Procedure and House Affairs committee  In other parliaments in the Commonwealth that have this, you originally go around and ask the parties how many votes they have. If that adds up to the total number of votes in Parliament, then that's the final answer. If there are votes missing because the party had certain peopl

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would go back to my point around the business committee. It's a temporary measure that can be brought in from other Commonwealth examples and that has worked. It can be used as a way of ensuring that dialogue, at least to some extent, is available. I would encourage you to thin

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think I'd agree with Mr. Bosc's comment around a blended system, but I think you need to ensure that it's transparent, and I think you have to give MPs different options.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think my original statement was that virtual voting is not necessarily required in a hybrid Parliament. I think the proxy voting, the block voting, and then allowing dissent and recording that in another manner can work as an alternative. I don't think you necessarily need virt

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. The U.K. members were using an app on their phones. I don't know if you have it in your House, but in the U.K., every MP has an app that a lot of information is transferred to, through their smart phones. They were building up a system that was allowing them to vote virtuall

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you're asking about the technology, I'm not a IT person, so I don't know whether you can get voice modes within Zoom. If that's possible, great. I guess I foresaw that with the voice votes, which I said was 92% or 93% of the normal voting in the House, you would obviously have

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll give you one example. I've seen many parliaments that have moved to electronic voting. They're very excited about what they call “e-parliaments” and the ability to.... Every MP has a little card that they put in and they can vote. I've also seen circumstances where those c

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I foresee that being much like I talked about earlier. You'd pull off the shelf a set of standing orders or certain changes that happen when triggered by a national emergency of some sort. Within those circumstances, you would be able to establish this business committee specific

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a good question. I think there is value in learning from others. There are others out there who would have moved ahead more quickly. I think there are already others who have. Some have moved to—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I think that's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You raise a very good point. Obviously, we need to find alternative means of voting during this pandemic or maybe a future national emergency. In those circumstances, I think the best worst alternative is proxy voting. It's not something I encourage, but I do believe that, in th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I think this was discussed in the last report of the committee. If you had stand-alone standing orders or special standing orders that could be triggered somehow by a declaration of a national emergency, which I know in this case wasn't done, or through some other tri

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to present to the committee today. For those who don't know me, and I think most of you don't, I will start with why you may be interested in what I have to say. I have been a lawyer for the last 30 years, based here in Nov