Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

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

We're having some good exchanges here.

We're talking about accountability and being able to talk to each other in person and virtually. There's the perception that we have and the image we must project as parliamentarians.

My question is for Ms. Brock.

You proposed a solution. Witnesses testifying in committees could do so virtually, whereas we would commit to sitting in Parliament in person.

I'd like you to tell me more about that, to convince me and so I can question others who are conducting studies on the subject.

[Prof. Kathy L. Brock]

Thank you for your question.

I have to speak in English. I speak French too slowly and constantly stumble over my words. Pardon me.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I have a point of order. There's no interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's probably because it's not in French.

You can speak in whatever official language you would like.

[Prof. Kathy L. Brock]

I began just by apologizing, in French, that I would not be speaking in French.

The key difference between parliamentarians being in person and witnesses being online goes to two things, first of all. As some of the literature shows now with parliaments and what we've seen in some jurisdictions in Asia during the pandemic in particular but also in Europe, you can bring in witnesses from around the world much more easily, so it expands who can actually speak to parliamentarians.

The other reason goes back to a point that was raised earlier. When you have witnesses online, it's okay if we're all treated the same and we all have the same status, but when parliamentarians are online, you do tend to notice—and I've watched the House of Commons with real interest on this—that the power dynamic is enforced. You do get the ministers or the shadow ministers, and the regular parliamentarian is left off a bit. That's why one of my recommendations coming out of the pandemic was that speakers lists be revisited and that the Speaker be able to choose and recognize more people in Parliament to make it more inclusive.

I argue that this is essential because then people will actually have more opportunities to speak and perhaps parties will be more inclusive in their lists of speakers as well.

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

Thank you.

Just a few minutes ago, someone said that ministers could be accountable virtually. What do you think about that?

[Prof. Kathy L. Brock]

Could you clarify in English the last bit?

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

I hope I can have an extra minute, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You can ask your question in French because the interpretation's working.

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

A minister has to be accountable and answer opposition questions. Barely two minutes ago, someone said that the hybrid or virtual model was equitable, fair and appropriate.

Do ministers have to be in person in order to be accountable, for estimates or during the period of questions and discussion, or can they also appear virtually?

[Prof. Kathy L. Brock]

Thank you.

When ministers respond

online, the minister's going to be more likely to read notes, to resort to paper, and perhaps not to consider people's reactions or the body language that you get. There can often be an inhibiting of an exchange between parliamentarians. Often when a minister or the governing party sees the opposition react strongly to something, then they can take that to caucus and discuss it there. Then you can get some amendments to policies, to ideas, that are very fruitful.

We have seen that happen in the past, I think.

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

We talked about human access. Ms. Rayment and Ms. Thomas, could you send the committee your findings once your research is complete? That would be very useful to us.

My question is for both of you.

In the hybrid model, how could we have the kind of impromptu and informal discussions we have during meals taken together, for example? We've seen in this committee that we can reach a consensus when we attend in person.

[Dr. Melanee Thomas]

Thank you for your question.

I think it would be important to separate the ideas of some members of Parliament being permanently on hybrid versus having the option to use it when you need it.

What we're envisioning is that having the option on the table gives members of Parliament the flexibility to figure out how best for them to manage their representational work between the work in the House of Commons and within their constituency, depending on the circumstances as they arise. We don't anticipate that this means that some members will always be in the constituency and never appear inside the legislature itself. Those informal functions could still continue. What we're adding is just another tool for MPs to be able to do that work.

The other thing that worries me a little bit about prioritizing this informal stuff that's off the books is that I still want to keep pushing that there still needs to be accountability to the Canadian public about how this work is being done. If the reason to take hybrid off completely as an option is in service of all of this informal stuff that is rarely documented and isn't going to appear in Hansard and things along those lines, I think that raises a different accountability issue back to the Canadian public, because it's work that we simply don't see.

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

Absolutely.

I have one final question for you. You just mentioned that it's possible to hold meetings in a hybrid format, but not all the time. What parameters would be used to determine that? Would there be any rules governing virtual participation in meetings without having to explain why we can't can be there or violating our privacy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Answer quickly, please.

[Dr. Melanee Thomas]

Yes, this gets into the question of design, for sure.

One thing that Dr. Rayment and I have spoken about that makes us very nervous is the idea that it would be up to, say, a caucus whip to control access to being able to use hybridity. It feels like a sword of Damocles over a member of Parliament, so my preference would be that the rules or the process that would allow a member of Parliament to use that tool kit would be at their own discretion or operating on their best judgment, outside of how the.... We just don't want to further empower the whips, basically. That's what this comes to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Dr. Thomas.

It's quite fitting, because we are moving on to Ms. Blaney, the whip for the NDP.

Six minutes go to you.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair, and I will do my best to go through you as we are meant to do.

Yes, I am the NDP whip. I have quite a collection and enjoy power, obviously. I do find it really frustrating how people perceive whips. I'd love to talk with you any time about what the job really looks like.

One of the things that I note living and working in this place is that there is a by-the-party perspective and assumption of rightness, and there is not always a consideration of curiosity.

I would really love to have a meaningful discussion here about what works in terms of virtual parliament. I really appreciate what you said about the design, because there are key things that would make the whole of Parliament better, and this is one way that we could make it accessible for some people.

Earlier this week we heard testimony from MPs and former MPs who talked about the challenges they faced and how much having a format like this would have allowed them to take that time and moment in their lives to address that issue.

I think it's important that as we talk about this, we talk not only about the humanity of MPs but also about the humanity of our communities. There have been a few times when I've been here and I've really wanted to be at home because there was a crisis in one of my communities. If I had been able to stand with those people, it would have made them feel comfort from a role that is so important to them, so I really hope that we get to a place where we could have consensus, where we talk about what works and what systems might allow us to move forward.

