Evidence of meeting #32 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was interpreters.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC
Yes, please. Either of you would be great. Thank you.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The first point is that the allocation of speaking time is a separate issue from the mode through which parliamentarians engage in parliamentary debate.
My inclination would be to put the question of how speaking time is allocated as a separate problem from hybridity. Assuming you can resolve that issue of how speaking time gets allocated, then if you have the option of hybridity on the table, which provides more opportunities for a wider range of folks to consider running for public office and then serving in public office—
Conservative
Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC
Dr. Rayment, the problem is that when people are here, they don't actually get to do their job, and it's only gotten worse under a hybrid model. As Dr. Brock outlined, the type of functionality that we have does matter. We have to be seen to work.
I just don't see, under the hybrid model, that people are able to participate in the way they want.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'm wondering....
My apologies.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'm wondering if you could perhaps connect the dots a little bit more clearly there. How is it that hybridity exacerbates the problems around how speaking time is allocated?
October 6th, 2022 / 11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC
I believe that under the hybrid system, there have been practices adopted that have limited the members' ability to participate in Parliament itself. Because they're behind a screen, they don't feel that they can stand up and speak on behalf of their constituents in the same way that they could if they were in Ottawa a little more. That is a very problematic approach to running a democracy and holding a government to account.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Perhaps I could intervene on that one.
That's why we say that the question is a problem of design and not mode. We can come up with numerous examples about various caucus practices that do the same thing in person. This is well-established literature on the power of leader appointments. People don't want to speak out against their party leader in caucus, for example. The norms about party discipline in Canadian politics are much, much stronger in our system than in, say, the United Kingdom or any other examples of parliament.
At the risk of being a bit blunt, what you're describing is a problem, and it's a problem with other parts of the system. I would say that this is what my colleague has described as institutional immaturity. This is a problem with design, but it is not a problem of the mode with which Parliament chooses to do its work.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
This is why we have a very strict boundary in between. Is there a bigger issue with the institution, or is this about mode—
Conservative
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
—and what you're talking about isn't about mode.
Conservative
Brad Vis Conservative Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC
Thank you, Dr. Thomas.
Dr. Brock, you mentioned in your recommendations that parties need to revisit speaker lists and restore speaker choice. Has hybrid Parliament exacerbated this problem?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you, Dr. Vis, or Mr. Vis. I don't know why I want to call you Dr. Vis today.
Liberal
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. I will certainly try to take up Dr. Malloy's challenge and try to reach consensus within these conversations. This study is extremely important.
I would like to start with Dr. Rayment and then go to Dr. Thomas.
Dr. Rayment, I want to give you the opportunity to cover those top-line findings in terms of the research you've done and the conclusions you've been able to glean from that research. I find it very interesting. Could you fill us in on those findings?
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Sure. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.
The first top-line finding is that there is actually overwhelming support among MPs to continue to allow remote voting: 79% of respondents either somewhat or strongly agree that members on parental leave should be able to vote remotely. That was the highest for all the questions we asked about. It had the highest level of support on any of the issues. There's a high degree of support for continuing to allow remote voting.
The second relevant finding is that, unprompted, quite a few of the respondents indicated that they supported the continuation of hybrid parliamentary proceedings. In the survey, we included an open-ended question asking if there were other measures that should be considered to make Parliament more family-friendly. More than a third of the folks who provided a response in that field said that making the hybrid option permanent was an important tool that would help MPs balance work and family commitments.
The last piece I want to highlight that I think is relevant to our considerations here is that women MPs were significantly more likely than men to say that it's very difficult to be both a good parent and a good politician. Women MPs are reporting having a harder time reconciling parenthood and political life. Essentially, this provides us with additional confirmation that keeping a hybrid option will actually help make it easier for women in particular to serve in Parliament, since women who are parents, more so than men who are parents, do appear to be experiencing that barrier to participation more acutely.
Those are the very top-line findings that I think are relevant to what we're thinking about here today.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you very much for filling us in on those points. I appreciate that.
I note in a recent article that you two wrote together, which is great, you said, “we must not lose sight of the ways in which remote participation can make Parliament more democratic by making it more inclusive, equitable and accountable.” I thought that was a very compelling statement. I think you've covered a lot of that in your remarks today.
I wanted to home in a little bit more on accountability. I'm constantly listening to both sides of the debates that we have on this topic. I was a member of PROC when we did the initial work during the pandemic on developing the hybrid provisions, and there was often.... Opposition parties rightfully need to be able to hold the government to account, which I totally get, and I think you two said in that article that a hybrid parliament doesn't necessarily preclude opposition parties from holding the government to account. Can you speak to that a little bit more and give us your reasons?
I'll start with Dr. Thomas.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The thing I would repeat is that this is a question of design, not mode. At the risk of being a bit salty, if the thing that makes committee work better is allowing witnesses like us to be able to appear remotely, the same principles would hold for members of Parliament on this one, so I feel like you can't really bifurcate those two things. If it's good for witnesses to appear remotely, then I struggle to see how the same considerations wouldn't appear for other parts of parliamentary work.
Again, I keep coming back to this idea of it being a question of design and how the institutional design is built into how this work happens, and once you push on that, it's difficult to see how the mode with which that actually happens ends up being the crux.
Dr. Rayment might have other comments on that, but I'm not sure.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
To build on what Dr. Thomas has said, I think I would only add one thing. The mode through which you're questioning a cabinet minister or investigating a piece of legislation, or whatever it might be, whether that's happening through a Zoom meeting or in person, is neither here nor there so long as there is the actual opportunity to press on those things and dig into them and so on. The more the opportunity for more folks, more parliamentarians, to do that questioning and that investigation and dig into legislation or whatever it might be, the better that scrutiny is going to be. If you can expand the scope of who's able to participate by having the hybrid option on the table, then you're increasing opportunities for accountability.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you. I think that makes a lot of sense.
You have both chosen to participate today remotely. Why did you choose to participate remotely as opposed to flying all the way to Ottawa?
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I guess I can jump in on that one.
I am currently 39 weeks pregnant, so it would not have been an option for me to come to Ottawa. No airline would let me step onto an airplane at this present time. If I only had the opportunity to participate in person, I would not have been able to participate. I guess the family-friendliness piece is really that the rubber's hitting the road here right now.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
For me—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you. You're going to have to share that on the next answer, maybe. Sorry. Thank you.
Ms. Gaudreau, you have six minutes.