Procedure and House Affairs committee  I will be super brief and say that I think we need to set the rules—rules that are built by the majority and the opposition and rules that will satisfy all of us with regard to, for example, opposition days. We need not only the rules but also the technology solutions. It is not

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, colleagues.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't see a correlation between authoritarian regimes and having or not having virtual meetings. I will give a few examples. The Spanish Parliament stopped working completely, with a huge complaint from the opposition parties. In my own country, the parliamentarians and senato

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that, in general, it comes from the majority party. Regardless if that is coming from the ruling party or not, for parliamentary systems it's very obvious that a majority is a ruling party. For presidential systems, we can have what we call a divided government, where the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a reality. I think that reality can be used...accepting it and improving the circumstances. However, also there are some countries and parliaments that are using a crisis for their own benefit. They are profiting from people's fears. I think that—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Honestly, I don't think so. I am not sure if I have a comprehensive perception, but I don't think so. Canada—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think we are all doing our best. We got awful lemons for 2020 and we're trying to make the best lemonade. That doesn't mean that we want to accept these circumstances. I haven't heard a single parliamentarian in the world saying that they are okay with the circumstances.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. I think that the IPU has also been learning day by day in terms of parliamentary practices, in terms of sharing and understanding those just practices and in terms of tyring to apply them to our own organization. For example, we had to cancel our assembly in Geneva in April,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have a note on that, but I know how they are working. For example, the European Parliament has a huge experience when it comes to interpretation services and the use of languages. Some other parliaments have more diversity, even more than Canada. I know Canada very well,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Blaney. I will be absolutely honest, transparent and politically incorrect. We receive the reports that the national parliaments want us to receive. We receive beautiful news from most parliaments. The IPU study has a bias, to be honest. If I review t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We don't have the statistics. I can ask, but I don't have them now. I am waiting for IPU reports. We sent a questionnaire to parliaments, and we are waiting for their answers. I think that the common practice is going to be to meet again, but with all these measures—face masks,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say not now, but eventually. I think we are learning the lessons; we are improving, and we are learning every day. Allow me to use my own parliament as an example. We have 500 members in the Mexican Parliament and 128 senators. That makes it almost impossible to have spe

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are very different examples, a huge variety. If you allow me, I would like to link your question, Mr. Turnbull, to the previous discussion. This pandemic is forcing all of us to improve technologies, connectivity and also our rules and practices. We have some successful ex

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you to all of my parliamentary colleagues. At the Inter-Parliamentary Union, we are collecting the parliamentary responses to COVID-19, and how parliaments are adapting to these new and highly unfortunate circumstances. There are differe