelling of hate, and what that all leads to. We're certainly seeing that internally and nationally.

I wonder what certain groups' end goal is. Especially for the extreme right, what is their objective in undermining our democracy in that way?

[Chi Nguyen]

On the first question around whether or not we also surveyed staffers and folks who aren't elected, yes, the survey also included them in our data. We want to make sure that the committee has a copy of that report so that you can dive more deeply into that.

On the question around the place of hate in this kind of work, I think that in all of this work, it's making the conditions for everyone a bit more challenging. Certainly many people just look at this work and ask why on earth they would sign up for this.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Are there benefits, though, for certain groups from undermining democratic institutions? What do they look like?

[Chi Nguyen]

Do you mean from within the legislatures themselves?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes.

[Chi Nguyen]

I don't know that I can speak to the agendas of those folks.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I don't know if the other witnesses want to try to tackle it.

[Madeline Nwokeji]

I'm sorry. Was it related to members of the legislature undermining...?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It can be. There are certain movements in terms of that....

In the undermining of a democratic institution through disinformation, in using that hate to push people out, do you think there's an agenda there?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Be very quick, please.

[Madeline Nwokeji]

I believe there could be. People come from all walks of life and people have beliefs, whether they're personal or cultural. However, we do have to recognize that this is Canada, and we are all governed by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We do have the freedom of expression; however, we definitely cannot undermine the country we're in. I think it's important to be mindful of that.

I think there could be individuals with certain agendas. I'm not too sure what those agendas could be. However, we do have to be mindful, regardless of the country we're in, and be respectful of everyone and not undermine the democratic process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Ms. Mathyssen.

Ms. Rempel Garner, you have five minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Colleagues, I don't come to this committee often, so I'm going to use this time to give you my recommendations as an expert in this field, having been here a hot minute.

You guys are going to want to recommend to put the MP-to-MP harassment within the existing code, but we all know the reality of what's going to happen with that. It's going to be politically weaponized. Even if it goes through House of Commons administration, I know that many of you, if we had a Conservative Speaker, wouldn't feel comfortable putting it through there. We've seen leaks happen through that process. It's just not going to work. Let's be realistic.

Let's think about what the impact of that would be. My colleague Mr. Gerretsen and I have had some pretty “rock'em, sock'em robots” conversations on Twitter. I know I blocked him on Twitter. That doesn't mean I don't respect him as a colleague, but what would happen if I put in a harassment complaint against him? All of a sudden, he is going to be tried in the court of public opinion, which I might like. I mean, that sounds really great, because it's a cheap political win, but it goes against the principles of good HR management, so we can't do this. Let's be realistic. That's not going to happen.

However, that doesn't mean, given the change in gender composition of Parliament, that we shouldn't have something, so this is what I would suggest.

Number one, don't put anything in this report that allows for the weaponization of HR. Don't do that—and we all know that it's going to happen. To give credit to our witnesses, they don't live in our world. They just don't. I used to manage a team of 40 staff in a unionized environment. That world doesn't apply here, because of political weaponization.

So what do we do? I think this is a question of privilege. I have the right to work in an workplace without harassment, so this is what I would suggest.

First of all, extend EFAP services to include a mechanism to de-escalate tension, particularly within caucuses. Liberal Party, you're about to go through a leadership race. That is an ugly time within a party. You need to have a process to de-escalate tensions.

Number two, make it a violation of privilege. Change the Standing Orders so that if somebody uses an EFAP process to de-escalate tension and they leak it to the media, there's some sort of House censure for that. Make it absolutely sacrosanct to not leak this stuff to the media, because it needs to be done in good faith.

Number three, make sure that there's training for party whips. We all understand that party whips are in a difficult situation because they have to maintain votes and adherence to party standards, but at the same time they're also managing HR in an environment where HR law doesn't apply. Perhaps there could be some training or some processes for that. I have only five minutes, so I won't suggest what that looks like.

