SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 214 - Jun/15/23

Jun/15/23 6:42:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the voting app is actually driving people out of this place. If there are two votes to take place in this chamber, they take at least 20 to 24 minutes. If one is using the voting app, one can literally take about 30 seconds of those 24 minutes to vote. If one sits in the chamber, one actually cannot do certain things while the voting takes place, across those two votes. One cannot, for example, be on a phone call with somebody else. One cannot be doing something other than what one is permitted to do in the House. The voting app, perversely, is actually driving members out of the chamber. This is why these sorts of measures need to be ended and sunsetted, as has been done in other western democracies.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Jun/15/23 6:43:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my hon. colleague for his excellent speech. I would like to respond to the parliamentary secretary representing the government. For days now, the government has been giving examples like the one about the voting application to claim that everything in the motion is positive. However, the motion includes a lot of other things. We, the Bloc Québécois, are not opposed to the voting application. However, the motion contains other things that cannot be changed or seriously debated to make them better. That is a problem. The biggest problem, however, is this: In the entire history of Parliament, such changes have always been adopted unanimously by the House to protect every elected official. As far as minor changes go, one exception was made under Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It was the first time in history that the rules were amended by a simple majority. What does my hon. colleague think about that?

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Hon. Michael Chong

Jun/15/23 6:44:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question and for sharing his perspective with us. This is a very important point. To this point, generally speaking, permanent changes to the Standing Orders of this chamber have been done on a consensual basis, involving support among all the parties of the House. There have been exceptions to that rule, but they were rare. I think the government is setting a dangerous precedent here in proposing this change without the consent of the second-largest party in this place, the official opposition. I think it is a very dangerous precedent that does not bode well for future changes to this place. For that reason, I do not think the change should be made permanent. I think that there would be a consensus among all recognized parties in the House to have hybrid Parliament go on but to have a sunset clause, where it would expire at the end of this Parliament.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Jun/15/23 6:45:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's service to Canada, but the fact is that we had even greater problems with many of the things he raised in his speech when the Harper regime was in place. I lived through the lack of access to documents and the refusal of ministers to talk to members of Parliament; I saw it first-hand. As for the things he is raising now, for example, the time it takes for the House to vote, last Friday, we saw how Conservatives stretched a vote from what should have been 10 minutes to over an hour, through inconsequential, dilatory points of order. We see this in terms of committees. We have had to cancel committees because Conservatives have filibustered to block legislation, such as putting in place dental care and ensuring a grocery rebate for all Canadians, including in their ridings. Conservatives have been the cause of many of the problems that the member is raising.

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Harper

Hon. Michael Chong

Jun/15/23 6:46:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a lifelong Conservative, I supported Speaker Milliken's rulings regarding the right of this place to order the production of documents, with respect to the Afghan detainee issue, as well as a committee of the House demanding information about the cost of the justice reforms that have been proposed by the government and the cost of the new F-35 jets. I supported them then and I support them now. Today, as a Conservative, I support the continuation of this House in a way that does not diminish its efficacy, in a way that ends hybrid Parliament at some point, as all other western democracies have already done.

