SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 212 - Jun/13/23

Jun/13/23 6:38:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, given the question that was just asked and the comments associated with it, and, likewise, what the minister asked before, I expect they will be supporting the amendment put forward by the opposition House leader. What that does, pure and simple, is ensure that Parliament continues to look at this and its impacts on our ability to do our work in this place. Never once have the Conservatives said that we should not endeavour to increase inclusion, that accommodations should not be made. To suggest that is blatantly untrue. What we need to do, however, is ensure that we maintain and treat carefully, with the utmost respect, the democratic infrastructure we have. Let us treat this place, this House of Commons, however one participates in it, with the utmost respect to ensure that we are ultimately respecting Canadians. That needs to be our focus. That needs to be our emphasis. We need to be focused on ensuring that Canadians can be represented in this place.

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Ms. Arielle Kayabaga (London West, Lib.)

Jun/13/23 6:39:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to participate in the debate about making hybrid sittings a permanent fixture in our Standing Orders. I will be sharing my time with the member for Guelph. I think we are in an era of growing uncertainty. COVID-19 was not the first global health crisis, and we know it will not be the last. The World Health Organization has warned us that pandemics will likely arise more frequently and will propagate at a faster pace in the future. Additionally, we have experienced several challenges in recent times that have caused us to have this conversation we are having today. These increasing threats are due to climate change, security and various health factors. They have the potential to shut down Parliament or make an inflexible, in-person-only Parliament. Parliament cannot shut down for months. When a crisis occurs, we need to be able to do the work necessary to resolve it. We have to continue advancing long-term projects to deliver results for Canadians and provide parliamentary oversight. Over the course of the last years, we have developed excellent technical tools and cultivated expertise in our staff that have given us the ability to meet in a hybrid fashion. We need to make sure that we can retain these tools and that we have the capable staff members so that the next time a crisis hits us, one that prevents us from being able to sit in person, we have the ability to switch seamlessly and quickly, without any interruption to the work we do in delivering results for Canadians. Maintaining hybrid options would pandemic-proof our sittings for the future. Pandemics are not the only events that could prevent us from being able to sit in person. We have also seen, in recent years, the types of security threats that we face on Parliament Hill and in our capital. These threats that have continued to threaten our members in the past mean that Parliament Hill has to be able to be flexible to accommodate people being able to be on hybrid as well. The Hill has not always been a safe place for all of us to congregate. We saw the security threats we had at the beginning of last year. We have these types of security threats that are intensifying as a result. When it is not safe for us to sit physically in the chamber, we have to be able to continue to do our work from our locations. Likewise, as climate change accelerates, we will see new threats to sitting in person. The most recent example is the poor air quality we experienced in Ottawa due to the forest fires in Quebec. Nobody could have anticipated that, but it indeed had an impact on whether people could commute to work or not. People should not have to choose between aggravating their asthma and not being able to do their job. Having the option of hybrid participation means that everybody would be able to continue to do their job and be able to continue to participate without putting their health at risk. We will see increases in extreme weather events as time goes by, and maintaining the flexibility of hybrid sittings would be crucial in the future. The paradox is that the times when sittings have been cancelled have also been times when we most needed Parliament to be sitting. During the convoy last year, sitting was interrupted. When we needed to debate the emergency measures the government was bringing in to deal with the convoy, we were prevented from that. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also needed to sit in order to pass crucial legislation to boost access to employment insurance and other programs, to ensure that money would flow to workers and businesses in need. As Parliament could not sit regularly, the government was granted some extraordinary powers, such as the ability to spend without parliamentary oversight, yet the function of parliamentary scrutiny is most needed during those times of crisis. When the government has been granted extraordinary powers, it is of the utmost importance for the functioning of our democracy that we continue to carry on committee duties and debates, and that we question ministers. It is of the utmost importance that we ensure that our constituents' voices are heard and integrated into the policies and decision-making, and that this continues to occur. When the government is moving rapidly, in emergency mode, it is our job to check that nothing has been missed. That means we need to continue to do our work. We need to provide the additional perspectives and the scrutiny needed to ensure that the impacts on all Canadians are being considered. This means we have to be able to be flexible in the measures we are using. On that note, I would like to thank all the staff members who were adaptable, innovative and able to provide the hybrid measures that we have today and that we have all been able to enjoy, making sure that we were able to serve Canadians in such a time. I am sure members of the House remember how under-resourced we were at first during the hybrid sittings. We all remember the technical difficulties when we first got our equipment set up and how stretched thin our technical staff was. It took us months to get it properly set up to the point where we are now. We have invested the money into these hybrid tools. We have learned how they work. We have hired the highly capable technical staff we need in order to make everything work. If we were to stop hybrid sittings and return to in-person sittings exclusively, when the next crisis hits, it would take us weeks and months to get the tools set up again during the time when we need them most in order to meet and in order to make decisions for all Canadians. We can keep our equipment in reserve, but we would lose the technical teams we have built over the years and the money we have invested in that. The expertise is not replaceable and it was not built overnight. If we do not use our capabilities, we lose them. We need to maintain a properly functioning hybrid system so that when we really need it, we can actually use it. We have not seen our last smog crisis and we have not seen our last security emergency. We certainly have not seen our last pandemic. We live in a time when events will increasingly threaten our health, our physical security and our environment. Sometimes the best decision in the face of these threats and crises is that it will be safer for us to meet virtually rather than in person, or to at least give the vulnerable members among us that option. A House that asks its members to threaten their health and safety in order to come to work and do their job is not one that anyone wants to be part of. As pandemic crises and emergencies are bound to happen, we cannot have a Parliament that shuts down for months. Our work is way too important for that. We need to continue to work steadily in advancing legislation, and we need to continue to hold the government to account. It is precisely during these crisis situations, when the government has been granted extraordinary powers, that we need to provide this extra scrutiny. It is precisely then that we need to represent the interests of our constituents and to ensure that the government's response to crises is as good as it can be. For that to happen, we need to have a seamless transition to hybrid and virtual sittings, and we need to maintain our current system so that, when the next pandemic occurs, we have the expertise and the tools that are well-oiled and ready to make the pivot to hybrid and virtual sittings, to continue our crucial work in serving Canadians.