The same goes for caucus chairs. Caucus chairs should be independent from the centre of a party. There should be rules in caucus meetings for party leadership, as well as for caucus chairs, on how to manage interaction in a caucus meeting so that you don't have people yelling at each other or berating each other.

Again, at the end of the day, there should also be some sort of process for vexatious complaints. If I go after my colleague Mr. Gerretsen with some sort of accusation, and it's completely bunk.... We've seen this happen in this place. Reputations have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. What does that mean? There should be some sort of process to discourage that.

On the notion of the pledge that has been made, that's nice, but what we really need here is some sort of process that relates to the privilege of being able to be in a workplace without any sort of harassment that is not going to be weaponized for political gain. MP-to-MP harassment absolutely will be weaponized, so don't do that. Do something smarter.

That is my two cents. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Rempel Garner, thank you for providing some productive and interesting guidance to the committee.

Mrs. Romanado, the floor is yours.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much.

I want to thank my colleague for those excellent recommendations.

In addition to that, I would include in the current policy a reference to harassment between members of Parliament so it is specific about this being unacceptable behaviour. The appendix already has examples of behaviours that are considered unacceptable.

I like the recommendation about training. I agree about bystander training. In addition to the pledges, we need stronger mechanisms here in the House for that.

I agree with the idea that the Speaker shouldn't be the arbitrator of complaints with respect to sexual harassment. The reason, as my colleague mentioned, is that whoever is in the chair is also a member of a political party.

We already have a chief human resources officer who looks at complaints of sexual harassment or harassment between MPs and employees or among employees. This person is already trained and an expert in the field, in terms of human resources and in going through an EFAP process, a mediation process, and so on and so forth. I would say that it's similar to what we're trying to do with Bill C-66 for the military justice system in taking complaints outside. We don't want the military to investigate itself in terms of cases. Similar to that, I don't think political parties should be investigating themselves.

It's been 10 long years since a report came out saying that we need to get this loophole closed. Do you have any additional recommendations for us to make sure that this gets done once and for all?

[Harmy Mendoza]

I'll reiterate.

I feel we need to make sure this training is implemented and embedded. We need to make sure that it's clear and that people feel less scared to go through a process, especially as a complainant, and that they know they have certain venues, and it's clear to them what those venues are going forward.

I will reiterate to include an anti-oppressive framework and intersectionality. I think those are important areas to include.

I did provide other venues in my speech. Domestic violence leave is not in your current policy. That's an important area that would be good to include in there as well.

I don't have any other suggestions. I don't know if my colleagues do.

[Chi Nguyen]

I'm not sure if there's a piece around data and evaluation baked into the approach right now, one that is disaggregated, so that you can start to identify trends about complainants and what's coming forward. That would be helpful.

Also, you need some annual, deep survey work on whether people are familiar with the policies, and where education and training are coming from. I think that would also be useful in the rollout to make sure information is readily available to people.

[Madeline Nwokeji]

I would add this: It's about expanding the scope of what constitutes a form of harassment. For example, think about microaggressions that could be used, and how those can impact folks.

Also, use conflict resolution training so that these matters are part of the new policy and training on how MPs can handle issues among themselves. The training should have a trauma-informed lens with a gender-based analysis for perspective.

We also talked about bystander intervention, peer support and things like that. These would be very helpful to ensure this is effective.

It's also about having an open door policy. We talked about not having a term limit. You need an open door policy for these complaints, as well as a neutral party who can resolve matters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Romanado.

Thank you very much, witnesses, for being here. Your testimony certainly adds important insight to our work.

We will suspend momentarily and give everyone a couple of minutes to reset. Any folks who are not staff or members of Parliament need to leave the room, as we're going to be heading in camera.

Colleagues, we have some committee business to attend to. I don't anticipate it's going to take us too long, although I may regret saying that. Nonetheless, we will be back in a few moments.

[Proceedings continue in camera]