Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good afternoon, back east. I am speaking to you from my home office in Port Coquitlam, which is on the traditional lands of the Kwikwetlem nation. In British Columbia, our current legislature is not in session at the moment. We have a total of 87 members, which includes 42 B.C.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. I am speaking very closely.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of B.C.'s experience, we have seen cross-party collaboration on the arrangements for the special March 23 sitting, ongoing parliamentary committee meetings and the hybrid summer session. It's been a very productive relationship with opposition House leader Mary Polak and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, in British Columbia you're going to be able to be in the chamber, in your office in the precinct or in another location. If you're not in the chamber, you'll be participating by Zoom. We actually did look at potentially using the gallery, but we decided against that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have been in discussions with our public health officer. We initially looked at 30, and we have 87 in our chamber. We have decided that it will most likely be about 24, not including the Speaker.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would be up to each caucus to make that decision. Also, we've done it on the advice of the provincial health officer and it's also up to each member. As we've said, members can be present in their offices or in the chamber. We also have to travel significant distances in Bri

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say, first off, that we meet literally every day, often in the House, prior to question period or just before business starts. I will let Mary, and Sonia from the Green Party, know how many bills.... We work together on what the order of the estimates will be, recognizing

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We are looking at introducing a sessional order, so that the changes will only apply for this session of Parliament. It's been done very much in collaboration and co-operation with the opposition House leaders, in terms of how we make this work. What worked in the March 23 sess

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One of the things we've learned just in regular sessions is that members like structure. In our House, everyone has their duty time. You have from 10 until noon, two until four. We can't expect members to sit in front of a screen for eight hours; they're just not going to do it

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of the session, it's a sessional order, so that would govern the proceedings of the House. When that's over, we are back to our regular Standing Orders. As for the province itself, right now we have two states of emergency: the provincial health emergency and the state

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely, so this—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely, and that's why we've tried as much as possible to make sure that the session is equivalent to what a normal session would be.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It has been made clear that they're being done by a sessional order to deal with this situation. Obviously, what we will do after this, though, is look at what happened, what worked and what didn't work. In terms of our longer-term general emergency procedures in British Columb

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, we are. We're happy with Zoom. We've done a couple of trial runs now. That's why we think doing the set time each day for the votes will work. In terms of what Mary was talking about earlier on the voice vote for the introduction, who votes aye, who votes nay, we can do a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. Because of the provincial health officer's social distancing request that we've had in this province, we've made it an important focus of our campaign against COVID-19 and it applies to the legislature. The ability and privileges of all members to vote on the business