Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think if we are serious about representing the Canadian public, it's worth paying close attention to the empirical evidence from decades of research that shows how who is in the room matters. While I believe that every representative will do a good and sincere job of represent

Procedure and House Affairs committee  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 proble

Procedure and House Affairs committee  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 m

Procedure and House Affairs committee  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 Parlia

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The thing I would repeat is that this is a question of design, not mode. At the risk of being a bit salty, if the thing that makes committee work better is allowing witnesses like us to be able to appear remotely, the same principles would hold for members of Parliament on this o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  For me—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Perhaps I could intervene on that one. That's why we say that the question is a problem of design and not mode. We can come up with numerous examples about various caucus practices that do the same thing in person. This is well-established literature on the power of leader appoi

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This is why we have a very strict boundary in between. Is there a bigger issue with the institution, or is this about mode—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —and what you're talking about isn't about mode.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't know if you would like us to answer at this point. I'm happy to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Rayment, because I think we do have an answer to the question that is implied.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Dr. Melanee Thomas, and I'll be sharing my time today with Dr. Rayment. We join you from Calgary, Alberta, in Treaty 7 territory. We focus on a key question: Does maintaining hybridity help or hinder Parliament i

Status of Women committee  I would echo everything that has been said by my colleagues about political parties. I know we're running out of time for my answer, but one thing that would probably be very effective for all of those electoral district associations that required a search committee and then didn

Status of Women committee  For six premiers, three women and three men, we wanted to see if there was a variation in the number of stories that were written about them and the kinds of policy that was forward in those stories, and then the tone. One of the things we found was that women had fewer stories p

Status of Women committee  One of the reasons I think adversarialism in our system is not a bad thing is that it helps clarify different positions that different actors are taking. You have to take a stand on important issues, and that's what this structure helps to facilitate. I can understand that many

Status of Women committee  Well, why wouldn't there be? For me, the most persuasive argument comes from Jane Mansbridge, who wrote a 1999 article in the United States entitled “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women?” Her answer was “yes”. Her argument was that all of these historically