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Afghan

Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

Jun/15/23 6:47:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin my comments, I just want to express my concern about the situation that is unfolding in Manitoba. Tragically, by the latest account, 15 people have been killed in a traffic accident on the Trans-Canada Highway. My thoughts are with the families, obviously, with the victims and with the first responders as well. This is going to be a difficult night for people in Manitoba. I am actually profoundly disappointed that I am here again, as I was a year ago, when a similar motion to extend the hybrid sitting was proposed before Parliament. As the opposition House leader at the time, I actually spoke for almost two and a half hours on this issue. The theme of what I was talking about last year was, sadly, a decline in our democracy, a decline in our institutions, a lack of respect for the conventions of this place and how Parliament has functioned historically throughout the Westminster system, and particularly in this country for over 156 years. I just cannot express enough how profoundly disappointed I am that not only are we dealing with changes to the Standing Orders on a permanent basis without the consensus of parties, which has again been the convention of this place, but we are also dealing with it in a time allocation motion. Something that will make such a profound change in the way this place operates is being dealt with through just a few hours of debate, with a lack of consensus. It is extremely frustrating and disappointing. I think every Canadian should be concerned about the direction in which the government, aided and abetted by the NDP, is taking not just Parliament but also our institutions, as well as the general lack of respect they have for them. I recall back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, that I was the deputy whip, and I happened to sit at PROC. Clearly, at the time, there was a lot of uncertainty and confusion about what was going on. That is when the issue of a hybrid Parliament and the voting app started really taking root in the psyche of parliamentarians. We had to function. We had to make sure that the business of the nation was going to continue, that there was some continuity. We sat down as the PROC committee. Again, I will remind members that it was a Liberal majority at the time, and there were certain patterns that were already starting to evolve. There were things that were being foretold back then that bring us to the day that we are facing today. I recall that the first issue we were dealing with was the voting application. The Conservative members of the committee issued a dissenting report at that time. There ae some highlights of that report that I would like to mention now. One of them is that the “underlying Liberal motivations left us skeptical”. Members may recall that, back in 2015, when the manifesto of the Liberal campaign policy book was issued, it talked about restructuring the way Parliament functions, so this was their intent back in 2015. What they did was use the pandemic as a means to an end. That end was always to disrupt this place and not allow it to function in the manner in which it was designed. The other aspects of what we were discussing back then included that the “Liberals seemed committed not just to a direction, but to a specific outcome”, as I referenced before, because that was in their campaign policy book. The committee worked hard. There were long days throughout that summer that we discussed this because of the importance of the issue at the time, but it was all in the “service of a Liberal talking point”. In other words, the fix was in. They knew specifically where they were going. There were some other things. One of the things in our dissenting report that we highlighted was that the “House of Commons must—and can—[and should] conduct its business in person”. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills just spoke eloquently on that, so I am not going to expand on that. Later on, I am going to give some reasons and examples of why this is important. As we went on later that summer, we talked about the voting app, and we wrote the dissenting report. Again, a Liberal majority, not a Liberal minority propped up by the NDP, caused us to write this dissenting report. Several times today, the government members have said that they are surprised about the opposition position on this. Our position was made clear back in 2020 as it related to the hybrid sittings of this House. The report said, “The Official Opposition will strongly resist any effort to exploit the pandemic as a cover to implement a permanent virtual Parliament, with its reduced ability to hold government accountable, gravely undermining our democracy.” It was almost like prophecy back then. We were predicting exactly what was going to happen, that this day would come, and here we are. Why is it important? It is important because of accountability. In this place, when we gather 338 members, our constitutional obligation is to hold the government to account. As We saw throughout the pandemic, as we are seeing as recently as this week, just how difficult it is to hold the government to account when its members are not in this House or when they are simply voting by the app. It is not just parliamentarians holding the government to account. It is the media. In such a situation as we are seeing this week and over the past couple of weeks, with the Minister of Public Safety, how can the media, Canadians and their representatives in this place hold the government to account if its members are hiding out on a TV screen or if they are voting by app? There are so many things that I cannot even do them justice within 10 minutes as I discuss the challenges that this hybrid system presents. There is the fact that it is not being done on consensus but is being rammed down the throats of Canadians, fundamentally changing the way this institution operates. We cannot do it justice within 10 minutes, and we certainly cannot explain why this is an ill-conceived idea through the proposal of time allocation. Again, it was supposed to be temporary. Human-to-human interaction is critical in this place; it is critical that I, as a member of Parliament in the opposition, can go and speak to a minister who is present in this place. I will give an example. At ethics committee the other day, we were dealing with an issue on the access to information report, which we expect to be tabled at some point over the next few days. There was a discussion that was engaged in between members of the committee who were in that room. It was about how we were going to move forward on a stalemate situation that we were facing. As the meeting continued, those members from the Bloc, the NDP, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party got together and worked out a deal to end the stalemate. That cannot happen when we are sitting on a TV screen or voting on an app. Those things have to happen in person, and this is why it is critical that we do not support hybrid sittings. We are the only western democracy in the world and there is no other legislature in Canada that is voting by an app, that is not meeting in person or utilizing a hybrid system. There is not one, and that should tell members everything they need to know about why this proposition is wrong. If we cannot set the example of what this institution means to this country, as the premier democratic symbol in this country, then it is awfully difficult to expect others to follow suit. I happen to think that it still means a lot. There are legislatures in this country that are leaders in this regard, yet here we are, not the leader. There are a couple more issues that I want to touch on. The first is interpretation. We have seen an increase in injuries to our interpreters as a result of the hybrid system. The system has become better, but the problem still exists, and it is going to continue to exist as a result of this hybrid system. I cannot support this. We have to return in person for the sake of our democracy and not continue down this path. We need accountability. We need transparency. We cannot continue down this path as a democracy in decline. Sadly, this motion would do that.