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The Deputy Speaker

Jun/13/23 6:46:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate: That a message be sent to the House of Commons to acquaint it that the Senate agrees with the amendments made by the House of Commons to Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protect Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act, without amendment.

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Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)

Jun/13/23 6:47:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am quite disturbed that we are sitting here having this debate tonight on changing the Standing Orders through a forced vote. I have been around this place for some time, since 2004. Whenever there have been changes to the Standing Orders, they have been done through consensus, not by having one party or its collaborators, this time the NDP, ramming it down the throats of all the other parties. This is a dangerous precedent that the Liberals are trying to set. The member mentioned that we needed to do this during the pandemic. First of all, if she missed the news, the pandemic has officially ended, according to the WHO. Second, we know there was an opportunity during the pandemic, when we were all here, to make the changes that happened to ensure that Parliament can exist through virtual Parliament. Third, the one thing that happens in virtual Parliament that does not happen here is that there is a lack of empathy. We cannot interact with other members on Zoom like we can in the House. We miss out on the sidebar conversations that happen between all members of the House, not just within their own caucuses. That is the way we build personal relationships. Those relationships were destroyed because of the pandemic, especially for those who were elected after 2019. I can tell members that if we want to repair that and make this place a more inclusive, collaborative chamber, then we need to get rid of virtual Parliament and work side by side on dealing with the issues that are important to all Canadians.

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Ms. Arielle Kayabaga (London West, Lib.)

Jun/13/23 6:49:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I heard a question in my colleague's comments. I will say that, when the pandemic happened, I was a city councillor. One of the first things the City did was shut down and declare a state of emergency. It took us time to get to a place where we could actually respond to the most emergent and the hardest situations our city was experiencing. We have now been on the other side. We know that crises like the pandemic and like what happened recently with the smoke outside from the wildfires are challenging situations that impact the health of people and the access to workplaces for people. We cannot simply sit and wait, acting as if these situations were not already present. We have to take proactive measures to make sure we can still accommodate people to do their jobs. It would be impossible if we could not make decisions that impact Canadians. It was hard when people could not access money to feed their families. We had to come up with every single measure to respond very quickly. I saw it first-hand as a local representative, and, as a member of Parliament I can see how important it is, even now, for the government to continue to meet the needs of Canadians in such crises.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

Jun/13/23 6:50:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps I am a bit naive. When I first got here, I naively thought that we would be debating. I thought that democracy was the bedrock of ideas, that we would put forward ideas, that the opposition parties would put forward other ideas, that the government would also put forward ideas, that we would debate them all, and that this would lead to amazing bills. People would look at us and say how incredible we are. I thought that was democracy. As I have said many times here, that is not the case. I have lost count of the number of gag orders this government has imposed. Now we have a fundamental proposal that will change how we debate things for the next 10, 15, 20 or 100 years. We hope to be long gone by then, because Quebec will have become independent. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that this proposal is going to be adopted, changing all the rules of the game with the wave of a magic wand. We have just a few hours to debate huge changes to how we conduct debates here. I think that is totally unacceptable.

