Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
I am pleased to speak in favour of this motion. I believe that it sets out a reasonable approach to allow the House to perform all of its regular business while keeping members and all the staff who support us safe during the ongoing pandemic. It is particularly frustrating that all parties in the House were not able to find common ground on a way to adapt our proceedings, given that the last Parliament, for those of us who were not here, appeared to function extremely well.
My riding of Vancouver Granville is the heart of British Columbia's medical infrastructure, with VGH, BC Women's Hospital, BC Children's Hospital, BC Cancer and the BC CDC, and it has also been ground zero for anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. Earlier today, I spoke with a health care professional from my riding, and they had one message for members of the House: Be an example. Be an example on vaccinations, be an example for wearing masks and, most importantly, be an example on showing people that they should be able to work remotely when possible so as not to spread COVID-19.
I am a new MP, and I have so much enjoyed being here physically with my colleagues this week. However, I also know that I have an obligation to my constituents, and that is to be an example of best practices, which is what this motion seeks to achieve.
There is no doubt that at the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, changes in institutions and organizations all around the world occurred, whether they were public or private organizations. Universities went online and corporations like the one I ran were able to use technology to hire employees across Canada, not just in a single location.
Now, some have adapted well by leveraging technology to work remotely from home, but unfortunately, many others have not been able to. As members of Parliament, we are fortunate and privileged to work in a resilient institution. This resilience is not an accident. It is the result of the hard work of many generations of Canadians and many generations of parliamentarians who have evolved our rules and procedures to match the times.
This is precisely what the House did during the last Parliament in the face of an unprecedented public health crisis. MPs found creative and innovative ways to debate, transact business and make decisions using a hybrid approach. Most importantly, this allowed members to fulfill all of their duties while staying safe. For those of us not yet here, it appeared to be an example of how things could get done.
Let us take a look at what we were able to achieve in the House during the second session of the 43rd Parliament using the hybrid approach. This was from September 2020 to June 2021, when the House sat with some members in the chamber and many participating remotely. The motion we are debating today largely replicates the approach from that period.
In the second session there was a total of 124 sitting days, during which all of the House's regular categories of business were conducted. There was a total of 185 recorded divisions taken during hybrid means, and over 120 of these were done using the convenient voting app that was in place for March 2021. Today's motion is proposing to reinstate this now tried and tested app. Sixty-nine of these votes were on government bills at various stages of the legislative process, and 19 government bills received royal assent. Indeed, it was an approach like this that allowed the member for Calgary Nose Hill to participate from wherever the member happened to be.
The legislative process is one of the most complicated that we have seen in this place, given the detailed intricate work required for us to scrutinize and debate bills. However, MPs were able to do exactly this in a hybrid Parliament. The legislation that was passed is making a real impact on the lives of Canadians—