Procedure and House Affairs committee  Let me say that I take your point: Do the people of Vancouver Island really want their members of Parliament going to Ontario and coming back every week if we were to resume normal sittings in the context of the pandemic ongoing? I would also say, apropos of your question, that

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Go ahead, Kevin.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would just echo what Marc Bosc said. There's nothing to prevent House leaders from meeting virtually on Tuesday, like they always do. The committee could recommend that or House leaders could take that up amongst themselves.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you have a lot of members who are working from home and are not in the chamber, unless they're virtually tied to their computer...because they may also be involved in things like child care. They may be sharing technology at home with a spouse who's also working at home. The f

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I made it clear, and I think others did as well, that the committee should be looking only at what is necessary in the pandemic and not using the committee as it's now structured to do the normal work of parliamentary reform, which should be ongoing and which should take place in

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm not sure who should speak first on this. You used the phrase, “unanimous consent among the recognized parties”, and I would just say for the record that, having been in Parliament from 1993 to 1997, I didn't belong to a party that was recognized by the House of Commons, alt

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Chair, I wonder if I could just intervene on that for a minute.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  With respect to the reduction of speeches from 40 minutes to 20 minutes, that was a recommendation made by the Lefebvre committee and the McGrath committee back in the eighties. The concern at that time wasn't just the length of speeches, but that there wasn't any back-and-forth,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Frankly, I haven't given a lot of thought as to how that exactly would work, but that's certainly an option. On the other hand, going back to what others have said, particularly Kevin Deveaux, a lot of votes don't necessarily have to be recorded. How would you do the ordinary bu

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What I suggested, I suggested in light of knowing that the lack of opposition days or opportunities for the opposition to determine the subject of debate would be part of the discussion subsequent to the report and the adoption of the hybrid Parliament. I simply suggested that th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Setting precedents for how we deal with a pandemic is one thing, and setting unintended or perhaps even intended precedents for how we deal with Parliament in normal parliamentary life are two different kinds of precedents.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was making the point that the work of the committee at this time should not unintentionally set precedents for how normal parliamentary life should resume—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —and debate about that should take place in a different context. Setting precedents for how we deal with future pandemics.... Hopefully we don't have any, but if we do, that's fine. Whatever happens now will be a precedent for how we deal with it in future unless, of course, we d

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it would be up to the committee, really. The committee has to accept that they are dealing with rules for a temporary situation. They have to make that clear in their report and integral to any other recommendations they make.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Is that better now?