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Manitoba

Mr. Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 6:57:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the previous speaker mentioned that no other parliament in the world continued to allow a hybrid parliament, and the member himself mentioned that no other government in Canada was doing it. However, and perhaps I am wrong in this, my understanding is that the Scottish Parliament has decided to continue to allow a hybrid parliament, as has the Welsh Parliament. In addition, the Estonian government has also decided to do that, and the last I heard, New Zealand was still trying to decide on this matter.

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Mr. John Brassard

Jun/15/23 6:58:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think I was pretty clear in what I said, which was that there is no other western democracy. I was referring specifically to national legislatures. There are provincial legislatures in Canada, but not one of them is using a hybrid model or a voting app. They have all returned to some sense of normalcy, and that is specifically where we need to go. We cannot continue down this path, because, as I said earlier, we are going to continue to see a further decline in democracy.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Jun/15/23 6:58:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know how things work in the House and we know how the negotiations went for these changes to the Standing Orders of the House. The government House leader went to see the NDP. They came to an agreement. After that, they did not talk to the other parties. They decided to shove new rules down the members' throats. Here we are in mid-June discussing this under a gag order at the last minute, when it has been weeks, if not months, that the government and the NDP, with whom they are in bed, have known exactly where they are going with this. I would like my colleague to tell me why, in his opinion, they used this strategy of endless stalling, making us waste time until the last minute to finally use the most undemocratic procedure in the House of Commons, the gag order, and force this down our throats.

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Mr. John Brassard

Jun/15/23 6:59:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is another example. Last year, the government did the same thing in June, with the NDP's help. They did it right before Canada Day. They said that if we did not vote, we would be staying here. They are using this issue as a hostage-taking exercise. This is why we are ending up at the end. However, on the point of not discussing, we have had consensus around this place on changes to the Standing Orders. That has been the convention, but obviously the government knows that it has NDP members in its hip pocket and it is using them to make these changes. I ran as an MP knowing the issue, knowing that I would be here in Ottawa, and I would suggest to anyone that if they do not understand the obligation of a member of Parliament to sit in Ottawa, in this seat of power, the constitutional place of power in this country, and if they cannot conform to that, then maybe they should run for mayor or maybe they should run for councillor or maybe they should run for public school trustee. I understand what my obligation is, as do many of the members, not just on our side but I suspect on the Bloc Québécois side as well. This is where people need to be.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Jun/15/23 7:01:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I like the member, I remember his speech and I appreciate his consistency. He is saying something that the Conservatives have been trying to hide, which is that they are absolutely opposed to the hybrid Parliament. They are absolutely opposed to remote voting and the voting app. However, we just had a vote in which over half of the Conservative caucus actually used the voting app to vote to try to block the use of the voting app, which is, to say the least, a contradiction. We also know, dating back to The Globe and Mail exposé in June 2020, that Conservatives have the highest absentee rate when it comes to virtual Parliament. They were absent 53% of the time. The NDP showed up 85% of the time. How does the member explain this contradiction?

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Contradiction

Mr. John Brassard

Jun/15/23 7:01:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard this argument all day. The government, aided and abetted by the NDP, has set the rules. We are working within the rules. If those rules change and we get rid of the hybrid Parliament, every single Conservative will be in their seat representing their constituents and voting here on behalf of their constituents. However, the government set the rules. There is one thing that is critical about this, which is that we cannot continue on this hybrid system and not expect our democracy to decline. That is exactly what the NDP is contributing to by voting with the Liberals on this issue.

