44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2023 10:00AM
- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- Jun/13/23 10:42:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to be here this evening to participate in this debate on Motion No. 26. I will be splitting my time with the member for Kings—Hants.
It is my pleasure to participate in this debate tonight because, for me, this is a deeply personal issue. Since being elected in 2019, I have served on the procedure and House affairs committee with many great colleagues whom I am proud to work with every day on that committee.
I was a part of the early debates that happened when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Obviously, our government was intent on continuing to serve Canadians through the pandemic, but it certainly recognized that coming back to the House of Commons at a time when there was a highly communicable disease spreading across the country putting Canadians' lives at risk, we did not want to be a further vector for the spread of that disease. For us, it was imperative that we not come back to the House of Commons physically, but rather work towards innovating and modernizing Parliament in a time of crisis to ensure we could continue to pass legislation, have parliamentary debates, and fulfill our roles and functions as members of Parliament. That, to me, was really important work we did.
During that time, of course, we had very lively debates with members of all parties. In particular, I found the Conservatives to be ideologically committed to being back in these green chairs, despite the fact it could potentially spread COVID-19 across the country by us coming to the same physical location, then going back to our communities, and travelling back and forth. It was pretty clear that it just made no sense. However, for some reason, the Conservative Party wanted to criticize the government in public by saying that we did not want to do the work, while trying to tie our hands behind our backs by not allowing Parliament to function in a hybrid format. We had very lively debates where Conservatives tried to filibuster using hybrid, even in the worst crisis for many in our lifetimes. It is consistent with their approach, I have to say, to see them here today opposing this motion.
However, I just see it as an opposition to innovating and adopting tools that every other industry has adopted. It seems to me that Parliament needs to modernize to the same degree other industries across Canada have, and within every industry, they are utilizing these tools. We know that Canadians recovering from the pandemic in many of those industries and in many of those jobs are utilizing digital tools to work remotely.
This is not to say that I do not recognize the value of being here in person. I actually choose, as many members of Parliament do, to participate in parliamentary debates and proceedings. If I were to take the Conservatives' position, it seems to me that they thought that, if we introduced remote working capabilities for Parliament, no members of Parliament would ever show up in the House of Commons. However, what we have seen is the opposite, which is that members of Parliament generally wish to be here and prefer to be here, and there are many good reasons for that. That does not preclude the fact that members of Parliament would like the option to be able to be in their ridings.
What we heard at the procedure and House affairs committee, while undertaking this work to look at whether hybrid provisions in Parliament and the changes that are proposed to the Standing Orders should continue, we actually considered and heard from many witnesses, considered many options, and had, again, very lively debates. Unfortunately, we saw the Bloc switch positions. Its members were originally supportive of hybrid provisions, but they switched their position. I am very happy to see that NDP members have stuck with their arguments for how hybrid proceedings make Parliament more inclusive and representative, and they acknowledge the many benefits that we can retain as a result of having these options for members of Parliament.
Why is this so important? It is because it modernizes Parliament. The Inter-Parliamentary Union did detailed research. It has done several reports looking at parliaments around the world. I will mention stats from its extensive report in 2022.
It has done statistical research and said, “84% of parliaments [have become] more innovative” as a result of COVID-19. It said 51% of parliaments around the world have held a virtual plenary sitting, and 77% held a virtual committee meetings. It also said, when surveying members of Parliament from around the world, that 88% of members agree that members are more receptive to new ways of working and 80% of members of Parliament trust digital tools and are more likely to use those digital tools as a result of the innovations that came out of COVID-19.
The report says, “The research shows parliaments going through a phase of embedding innovations emerging from the...pandemic and institutionalizing new ways of working.” They do not see this as a one-off event. It states, “rather, it has been a catalyst for change that will lead to ongoing and incremental improvements in parliamentary functioning. Innovation and strong leadership are vital”.
It talks about strong leadership being vital. The report from the Inter-Parliamentary Union recommends that parliaments around the world take a careful look at the innovations and modernizations of the pandemic to see what can continue to augment and enhance members of Parliament's ability to do their jobs.
Before I move on, I will mention more from the report, which I think is very useful for this debate. It talked about business continuity planning being so important and how many parliaments around the world did not have an adequate business continuity plan. In fact, as a result of the pandemic, they actually modified and enhanced their business continuity planning, which makes parliaments more resilient in times of crisis. Members of Parliament are able to participate in debates in those moments of crisis.
