Thank you very much, Chair.
It's a real pleasure to be back at the public accounts committee and to follow my good friend, Mr. Nater. He has certainly put forward a reasonable amendment—to my taste, it might be almost too reasonable.
Colleagues, this is a frustrating situation to find ourselves in, because the government's view seems to be that the only time they need to be doing any kind of parliamentary work is during the relatively limited periods when Parliament is sitting. Fundamentally, as Conservatives, we don't agree with that.
I think members are, of course, familiar with the schedule, but for members of the public who may be less familiar with it, Parliament sits about half of the weeks of the year. It sits Monday to Friday, but when it's in session, typically most members are here Monday to Thursday. Some remain on the Friday. The rest of the weeks of the year used to be informally known as “break weeks”, but of course, politicians have wisely sought to brand those as something else. In truth, they're not break weeks; they are constituency work weeks. Members do obviously undertake lots of activities during those non-parliamentary weeks that do qualify substantively as work. Nonetheless, the business of the nation, that is, the governance responsibilities of members of Parliament, can and should continue.
I was first elected in 2015, and just looking around this table, there are lots of colleagues here who were elected at that time or, like you, Mr. Chair, had been elected previous to that time. You'll recall a time when, if Parliament was sitting or committees were meeting, the only way to participate in the activities of that session was to be physically present in Ottawa. If you were in your own constituency for an event or you were somewhere else in the country, you couldn't vote, you couldn't participate in debate and you couldn't participate in committee. That was the reality from the founding of this country up until the COVID pandemic. That's when the hybrid Parliament structure was established.
We've had lots of debates about the pros and cons of different aspects of that, and whether it makes sense. There have been some modifications along the way. However, whatever one thinks about the wisdom of those systems, the reality is that those systems are, in fact, in place, which means that now members of Parliament who want to vote, participate in committee or even participate in the activities of the chamber do not need to be physically present in Ottawa. They can get out of bed, fire up a computer and sign on to a House of Commons committee. They can vote through their app, so there is a great deal more flexibility for members of Parliament to engage in those ways.
In fact, right now we have a number of members doing that very thing. I am here in Ottawa, but I see that there are a number of members participating virtually, and that's something the system allows them to do.
The point is that, when committees meet now with this new technology, which existed during COVID and in the postpandemic period, members can fully participate in the work of committees and they can do so from anywhere in the country.
The only exception to that is you, Mr. Chair. The rules now require you to be present in person. However, the rules also provide for the fact that the chair is the one who calls the meetings, so at least the chair has some flexibility in terms of when to call the meetings to ensure that she or he is able to be in Ottawa for the facilitation of those.
Other than the chair, you could have an entirely empty room. You could have all members participating from their constituencies. If there is, say, a two-hour meeting in the middle of a parliamentary break, it is no longer the case that it means lots of travel both ways for members of Parliament, especially for people like me who come from the west. Some members will choose to do that, obviously. I have often flown into Ottawa, specifically seeing the value in being in person for committee meetings. The option exists.
Therefore, I don't think it should be that onerous to, from time to time, have committee meetings take place during parliamentary breaks. Basically, yes, it requires a person to find those two or three hours in their schedule for that meeting and, yes, of course, to do the appropriate preparation.
I can imagine what people who were members of Parliament 20 years ago must think of this. Frankly, Liberal members of Parliament have championed their own ease and comfort in their engagement with their parliamentary work—