Evidence of meeting #31 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was hybrid.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
That would be great.
You'd have to let them go basically. Is that right?
Deputy Clerk, Procedure, House of Commons
If it were the desire of the House to do away with hybrid proceedings, the question we would still have is, how do witnesses participate? Would we continue to offer that service for witnesses?
I don't know that we can go back to the system that was in place before the pandemic, where we brought people to studios. I don't think that business model exists anymore. On some level, I suspect we would have to continue to offer some sort of video conferencing service for committees.
Chief Executive Administrator, House of Commons
If I could add to the statement, one of the benefits we've had is that the same infrastructure is also used for televising the proceedings. All committees are now being televised, versus pre-pandemic, when we had audio-only committees. Through the video infrastructure that is in place for every committee, we now have the ability to deliver video for all committees.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
Would you say that this is a good system to use and you intend to...? Maybe I should rephrase the question. Once we move to Centre Block, what visual systems do we plan to have in place so we are able to have what we do in the House of Commons—especially in committees—accessible to our communities?
Chief Executive Administrator, House of Commons
Benoit can supplement this.
We have a large program that's continuously reviewing the technologies being used within committees. To make a statement of which technologies we'll be using seven years from now.... It's too far away from a time frame perspective, but we are reassessing this continuously.
The CIO of the organization is continuously reassessing. We're working with parliaments across the world to assess what they're using. We know what the requirements are. We're focusing on the requirements. If the requirement is to televise the committee rooms, then we'll make sure the infrastructure is there in order to offer that service. We're not focused on the specific technologies at this point.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
That's fair.
To go back to my original question, let me hear what lessons you think you've learned from the hybrid model.
Chief Executive Administrator, House of Commons
I was there during the pandemic. We were working on a very tight schedule to bring back Parliament. You need to have the appropriate time to preplan the introduction of these services so you can ensure that the health and safety of individuals is taken care of and that you can meet parliamentary requirements in order to achieve and sustain parliamentary operations.
Lastly, whatever you build in this organization, as soon as you start publicizing it, you need to have an infrastructure that's redundant and resilient in order to ensure that these proceedings can continue working. It requires a lot of preplanning, a lot of testing, the engagement of this organization and the resources to actually do the service.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
Obviously, if the infrastructure you've put in place for the hybrid model were to be taken back, including interpretation and being able to communicate in a language that everyone can understand—their own language and the official languages of Canada.... If we were to scale that back, what would it look like?
Chief Executive Administrator, House of Commons
As I said, we would need to change how committees are operating right now. It's a service that's given to Canadians. That's the biggest point we would have to look at. You wouldn't be televising committees. We would have to go back to audio committees. Pre-pandemic, we were scheduling witnesses in specific committees so they could appear. We wouldn't be able to offer the on-demand service we're offering right now.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much.
We'll suspend for a minute to dismiss the witnesses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Welcome back, everyone.
There is a suggestion that we group all four of the votes on the estimates. Is that the case?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
HOUSE OF COMMONS
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$467,147,265
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
LEADERS' DEBATES COMMISSION
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$3,422,808
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$65,189,821
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
PARLIAMENTARY PROTECTIVE SERVICE
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$106,149,851
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
Okay. They're carried on division.
Madame Kayabaga.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
Chair, I'd like to seek unanimous consent to put a motion on the table.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
I'll read in the motion. I think a friendly amendment will come from our colleagues, but for now the motion reads:
That for the consideration of Bill C-25, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and to enact an act to change the names of certain electoral districts, 2026, the committee hold three meetings: Tuesday, May 5, with the minister and officials; and Thursday, May 7, and Tuesday, May 26, with witnesses. That the committee conduct clause-by-clause consideration of the bill on Thursday, May 28. That the deadline for witness submission be Friday, May 1, at noon and that the deadline for submitting amendments be Monday, May 25, at noon.
My understanding is that the friendly amendment from my colleague will be to replace the word “conduct” with “begin”.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
That's excellent.
Is there consent for this motion?
(Motion agreed to)
Seeing no further business, this committee is adjourned.