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Hybrid

Mr. Parm Bains (Steveston—Richmond East, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 7:02:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to be speaking on the hybrid provisions today. In 2021, I was honoured to be chosen by the people of Steveston—Richmond East to serve as their member of Parliament. However, that same fall, as I began work as an MP in Ottawa, I became very fatigued and my symptoms worsened. I was born with a solitary kidney, and upon my return to B.C., I was informed that my only kidney was deteriorating faster than expected. The time had come to prepare for a transplant, and I was to immediately receive dialysis treatment. As serious as this was, I did not want my condition to affect my work or limit my ability to represent my community. To ensure there were no conflicts with my parliamentary responsibilities, I trained myself to self-administer the dialysis treatment at the nocturnal dialysis unit at the Vancouver General Hospital, where I would stay overnight three days a week. While I waited for my transplant, it was crucial to avoid travel in order to not risk contracting any viruses, like COVID-19, so that I could be operated on safely when the time came. If it had not been for the hybrid provisions, I could not have safeguarded my health and kept my commitment to represent my constituents in Parliament. I was able to fulfill my responsibilities virtually in the House of Commons and in committees. I was able to speak to bills, speak on the Emergencies Act, participate in a study on military procurement and share an untold inclusive Canadian heritage story confronting the realities of systemic racism, which was a very important priority for me. I was also able to provide statements in the House regarding key investments the government is making in Richmond. Since I was elected to office in 2021, over $200 million in investments were secured in my city. I have been able to participate in all relevant caucus meetings to communicate Richmond's economic and service priorities. I participated in caucus meetings to communicate Richmond's social, economic, service and infrastructure priorities. At the same time, I was able to meet stakeholders within the municipality and throughout the riding. Many individuals, throughout all those meetings, mentioned that they had never even met their MP, and some of them had served in the municipality for over 20 years. While many of my colleagues in the House agree with this motion, many former MPs also support this initiative. On October 4, I appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee to tell my story and share how hybrid provisions helped me serve Canadians through my difficult health journey. My fellow witnesses included former MPs Dona Cadman and Léo Duguay. Dona Cadman, who sat across the aisle, recalled the hardship and the toll it took on her husband's health while he was serving as an MP and spoke about how the positive effects of working virtually with his colleagues across parties could have made a strong impact on his mental health in the last years of life. In his opening remarks, Léo Duguay, the president of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, said that in 1985 he wanted to look at two things. The first was electronic voting. The second was improving the House of Commons. During my preparations I learned that PROC released a report in 2016 entitled “Initiatives toward a family-friendly House of Commons”. The report details the heavy personal toll that legislators live with as a result of their work. Although virtual proceedings were not one of the recommendations, the hybrid provisions are vital to easing the pressures caused by uncontrollable long absences from Ottawa. There are reasons to support this motion, as highlighted by the 2021 PBO report on the costs of a hybrid Parliament. Over a full year, the net savings from a hybrid parliamentary system are estimated to be $6.2 million. It is also estimated that the hybrid parliamentary system would reduce GHG emissions related to travel by about 2,972 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent. These figures do not include the savings from reduced travel and accommodation costs for witnesses who appear before committees. Although these are benefits of a hybrid Parliament, they are not the main reason that I support this motion. As members of Parliament, we are responsible for nurturing our democracy. It is our role to ensure that as many Canadians as possible can participate fully in our democratic processes, not just when it comes time to vote but when we want to raise our hands and represent our fellow Canadians. However, travel commitments and long separations from family and friends are a price many Canadians are unwilling to pay. A modern Parliament is a hybrid Parliament. It is inclusive, accessible and a window into the future of democracy in the 21st century. As Canadians, we must not let this window close, because we would be doing a disservice to democracy and to Canadians. A hybrid Parliament creates a more flexible environment to accommodate a greater variety of Canadians and keeps MPs closer to their communities. Returning to the way things have always run would be a step back in our national journey to build a stronger, more inclusive and more engaging democracy. Expanding each Canadian's capacity to stand for elected office and serve as an MP is important not just for the individuals who sit in the House of Commons but for our communities, because the best ideas on the needs of Canadians come from the regions each MP represents, allowing us to remain rooted in our communities and maintain a strong understanding of the everyday impacts people are experiencing. Hybrid provisions allowed me to fulfill my parliamentary obligations, limit my exposure, maintain strong mental health and reduce the fears my family had as they supported me through my health journey. I received my transplant in August of last year and I owe a world of thanks to the person who gave me the gift of life. It is very hard to express how very fortunate and extremely grateful I am to be able to work in and serve the city I was raised in and the province of British Columbia that I was born in. Of course, it also would not have been possible to keep doing a job I passionately enjoy without the excellent care provided by the team of medical professionals, the dialysis unit and the organ transplant team at Vancouver General Hospital, as well as Canadian Blood Services. Madam Speaker, I failed to mention earlier that I will be sharing my time with the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River. I am prepared to take questions.