Business would continue. The business of democracy and the business of the nation would continue despite many of the different types of crises we experience today. We can think of floods, wildfires or many of the other crises we have been going through as a country. It is imperative that our Parliament can function.
We also heard from members of Parliament in the PROC committee who came before the committee and testified about their various family situations and the length they had to travel across the country. Many of them are going through compounding health issues and wanting to exercise their parliamentary privilege to participate fully on behalf of their constituents.
Our House leader put it really well. He said we do not have a problem with MPs not working hard enough around here, and I think that is true. Members of Parliament, from what I have seen, work hard every day. They are giving 110% or 120%. They are here until midnight or one o'clock in the morning. They are participating in so many different activities on behalf of their constituents.
The tools we are here to debate, and hopefully they will continue indefinitely, really enhance our Parliament because they not only enable it to be more inclusive and representative, but also ensure that business continuity can continue and Parliament can continue to function. It also accounts for a compassionate, modern workplace that allows members of Parliament and the way that Parliament functions to compete, in a sense, with other industries that have modernized as well.
I appreciate this debate and the opportunity I have had to participate this evening.
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- Jun/13/23 11:13:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I begin this debate tonight, I will state that this is not an easy job to do. I will be the first to acknowledge that. I love what I do, and I think every member in this place loves what they do. They have a passion, energy and desire to build a better country.
I have been here three and a half years, and like many members, a few who have spoken tonight, I am from the class of 2019. We had a few months of normalcy after the 2019 election. We figured out where the offices and washrooms were. We figured out how things ran here. Then the world changed, both in what we talked about in policy with the pandemic and in how we operated here.
There are many different facets to the role we have as members of Parliament. I am thinking of the work we do here in the chamber, at committee and back in our constituency offices on case files. We are present in the community at riding and community events and get feedback. Of course, now that we are out of the pandemic, we are getting to different parts of the country to get the message out from our caucuses and leaders and so forth. However, I will say this. Despite the changes in 2019, we are now, at this point, in this debate tonight, out of the pandemic and back to what I would say is a semblance of normalcy.
I knew what I was signing up for in 2019 when I took this job. Every member of Parliament has challenges in the work they do here on the Hill. There is no denial there. There are family responsibilities, circumstances that change and travel as well. I often chuckle that I have a pretty easy commute, being from eastern Ontario, to get back home. It is about an hour and 10 minutes to my riding.
I consider myself very fortunate. For me, the member next door in Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and members in the national capital region, it is a blessing to get home quickly. It can also be a curse some days, because constituents know I can go back for a passport clinic, a community event or whatever it may be. However, all that said, given the point in time we are at now, when we are talking about the strengthening and protection of our democracy and its integrity and all aspects of that, the debate we are having tonight is fundamentally important to getting the basic stuff right.
I am in favour of change. Change naturally happens. I remember being a mayor at the municipal level and having to navigate a lot of that. It is not always easy to do. However, sometimes there is change for the sake of doing something, and sometimes change goes too far.
As I was preparing my comments for the debate tonight, I thought of the words of a colleague who is no longer in the House, Wayne Easter. The former member for Malpeque had a great comment on Twitter this week: “Let me put it this way: If you don't want to work in Ottawa during the Parliamentary sessions—don't run to be an MP. A hybrid Parliament made sense during Covid but it should never be permanent. I strongly oppose govt's move to make it permanent.” I could not agree more with what Mr. Easter said on that point, and I am laughing when thinking of his Zoom discussions with the member for Carleton, the leader of our party, at the finance committee. They were certainly navigating some very interesting times.
As I share my time tonight with my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, I am reflecting, in a sense, on certain provisions from our side of the aisle. As we have said in our dissenting reports and talked about at committee, some aspects can stay. Electronic voting is an example of that. How we can make that work could be open for discussion, as an example.
However, the idea is to be here on the floor of the House of Commons, to travel here and speak on behalf of, in my case, the people of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry from the perspectives of my riding, my community and my personal lived experience, whatever the benefit may be. That needs to happen in person.
I have seen things I take for granted. In the last few months, we have gotten traffic back in our caucus meetings, on the floor of the House, in committee and, yes, in the hallways for the networking and different connections we do at different times of the day. There is a value to being in person. It adds to our democracy; it does not take it away.