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Ms. Arielle Kayabaga

Jun/13/23 6:51:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent presentation. I think he has a brilliant way of expressing himself. It is not that we are proposing new measures. Our situation has been evolving for some time now, in line with the measures that have been brought in to deal with the pandemic and to respond to the crises we are currently facing. We are simply saying that the world has changed, things have changed, and we all have to adapt to those changes.

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Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Jun/13/23 6:52:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate, and I have enormous respect for the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. I do agree with him that we work better when we are here in person. However, last October, I had a very severe bout of COVID and I had to stay at home. I was not allowed to fly. I was a danger to other people. I could not have participated without virtual Parliament. I know there are others who have had similar experiences. People say that the pandemic is over, but we just had an outbreak of COVID in a child care centre in my riding. It has been very severe. Tons of kids and their parents now have COVID again. Does the member for London West agree that we are not really out of the woods on these pandemics, that we may need these measures and that we should keep them in place in the interim?

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Ms. Arielle Kayabaga

Jun/13/23 6:52:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for making those really important comments that actually prove we are not out of the woods. When the World Health Organization said that we are not out of the woods with pandemics, it meant it. As he said, there was just an outbreak in his community. People are still catching COVID. People are still catching diseases through super spreaders. It is not just important to make sure we have those accommodations for people who are not able to be here in person because they are going to infect their colleagues. It is also important to think about other reasons we need the hybrid model so members can continue their work. Many colleagues in this room have children; one of my colleagues mentioned that earlier. It is important we build a system that is inclusive for all families and that we make Parliament family friendly.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Jun/13/23 6:53:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to take part in this debate on the motion to make permanent the hybrid proceedings in this House. I thank the hon. member for London West for sharing her time with me. In the short amount of time she has been in the House, she has already made a tremendous impact, and it is wonderful to be working alongside her on this and on other issues. We know these measures were implemented on a provisional basis nearly three years ago. We also know that these provisions have allowed the House to carry on its business during the pandemic. Over time, many members have spoken in public, and some privately, of the benefits of the hybrid model, and there are many benefits. During the most recent study of the hybrid model by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, or PROC, as it is known, Dr. Jonathan Malloy, Bell chair in parliamentary democracy at Carleton, testified that a hybrid system goes beyond the objective of making Parliament more efficient. He stated that it speaks directly to the purpose that this institution serves, representing the diverse views of Canadians in every region of the country and ensuring that the interests of all Canadians are fairly represented in the political choices and outcomes of this chamber. I submit many members will acknowledge that this question of hybrid proceedings is not just about flexible work arrangements and technological advancements but is also at the core of how we might change the way we participate in our proceedings to ensure a greater diversity of voices in this place. The more this place reflects the diversity of the Canadian population, the more Canadians will trust our parliamentary institutions. Let us consider the impact and the benefits of virtual participation in the House and in committee. July 2020, of course, was the first hybrid sitting that allowed members to participate in debate in the House both in person and remotely. Additional corresponding temporary changes to the Standing Orders were made to accommodate these sittings. These included allowing members participating virtually to be counted for the purpose of constituting quorum, lowering the threshold of the number of members for certain procedural motions, changing the procedure for requesting and granting unanimous consent and allowing members to speak and vote from any seat. In listening to this debate, I heard other members speak to the tremendous flexibility hybrid sittings have afforded to members of this chamber. It is not for everybody to be using hybrid all the time, but it is available as a tool we can use so that we can continue to participate in the debate. We used the voting application in 2022 and 2023. Yes, 2023 is the year when we are agreeing that we are at the back end of the crisis stage of COVID, although it still exists, and the original purpose of hybrid sittings has been set aside. The member for London West mentioned the effects of asthma on our ability to speak in times when the air quality is not