44th Parl. 1st Sess.

January 30, 2023 11:00AM

Context: House Hansard - 149 - Jan/30/23

Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC)

Jan/30/23 3:16:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table the Conservative Party's dissenting report. While there have been some benefits from some aspects of hybrid Parliament, we have undoubtedly witnessed first-hand a lot of shortcomings with it: ministers having an easier job deflecting accountability and an unacceptable burden being place on our interpreters, to name two. It is important to bear in mind that our experience with hybrid Parliament was forged as a pandemic necessity, and we have only now started to experience it in the postpandemic context. That is why Conservatives believe the majority's report goes too far and too fast in recommending a permanent extension of a hybrid Parliament practically as it exists today. Conservatives have long believed that permanent changes to procedural arrangements ought to be the result of multi-party consensus. In the interests of a consensus, Conservatives recommend that the renewal of hybrid proceedings be sunset one year into the next Parliament to allow us time to assess the ongoing implications. We also recommend other changes in the meantime to improve accountability and to reduce the burden on interpreters, such as reverting to entirely in-person chamber proceedings while maintaining the remote voting app and requiring ministers and senior officials to be physically present at committees. The committee's majority chose not to lay out any details to its vision or to suggest how the new standing orders would read. That has placed the ball in the government House leader's court to craft the way forward. A consensus is within reach. We challenge the government House leader to accept it and to turn his back on the divisive and confrontational approach he has preferred to take on the House's hybrid arrangements.

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House Hansard - 149