When we talk about these things, like making permanent the idea that somebody can Zoom in from their home or from their basement, I think we are at a point now where we can be compassionate. We can make changes to help adapt to difficult family situations and circumstances. I think the whips in our parties have given better flexibility over the course of the last couple of years to recognize personal and professional needs where need be. We can keep the core foundation of what we are talking about here.
I always joke that we are not normal. Most Canadians watching this would ask what the heck a standing order is. We are talking about the fundamental rules of how this House operates, and I think a way to describe them is they are the character, the tone and the nature of the way we do our business. I am very concerned that we are making Zoom aspects permanent so that people will be able to Zoom in for all of this.
Another part that is very concerning is the manner in which these changes are being made, the magnitude of these changes given our normal traditions here in the House and the way we have gone about this generally, with unanimous consent by all parties. We have this motion supported by the Liberals and the NDP. The Conservatives have raised some serious concerns in wanting a difference and the Bloc Québécois has done the same.
I cannot say it was for the entire Canadian history and our entire tenure of Parliament, but for the overwhelming majority of the time, changes to the Standing Orders and the rules that govern the House have been done by unanimous consent, by all parties giving and taking, figuring things out, throwing things at the wall, seeing what they can find a consensus on and making changes. Those changes, I think, have been for the better over the course of time, and this has been the best way to build confidence from Parliament to Parliament on these core essential functions.
One thing we have in here is a change to have committee chairs in person. I think that would end a lot of the chaos that happens in certain committees. With all due respect, I am thinking of numerous times at the heritage committee that we watched a natural technological filibuster of checking headsets, the chair not knowing what is happening with the committee clerk in the room and somebody calling a point of order. Consider the amount of time lost in a two-hour committee. Members of Parliament here talk about the efficient use of time. Our clerks are there. The interpreters are there. The IT team is there. The amount of time that was lost is probably into the hours over the course of the last couple of years simply because the chair was not in the room.
The fact that this is changing is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. We talked about having the appropriate resources. When having these Zoom capabilities and all of these things going on, the resources are not backing them up.
I have heard several times tonight members of the government say, well, these are all things that could be adjusted and talked about. They should be done in the amendments to the Standing Orders. These things should be figured out now, these guardrails or barriers, to make sure we have protections so that committees can run when a majority of members of Parliament want to meet and they have work to get done, bills to go through, studies to do and witnesses to hear from. Because of a lack of resources, we are shutting things down.
That, still two years in, has been acknowledged many times. In all fairness, it is often to the benefit of the government. If something gets contentious and they are starting to negotiate which committee gets cancelled, it is not fair and it is not balanced. To colleagues who say that those are things we could have a conversation about, I would say these things should have been settled and done the way they have been done in parliamentary tradition in this country for many generations: all parties coming to unanimous consent, unanimous agreement, on how we can get to that.
Another thing we talk about is that there are some other tools already here that could be used more. If an absence is requested, there are pairing opportunities. There are leaves that can happen. There are tools. We have made a lot of advances here in recognizing the diverse geography of the country. As we have had more parents, different age groups and different circumstances, we have enhanced child care options and added designated travellers. All of these things were done to help make our work better and function better.
Tonight, as I wrap up, I think of my comments about these amendments to the Standing Orders. There was a time and a place for Zoom, but now is the time to get back in person. Our jobs are unique. It is an honour and a privilege to be one of only a few hundred members of Parliament in this country. When we speak for our constituents, there is no reason why that should not be done on the floor of the House of Commons. I think of the United Kingdom. I think of the United States. I think of many other countries' parliamentary structures that are similar, like Congress. They are back in person. They are doing the work. They are making it work.
Canadians expect us to get back to work in person and get the job done. As our leader likes to say, we need to bring it home.
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- Jun/13/23 11:25:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from the Bloc about the different issues and some of them being untested. Yes, we had tested them during the pandemic when we were not able to travel and were unable to get around our communities and do the work that we needed to do. Now that we are in the time frame we are in, I think there are some areas we could have found agreement on, but in this situation we are breaking a massive tradition that has generally held through the entire tenure of a number of Canadian Parliaments over many generations, which is unanimous consent to change the Standing Orders.
I go back to say that there are many things we are doing to help parents, help families, help people with health conditions and help people with bereavement. That does not mean we have to allow Zoom to come in. There are some things we can do. There are many things we are doing and there are more that we can do. We were absent from that conversation. It was the Liberals and the NDP who worked together to put this motion forward that we have tonight. It is very frustrating and frankly unnecessary, in my opinion.
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