good. The air quality is very much better today than it was last week, but when things turn and one is not able to participate, we can use these advancements because we all are benefiting from the flexibility that these technological changes are affording us. It is like having a better opening for doors going into grocery stores. They were there originally to help people with accessibility challenges, but everybody benefits when the doors open more easily for all of us, and this tool allows that to happen in Parliament. It is opening the doors of Parliament for people across the country who are in different situations, such as people who just had a baby, as was mentioned earlier. I had a medical operation a few years ago and I voted from the hospital. The nurses were not nuts about that. They did not think it was a great idea, but I showed them that it could be done and that I could continue to fulfill my duties to the people of Guelph even as I was under medical care. Dr. Jonathan Malloy talked about parliamentary reform and democratic reform and how they are inextricably linked. How much extra time has this new way of working provided to spend in our ridings and meet with our constituents? How many more witnesses can access and provide evidence at committee through new video conferencing technology? In the environment committee, we were able to talk to first nations witnesses across the country. It sometimes takes two days for them to get to Ottawa, not to mention all the time they are away from their communities. The convenience is really improving democracy. It is a tremendous opportunity for us to improve our connections and engagement with the Canadians we in this chamber represent. Despite the additional flexibility provided to members through hybrid sittings, members continue to participate in proceedings of the House and committees in person. The claim of some members that hybrid proceedings would turn all parliamentary work into a virtual environment is simply not borne out by the facts. If I understand correctly, the current numbers are that about 70% of members continue to participate in person. As was noted by the hon. member across the way, the conversations we have in person are much different and much richer, so this is not to abolish in-person sittings but to complement them by providing additional tools for those who, for various reasons, cannot be in the House for in-person sittings. The second most significant change brought about through the use of hybrid sittings is the ability to vote electronically. While this place holds debates on all forms of parliamentary proceedings, it all comes down to the vote and being available to make that decision after all the debates have ended. Many members will no doubt remember that in the early days of the pandemic, each recorded division took up to 45 minutes, because members had to weigh in and state their vote. Now that we have the voting application, we are averaging about 10 to12 minutes, which is on par with the quickest recorded divisions before the pandemic. Not only that: With the advantage of the electronic voting application, the House has seen greater democratic participation in voting in the House, which makes sense. If members are available to vote remotely because they cannot be in Parliament, more people will vote, and more people are voting. Having more members vote can be seen as making the House more transparent, more participatory, and definitely more accountable to the people whom we are elected to serve. Another improvement that hybrid sittings has brought about is the ability to table documents electronically, provided they are allowed to be tabled pursuant to the Standing Orders or a statute. That includes annual reports, government responses, petitions and Order Paper questions. It really helps us with efficiency in tabling documents in the House. This is not the first time that the House and committees have considered implementing technology to assist our proceedings. During the recent PROC study, we heard from Mr. Léo Duguay, the former MP for St. Boniface from 1984 to 1988. He is the president of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians. In fact, he was my member of Parliament when I was living in St. Boniface during that period. Mr. Duguay was a member of the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, and he told the committee that electronic voting in the House of Commons was an innovation that members had advocated for over 40 years. He indicated that an “overwhelming majority” of members believed that hybrid proceedings in their day would have had the effect of increasing their parliamentary participation in debates and the voting process, and Mr. Duguay was right: We are seeing it happen in real time. Also, the member for Labrador was here today. She has returned to the House after successfully fighting cancer. While she was in Labrador, she was able to continue her service to her community through the use of hybrid sittings. I suspect that some people will want to go back to the good old days, the days when we did not have technology, the days when a riding was really the distance one could ride on a horse to cover one's territory. We have gone past that. At this point, I think we need to urge all Canadians to embrace this technology and consider running for Parliament if it has not been accessible to them in the past. I will conclude by noting that I really support hybrid sittings and I hope we are able to continue them. I will turn to answering any questions the members might have.

