SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 212

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2023 10:00AM
  • Jun/13/23 5:36:43 p.m.
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I am going to take a break for a second here, and I am going to consult. I was just consulting with the table officers, so I did not see what happened. What I am going to do is review the videotapes, because cameras are on all the time. We will review those cameras. We will go in back and look at it. I will remind people that we are in the House of Commons, and we should respect each other at all times, even though we disagree, vehemently sometimes, on issues that are before us. To accuse and flip the bird or give the finger is probably something that should not be seen in this House at any time. I am going to go to the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, and then I will go back to the hon. Conservative whip.
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  • Jun/13/23 8:35:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on his first point, a lot of people would say that bringing cameras into this place in the seventies was a bad move because of the theatre it created. A lot of people would say that putting video online so that people could clip it in real time was a bad move. I think that hindsight is 20/20. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Mark Gerretsen: I listened to the member, and I am going to answer his questions, if he does not want to talk to me back and forth through the middle of it. I think that it is important to reflect on the fact that maybe decades from now they will look back and say that it was a bad idea, but I can tell members that from my perspective right now, it looks like it is going to allow more people to engage, just based on the participation from Conservatives. On the member's second point about the resources, we should not spare any expense at making sure our democracy functions in the way it should. If we need to put more resources into that by building out the structure of resources we have, then we absolutely must do it. To that point, I do not disagree with him that I share similar concerns, but I do not think that needs to be the reason we cannot proceed. What it says to me is that we need to be investing more in the interpretation services and more in the resources, so that we can continue to function like this.
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