Thank you, Madam Chair.
My first question is for Professor Brock.
Generally speaking, I found your opening remarks to be quite well thought out and to reflect a really mature knowledge of how Parliament actually works.
I'm going to premise my question by saying that every one of us here is a representative. I represent every single person in my constituency—128,000 people—men, women, people of different colours and people of different ethnic origins. There is every bit as much diversity in my constituency as there would be in most of the other ridings in this country.
I actually don't subscribe to the point of view that I don't understand an issue because I'm not from a particular culture or have a particular upbringing, or whatever the case might be. On any given day, I might be discussing the regulations and rules pertaining to how an aircraft lands just as much as I might be talking about how to make the quality of life better for my constituents. I think everybody who gets elected is more than capable of being able to represent everybody in their constituency and all of their needs, and we somewhat become subject matter experts on all of these issues.
My concern is that if we're not present.... If you don't go to class, for example, it's hard to learn. As a former teacher at a college myself—that was the job I had before I came here—I taught some classes virtually, such as computer programming, and I taught some in person. I can tell you that the people who were in classes I taught in person left with a much greater understanding than the people I taught virtually.
Given that—and I don't subscribe to the notion that we have to be a diverse group in the House to have diverse opinions in representing the people we represent, because I think people are regardless able to do that—I have a question on the quality of our democracy. I heard Ms. Thomas say that if somebody is engaged in a debate or a speech in the House of Commons, it somehow changes the ebb and flow of how a policy or piece of legislation is actually changed. My experience in 17 years of being here as a member of Parliament is that it's the conversations you have outside the room, in the hallway and after the committee is done. When we suspend our committees for five minutes—which chairs will often do—and then come back, all of a sudden the committee is now getting along fine because the people who were in the room were able to have a conversation and sort these things out.
I'm worried about the effectiveness and the quality of the decisions that are made. This is supposed to be a place where people get together and the good ideas bubble to the top to the benefit of all. My concern is that if we're not here—or at least not enough of us are here on an ongoing basis—we're not going to get the best decisions.