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Hybrid

Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

Jun/13/23 7:03:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who sits very close to me, for his wonderful speech this evening. I believe the hybrid Parliament is a good thing, but I am not in favour of its being abused by members here in the House. It should be available, yes, for somebody who needs it. As the member said, he had surgery earlier this year and was able to vote on the app. I had surgery as well, on February 14, actually, and shovelled snow two days later. However, it is a privilege and an honour to be able sit and stand in this House as one of 338 people. I spend time here even when I am not on House duty. I love sitting in the House and having people sit around me instead of being in the office in my constituency with nobody. Does the member agree that it is a good policy to have, but it should not be allowed to be abused? People who can be here should be here.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield

Jun/13/23 7:05:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to discuss this an in open setting. Usually our conversations are between ourselves sitting beside each other in the seats. The abuse piece is one that is critical. We as hon. members need to follow the same principles as if we were here in person. That also means voting. I said that we are averaging 10 to 12 minutes per vote. Last week, we saw that the Conservatives were saying that their electronics were not working or that their connections were bad. That has since proven to be false, but it made our votes last 25 minutes. We need to continue to operate as hon. members, using the tool to the advantage that it is giving us.

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Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)

Jun/13/23 7:05:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleagues across the way, they might want to see the flexibility that hybrid brings, but in reality, as they just pointed out, it can be abused as well. The sense of honour of being in this chamber has always been to protect the individual member and to ensure that changes to the rules were done through consensus of every member of this House. I have been here for 19 years and I have actually seen, when changes to the Standing Orders were attempted, one member deny that change. We went for unanimous consent, and it was not there. In light of the fact that these changes to the Standing Orders, the way our Parliament functions, have nothing to do with party affiliation, they should be done through consensus and not through this hammer-fisted unilateral move that we are seeing right now from the Liberals and the NDP.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield

Jun/13/23 7:07:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member posed the question earlier as well. The provisions for a hybrid Parliament are winding down at the end of June, so it is incumbent on us to give a path forward so that we know how we will be operating in the fall, and it is up to us to operate honourably. Whether we are on social media or we are speaking in the House, it is up to us to follow the rules of honour by which we are elected to serve the people and represent them honourably.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

Jun/13/23 7:07:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will calm down now. In fact, I am a bit of a rookie in the House, a rookie in that it has been four years. I was here in 2019, but the pandemic hit soon after. We went back home and sat via Zoom. We returned roughly a year ago. Honestly, when we are here in the House, that is when I resolve problems the most, by talking directly to the Minister of Immigration, among others. In Longueuil, there is a lot of immigration and we have very difficult and complex cases. Sometimes it is in talking to the Minister of Immigration, and offloading files to him, that we settle some things. I had cases involving Haitians who arrived in the past few weeks and months. If I had not spoken to the Minister of Immigration, I am pretty sure things would not have worked out so quickly. There is also an airport in my riding. On that issue there is a lot of work to be done with the Minister of Transport. If I did not meet him in person, this would never get resolved. I do not understand why people are insisting on sitting virtually when we do our best work, in my opinion, when we are here in person.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield

Jun/13/23 7:08:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way. I always value his contributions in the House. The technology we have is a tool. It is not the solution to every problem, but it is a solution to being present in the House when one is not physically present and still wishes to participate. As the member points out, democracy has to continue to function using this as a tool, but also, behind the scenes, the work has to be done on the desks of the Canadians who are here to help us serve.

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Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Jun/13/23 7:09:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will say that I am not an unreserved fan of the virtual Parliament. One of the things I would like to see is eliminating the chairing of committees by someone virtually. We have vice-chairs, and there is no real need to have virtual chairing for committee meetings. That said, I think there is something to be said for our making Parliament more family friendly, to accommodate all kinds of families. I know we lose some things with a virtual Parliament, and I know some things are inconvenient, but for me, that is outweighed by the factor of making Parliament more family friendly. I wonder if the hon. member shares my concern that we make sure all kinds of families can serve here in Parliament.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield

Jun/13/23 7:10:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to disagree with the member when he makes such a compelling argument. Also, I would say that committees should continue to be chaired by people in person, which is a provision in the bill that we have before us.