I will come to Dr. Thomas and Dr. Rayment. I'll leave it to the two of you to decide. One of the things that you talked about is having the ability to use the hybrid model if you needed it for one reason or another. As the whip, I can tell you that I often know things about my caucus' personal life that I wouldn't share broadly, not because of any dastardly sort of power grab but because I really respect them as human beings. I want you to know that I perceive the whip's role as facilitating humanity in a job that often forgets it.

In terms of design, how do you see our being able to have hybridity as an option? How would members use that option, and how would they be accountable to their caucus and to Parliament that it is being used in a useful way?

[Dr. Erica Rayment]

I'll start and then hand it over to Dr. Thomas to elaborate.

I think certainly you would want to see at a level that applies across the board the parameters and conditions under which it is an option to decide that this week, or whenever it is, you're going to participate remotely from your constituency. Clearly you're not going to do that without notifying your caucus. I think notifying the whip is better than having the whip say that you've already used hybrid a whole bunch this session, or whatever it might be, and that it's not going to be allowed.

I think the concern is more that it could become one more tool in the potential tool kit for enforcing discipline in a system and context where party discipline is already quite strong. We wouldn't necessarily want to see that increased. I think the idea would be more from a logistical and practical perspective. Of course, you would need to notify your caucus and whip so that they know who's in person and who's remote, but they wouldn't necessarily have it on a basis of providing permission to do it.

Dr. Thomas, did you want to add to that?

[Dr. Melanee Thomas]

Yes.

This reflects concerns that we see in other options that are used in Westminster in London, such as pairing, where one member who can't be present would be be paired with somebody else so that you would keep the partisan balance the same on a vote.

I wrote about the problem we have with that with my colleague Dr. Amanda Bittner at Memorial. We wrote something about this in the Canadian Parliamentary Review. It's specifically with respect to the parental leave policy that's now in place for the Canadian House of Commons and about how these options feel like they're less appropriate. What it means is it's taking that representational voice for at least one member of Parliament, or several, out of the mix.

If you had a remote voting option and a member was in the constituency because they were receiving treatment for a medical condition or had just had a labour and delivery, or a disaster had happened in the community—as you had mentioned—or there was something very compelling to keep them there, either personal, representational or otherwise, then they would still have the option to be able to come in and do some part of the House duties that are also part of their job.

The other thing that comes to my mind about this is how the options for being absent from the legislature are so slow to be updated in Canada, precisely because people who are pregnant.... You can tell that they've just never had to deal with somebody who's had to leave because of a labour and delivery. They're not sick.

I know that in Alberta, the Alberta legislature didn't address this issue. There's a 10-day permitted absence unless there's an illness. They had to change it to include pregnancy, because the existing measure wasn't appropriate. It strikes me as a holistic way to think about what's going on in people's lives.

Also, it's a good opportunity to think about what's going on with constituency representation and how that can be better balanced to accommodate work in the House as well.

The thing that would be disheartening for us would be if it would devolve into some of the existing patterns that we think create some of the things that we identify in the literature as dysfunction in terms of how the institution works.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney. Thank you, Dr. Thomas.

Mr. Calkins, you have five minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

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.

[Prof. Kathy L. Brock]

Thank you very much for that. I agree.

I'm going to answer this in a couple of ways. I really respect my colleagues' work. I think they make some excellent points. I do think it's not a question of mode; this is a question of how Parliament functions and what people learn from each other. In my brief, I have a short anecdote, which I'm going to share with you.

My students, two weeks ago, divided into groups. Instead of pre-assigning them, I let them self-select. These are graduate students. When I walked around to all the groups, I noticed that they had self-selected into binary-option sex groups and also by race, so male and female, apparently.

As I walked around, I asked them what happened. They said, “Well, I'm more comfortable here.” Then, one of the students, a student from the Middle Eastern community in Toronto, said to me, “Prof, you have to remember that we're the first generation to be entirely online as undergrads. We're still operating the way we did in high school. We aren't crossing the divisions the way you're forced to do in university when you work together in a more professional way.”

With Parliament, I think that if you continue to go online, that does break down that integrative function that Parliament has. I have a lot of respect for all of you here because you have tough lives. I understand that, but I think that Parliament, in all its richness and its wisdom, has found ways to accommodate people, ways to adjust.

I mentioned the washrooms because in the 1990s, the big studies on women in politics indicated that the women's washrooms were always in the corner of the building. Now they've moved them to be more central. That's because women were there in person.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Dr. Brock. Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Ms. Sahota, five minutes go to you, and then we'll switch to the next panel.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I've really enjoyed all of the exchanges. I agree with a lot of things that have been said. I also question some of the things that have been said. At some points, it seems we may be talking about a virtual Parliament versus an in-person Parliament. I think we all agree that in-person activity has its benefits. The side-room talks have their benefits.

We are all here. We are functioning in a hybrid Parliament today. All of the committee members are here in person, sitting at this table, with the exception of a couple of witnesses, who wouldn't have been able to testify today had they not had this hybrid option.

I want to talk a little bit about the diversity that we were talking about. Yes, it's good to make sure we have that diversity in the room. I believe Professor Brock talked about some modernization we did with women's bathrooms and lights flashing. All of those things happened so long ago. There's modernization that we talked about around electronic voting. The technology is all there and available at our desks at the House of Commons, but we haven't been able to come to consensus on some of those issues.

Is it important now to take it a step further, now that the pandemic has shown us what is possible and how much more inclusive this place can be? Should we be looking at those things? Should we be adopting practices from what we have learned in the pandemic and how we have improved our technology, or should we be happy with the flashing lights and the fact that we have women's bathrooms today?

My question goes to Professor Thomas to start.