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Mr. Tako Van Popta (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC)

Jun/15/23 7:11:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague referenced Chuck Cadman, whom I knew. He was from my neck of the woods, and I know that when he was seriously ill, he came here to vote, but an alternative option would have been for the government side of the House to have paired somebody with him so that he would not have had to go through the trouble and pain and inconvenience of travelling. Is that a way forward for exceptional cases that make it impossible, or nearly impossible, for somebody to travel here?

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Mr. Parm Bains

Jun/15/23 7:11:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think one of the key things here is that what he is suggesting, the pairing of someone, actually takes the voice of the elected member who is there to serve the community that elected them.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Jun/15/23 7:12:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very uncomfortable with this motion, not so much because of what it contains, even though my party and I disagree with that, but with the way the government is going about getting this motion adopted. There is a tradition in this House, which, to my knowledge, exists in all Parliaments. The rules are not changed by the simple majority because that would mean imposing the majority's vision on all the minorities. That is not the right approach. However, that is what the government is doing here. Rather than trying to reach a consensus with all the parties and agree on the rules before putting them in place, the government is refusing to discuss them with us and imposing its way of doing things. Is that not completely undemocratic?

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Mr. Parm Bains

Jun/15/23 7:13:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot about tradition, and I know other members have talked about tradition as well, but it was a break from tradition to bring cameras into the House of Commons, and that changed in 1977. This is a meaningful discussion, and I understand the concerns, but we are having a debate and raising these questions. Members have had an opportunity to raise them for a few years now, so on this side, we believe these changes are necessary to increase democracy.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Jun/15/23 7:14:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Steveston—Richmond East for sharing his story. We both come from British Columbia. It is very difficult, as many members know, to travel back and forth every week, as we like to do, to our homes when we live in British Columbia. The member happens to live very close to an airport, so he is luckier than I am, but I was really interested to hear of his health issues and how he got through them. I think he touched on this in the answer to a previous question, but having this hybrid Parliament allowed him to represent his constituents while he was home in British Columbia rather than, as the Conservative member was suggesting, taking away someone else's right to vote as well as a better solution. I think sitting virtually is by far the best solution we have, and we should keep it.

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Mr. Parm Bains

Jun/15/23 7:15:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly why I think this is an important piece. I mentioned this while I was speaking, but to really understand the priorities of a region, members sometimes have to be there longer than than they are here. When we go to events, we see the mayor and the council, but do we get an opportunity to speak to the people who are operating within the municipality, the people who are building the homes or the planners? They told me that they had never met their member of Parliament, and that was a very important piece I was able to do while I was there.