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Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Jun/13/23 7:10:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by letting you know that I will not be sharing my time with any of my colleagues. I therefore apologize profusely because you are going to have to listen to my voice for about 20 to 30 minutes. I will try to make it as pleasant as possible. Today we are talking about making a hybrid Parliament a permanent thing for centuries and centuries to come. As people often say, nothing is more permanent than that which is temporary. That is exactly what is happening today. We have had important discussions about setting up a hybrid Parliament in the past. We were in the middle of a pandemic, so it made sense, and the parties had the ability to make those changes happen at the time. Now people are acting as if we were still in a pandemic or as if more pandemics will happen over the coming centuries. They are ignoring the fact that we do know how to talk to each other when there really is an emergency. At the time, there was an urgent need to set up a hybrid Parliament so we could work. Despite the fact that we could not be physically here, members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs took the time to hold meetings during the summer to analyze how to put in place some sort of hybrid Parliament. We consulted experts from other countries. We looked at what was being done in other parliaments. I remember it very well. In the summer of 2020, I was among those who asked experts several questions to learn about the pros and cons and what we should study to establish a hybrid Parliament. As I said, there was an urgent need for action back then. Despite the urgency, we still took our time. I see no urgency at the moment. There is no emergency that would require immediate and permanent changes to the way the House works. Still, even though there is no emergency, and even though it will completely upend our way of operating in the House, the motion is being presented to us as if there is an emergency. There is no emergency, yet we are being forced to accept permanent changes to the way we work. All of this landed on us out of the blue on June 8, when the government announced a motion that would have to be voted on before the House rose for the summer. In fact, the government practically threatened to stop us from leaving for our ridings this summer until this system is adopted, despite the fact that, as I mentioned already, there is no emergency. Before I get to the substance of the motion, I am going to say a bit more about this approach because I still cannot get over the way things were done. The parties were not consulted. Aside from the government talking to the NDP, no discussion was had and no letter sent. We were not told that the government wanted to table a notice of motion containing these elements. The motion before us is no small thing, however. It is 42 pages long. The government introduced it in the form of a motion that will not be debated at any time other than the few hours we spend on it now. It completely changes how Parliament works with a mere two, three or four hours of debate and, subsequently, a vote without any real opportunity to amend it, discuss it or hear from external parties, experts or people from other parliaments to see how they do things. This is a complex issue that should not be dealt with by way of a simple motion, especially considering that it is, as I said, 42 pages long. I would like to come back to the question asked by my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, who said that he was not an unreserved fan of everything in this motion. If this motion does not even please the people who plan to vote in favour of it, if they do not even have the opportunity to debate it, to amend it, to improve it, to see how we could be more effective in the future, this is further proof that the modus operandi behind this amendment is inadequate, to say the least. The parties would also have liked to have input on how things should be done, because when the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs deliberated on the hybrid Parliament last fall, eight recommendations were made. Some work has been done on this. Two dissenting opinions were presented by the Bloc and the Conservatives. The parties did have something to say on this. Despite that, the government refused to listen to any input on this motion and completely ignored the work that had been done in the past. A report was tabled in December 2022 as a result of the committee's work. The committee chair at the time said that the government supported the recommendations set out in the report and intended to table a proposal in the House of Commons to make permanent changes to the Standing Orders, as recommended by the committee. Despite that, the government still decided to ignore the recommendations. At the time, we suggested it be a best practice for members of cabinet to be present in person in the House to answer questions. That was the first suggestion that was rejected. These days, cabinet members do typically come to the House to answer questions rather than doing it virtually. It was an internal directive that was basically imposed by the government whip, for one. However, the government decided against having the motion include this requirement for cabinet members to be in the House to answer questions, despite the fact that it was a recommendation from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. What is more, the committee chair, speaking on behalf of the government, had said that this recommendation would be included in any motion or other form of amendment aimed at overhauling the way Parliament works. The government has already gone back on its word. As I was saying, we had the right to expect discussions among the parties. It is customary for us to operate by consensus for these types of changes to House procedures. Many other members spoke at length about that, particularly on the Conservative side. There is a tradition in that regard. However, the government is not operating by consensus. It is not trying to debate the motion, to improve it or to try to figure out how we could be as effective as possible. It makes me think of a quote from Woody Allen, who said, “The dictatorship is 'shut up', democracy is 'always concerned'.” The government is giving us a few hours to talk and letting us say that we disagree, but then it is going to force us to vote, and this measure will be adopted without any real discussion or debate and without us coming up with something that is really the product of a consensus. As I was saying, this is kind of a breach of tradition. In the past, amendments to the Standing Orders concerning procedure were made by consensus. In 2022, the House published a list of parliamentary changes to procedure. With one exception, all were made by consensus. For example, in 2017, the Liberal government attempted to reform Parliament by instituting electronic voting, similar to what we have at present. It also wanted to abolish the half sittings on Fridays. It wanted to establish what it referred to at the time as parliamentary programming, which would have been a type of process requiring the parties to agree beforehand on the amount of time allocated for debate of a bill. The government would not have had the last word unless the parties could not agree. At the time, the opposition parties, including the NDP, rejected these proposals. Despite the fact that the government had a majority and that it could have pushed an amendment to procedure through the House on its own, it decided not to move forward because it did not have the approval of all parties in the House for something as important as the reform of parliamentary procedure. This is part of the tradition that has always been followed in the House, with one exception, specifically when the government, under former prime minister Trudeau, created the time allocation motion. The irony is that he used a closure motion to get his amendment adopted. This shows that it was an exceptional way of proceeding at the time that has since been adopted by this Parliament. What could have been done to change the procedure? I am still talking about the procedure. I have not yet even gotten to the substance of the motion. There are many other ways the Standing Orders of the House could have been amended. For example, we could have used a unanimous consent motion. That is what we did when the pandemic hit. We temporarily changed the procedure by unanimous consent among the parties. If an agreement had been reached, it would have been done quickly. The leaders could have discussed it, and then a motion would have been moved. If that did not work, the government could have used the usual method of deliberation in the House. For example, it could have introduced a bill and had a vote on how to proceed, as we did at the very beginning of the pandemic. We could have referred that bill to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The government could have sent its proposal to that committee and asked it to assess it, make recommendations and produce a report. Then, we could have responded the report. In the end, the government decided to go with a last-minute motion without informing anyone and to force us to vote on that motion before Parliament rises for the summer. There are several things that have not been considered in all this. We have talked about this many times. I know that my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît talked about it extensively yesterday, so I will not go into all the details. However, I must mention the interpreters. They were the first victims of the hybrid Parliament, and they are still being victimized. From the outset, those on the other side who are in favour of the change have said that operating in hybrid mode has numerous advantages. We can be in our constituency more often. It is a positive if we have children because it facilitates work-life balance. It makes it easier for us to be everywhere all at once. We talk in the first person but tend to forget that there are people behind the scenes, not just the interpreters. There is a whole group of people who are connected with Parliament who are burdened with additional work. As far as the interpreters are concerned, it is even worse, because they are being physically harmed by a hybrid Parliament. We know that because of differences in the volume and audio quality when people are participating virtually instead of in person, there is a much higher risk of acoustic shock and toxic sound. We know that the interruptions in the sound chain during hybrid proceedings create dangerous situations for the interpreters. The statistics speak for themselves. Technical difficulties were to blame for 30% of the incidents reported by the interpreters during hybrid sittings from 2020 to 2022. That number may be on the low side, because 45% of interpreters on the Hill are contract employees and may not be reporting the injuries they sustain. Thirty per cent of injuries are reported by only 55% of the people. The number of injuries among interpreters is very likely much higher. Other aspects affected by the hybrid Parliament were already anticipated even before the pandemic. In 2018, a study was done on the different e-parliament models used around the world. The Inter-Parliamentary Union stated that the e-parliament “transforms both processes and relationships, both inside parliament and with outside actors.” These new processes “increase, decrease or alter how well a parliament legislates and deliberates, holds government to account and represents its citizens.” These four things are excluded from this debate, but I would like to address them. I am going to talk about a matter that concerns the representation of our constituents. Kathy Brock, associate professor at Queen's University, told the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that when members participate in hybrid proceedings virtually, a kind of power dynamic settles in that puts ministers and opposition critics in the foreground, while backbenchers somehow fade into the background. This means that members without a title have a harder time in making their voices heard and representing their constituents effectively. The hybrid format does not put everyone on an equal footing because of a dynamic that establishes itself and is harder to undo in virtual mode than in person, in the House. I have to mention the spirit of collegiality and the informal discussions we are able to have when we are here in person. My colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert talked about that. When we are physically present at a committee meeting, we talk with our colleagues. While still half listening, we can go and get a coffee with a colleague at the back of the room in order to talk about a certain proposal or one of their recommendations that we want to tweak to make it work. That is something that we cannot do when working remotely. There is only one channel for the sound and we cannot listen to two discussions at once. We cannot have informal discussions, and democracy pays the price. As my colleague mentioned, it is all well and good to have the right to choose to