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Mr. Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 7:15:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to speak to this issue for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons I am here, the reason we are all here, is to represent our constituents, and I really think the measure of a hybrid Parliament does further the interests of our constituents. I also think it furthers the interests of democracy as a whole. The other reason I wanted to talk about this is that it is a measure that came out of COVID. As a parliamentarian who was fairly involved with the whole COVID process, I was interested in this. I have to say that there is not a whole lot of good that came out of COVID, but this is perhaps one of the few good things. I will start with COVID because that is really the origin of this hybrid Parliament. I am not sure about the rest of us here, but I am from the class of 2019, and we had a rough start to Parliament. Three months into that parliamentary session, we heard of the outbreak of a novel respiratory virus in Wuhan, China. I followed this, because I am a doctor and I used to work for the World Health Organization. I studied and also taught global health law. In addition, during the SARS pandemic, I was working as a doctor around Toronto. I was actually quarantined because of SARS, so I followed this. Certainly, what was happening in Wuhan, China, did not look good. Then the dominoes began to fall. First, it was Iran, with news stories of satellite images showing mass graves there. After that, it was Italy, and there were, I believe, over 140 doctors in Italy who died early on in the COVID pandemic. Then we started to get cases here. I was sitting on the health committee. We had Dr. Tam, members from PHAC and other people coming before us. We asked some questions about COVID, and they responded, “Nothing to see here. We have it under control. It is not going to be a problem.” I was rather frustrated. It was like watching an old disaster movie. For anyone who has ever watched one, it does not matter the disaster, whether it is the sinking of a boat, a big volcano going off, an earthquake killing lots of people or a big shark, in all of these, there is an unshaven has-been, because these are old movies and nowadays there would be a lot of women, but this person would be sitting at the end of the bar early on in the disaster. They see the disaster coming and say, “Well, I think maybe we ought to be worried here”, but no one gets worried. This is how I felt in the early days of the pandemic. Then came March 13, 2020, and the wheels fell off the bus that day. On that day, it was announced that Tom Hanks, the actor, had COVID and the Prime Minister's wife had COVID. The NHL and NBA, in an unprecedented fashion, decided to end their seasons. It was horrible for us hockey and basketball fans. At the same time, Parliament decided to shut down indefinitely. I remember, I believe it was a Thursday night, at the Marriott bar with some of my colleagues, who are undoubtedly here. We were talking about what we were going to do. Were we supposed to go home? Should we have been talking to each other? Were we giving each other COVID? Going forward three years, on this side of the House, we think we did pretty well with COVID. We got through it. However, for us in Parliament, the democratic process to get through it was done thanks to being able to partake virtually in a virtual Parliament. Without that, we certainly would not have been able to continue the democratic process through COVID. Moreover, generally speaking, the vaccines in society provided a lot of what we needed to deal with the pandemic. Later on, the various forms of treatments that came out in the health care system played a big part in reducing mortality. However, I would suggest that it was technology, the Internet and the ability to do virtual meetings that allowed us that social distancing, which we needed early on before we had the vaccines to prevent the spread of disease. These virtual meetings were certainly a big part of how we responded to COVID. Hopefully, COVID is over, but we cannot say that for certain. I do not think this will happen, but perhaps in the fall there will be another wave with a new variant, and for that reason alone I think it is good that we are still able to meet virtually. Rather than talking further about why I am for virtual Parliament, let me admit that I do think there are advantages of being here in person, and some of my colleagues on the opposite side talked about them. I would not deny there are a lot of good things that come out of that. For those in the class of 2019, after having been meeting virtually for about a year and a half, to then come back felt like we were starting high school in grade 11. In our time back here it has become apparent to me, and perhaps to a lot of my colleagues from the same year, how much of the real work of Parliament does not occur right here on the floor, but in the back rooms. The back is a place where I can corner a minister to ask them about an issue that is big in my riding and get an answer. It is also a place where we can form coalitions. In my experience, and in the experience of all parliamentarians here, an individual will have a really hard time moving any particular item. However, when they get consensus, it is far easier to do. That kind of consensus cannot be made on a Zoom call, but it is the kind of consensus we can make in the back rooms. Having said that and having agreed that, generally speaking, being here in person is better, I think there are real advantages of being able to meet virtually. Those advantages certainly outweigh the disadvantages. I would like to point out that it is quite difficult to be a parliamentarian when one has a family. I have six kids. I have big kids, little kids, young kids and old kids, and being a good parent when spending half of my time not at home, but in Ottawa, is very difficult. Our poor spouses end up running a single-parent family half the time. It is hard on anyone who has kids, but I would suggest it is particularly hard on women with small children. There are some women here who do have small children, so it is not impossible, but it is very difficult. I would suggest that reality scares off a lot of young women from wanting to partake in the democratic process. We really want to encourage women to run. The hybrid Parliament makes it easier. For example, these last nine weeks or so, we have had one constituency week. However, with virtual Parliament, if someone has a family and kids, and the kids are sick or they are asking for them, they can spend a week back home with the kids and still partake in parliamentary duties. Similarly, if someone lives in Labrador or the Northwest Territories, they can do Monday and Friday virtually, meeting their obligations to Parliament while still having time with their family. It allows parliamentarians to balance their obligations to their families with their obligations to their constituencies and to Parliament. I suggest that is also the case for people, for example, with disabilities, with family members who are ill or who have elderly people in their family to whom they have obligations. It allows them to come to Parliament. Why is that important? I have said before I think not being able to go virtual would be particularly hard on women. In Parliament, 50% of MPs ought to be women. Parliament, for the sake of democracy, ought to be a Parliament that reasonably reflects the population at large. That means not only having women in Parliament, but also having people who are mothers and fathers with younger or older children, or who have no children at all. Let me reiterate that not much good came out of COVID, but I think one good thing that came out of COVID was hybrid Parliament. It is good for MPs, Parliament and the democratic process, and I think it is good for Canadians.

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