attend in person so that we can have that latitude and human interaction, but it does not make much difference if no one from the other parties has to be here because they have the option of working remotely. At that point, it becomes rather futile to be present in the House in person because none of the members opposite will be there with us to have those discussions with. Accountability is also an issue. Let us talk about the fourth estate: journalists. They complained during the pandemic that ministers were not on site and so they could not catch them as they were coming out of the House to ask them questions. There is a problem with accountability in that regard. It does pose a problem when a minister, for example, is not in the House to answer for their policies or the spending committed or being considered. One thing we see in the government's proposal for a hybrid Parliament is that there is some sort of imbalance or asymmetry in the proposed amendments. On the one hand, ministers are no longer required to be physically present in the House to give notices of motions, such as closure motions, time allocation motions, ways and means motions and notices of the designation of another day for a budget presentation. Ministers will be able to do so remotely. On the other hand, with respect to the number of people that must be physically present in the house to oppose something, we are going back to what was in place before the pandemic. For example, opposing a notice of motion to extend a session in the preceding hour requires the presence of 15 members in the House. During the pandemic, we decided that five members were required to oppose something remotely; now it is 15 in the House. We are returning to the practices that existed before the pandemic. We are lightening the government's burden to present notices, but we are keeping pressure on the opposition for members to be physically present in the House. It is the same for opposing an urgent motion from a minister that would allow the government to suspend the Standing Orders at its convenience. For that, there must be 10 people physically present in the House rather than five MPs participating remotely, as was the case during the pandemic. For motions during routine proceedings, 25 members need to physically rise in the House to oppose a motion moved by the government during routine proceedings. There seems to be an imbalance that works in the government's favour when implementing this hybrid parliament. This is basically in line with the sort of overall imbalance that we see with the government side gaining more advantages when implementing a hybrid parliament. To use the expression about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we would have liked to debate the details of setting up a hybrid Parliament. Necessity is the mother of all inventions. There were some good technological breakthroughs during the pandemic, and it would be foolish to completely discard them. However, we should have been able to debate about what we want to keep to ensure that there is a consensus and that the aspects that are ultimately maintained will serve Parliament well. The Bloc Québécois is not entirely against the idea of continuing to use electronic voting. However, we would have liked to be able to set some parameters around the use of electronic voting, such as making it mandatory for confidence votes to be held in person in the House. There has been a lot of talk about work-life balance being one of the benefits of hybrid Parliament. We agree, but could we not have provided a better framework? I will echo the words of the Speaker who is returning to the chair right now. He mentioned in committee that work-life balance should have been an exception. It should be allowed, but only as an exception and with parameters to ensure that this option is not abused. Should we completely abolish the use of Zoom for the House? Not necessarily, but we should have been more precise about it instead of applying a very broad measure that may benefit people who may abuse it. For example, a member involved in a scandal would be able to stay home and not be held accountable here in the House when journalists might want to ask questions. These should be exceptional circumstances, such as a death in the family, illness or urgent personal circumstances. A framework could have been developed for this. The use of hybrid Parliament is not all bad. It is bad insofar as it is not balanced. In short, there are many things the Bloc Québécois would have liked to discuss. That is our main complaint, specifically, the fact that a bunch of measures are ultimately being imposed on us with no real opportunity to make changes, improve the proposal or take advantage of the good that might come out of the pandemic. It is being imposed on us at a time when our work is winding down, when, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, there is no immediate urgency because the pandemic is largely behind us. If the government was going to make changes that will affect Parliament in the long term, the least it could have done was to seek a consensus among the parties, as was customary in the House. This is a letdown that, unfortunately, we have to focus on as the session nears its end. I am now ready to answer my colleagues' questions.

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Hybrid

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/13/23 7:30:55 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the member drew an interesting comparison with Pierre Elliott Trudeau passing a standing order change without having the full consensus of the House. It was on time allocation. If we look at that today, it has proven to be very successful. We have had different political parties in government support it. We have even had opposition parties, the Bloc included, support time allocation. Every party of the House, with the possible exception of the Greens, has supported the use of time allocation. At times, when we cannot achieve a consensus, we do need to take advantage of the things that have taken place over the last couple of years. It is called the modernization of Parliament. I would like to think that, years from now, people will look back and try to imagine 338 people coming to the House to vote in person for 400 votes, staying overnight for over 24 hours to vote. They will look back and see this as a positive change. I suspect, if we listen to what the Conservatives have suggested, a sunset clause would enable the Conservatives to support everything. There seems to be a fairly good consensus already.

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