For the past several weeks, prime minister Justin Trudeau and other government voices have insisted that the only way to re-open Parliament in regular sittings is for it to be done as a "hybrid" system where most MPs stay home, and to implement remote voting likely in some kind of electronic format which is anathema to how our parliamentary democracy works.  We heard this yet again this week when the government was unable to come to any kind of agreement with opposition parties over its latest emergency legislation, which sparked a bunch of ill-considered commentary about "political games" and dismissal of concerns over process issues.  But it doesn't have to be like this, and hybrid sittings with remote voting cannot be the solution.  There is a better way.

Part of this failure of imagination can be chalked up to the Liberals and the NDP treating Parliament like a technological problem to be solved.  Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez has been quoted as saying the government is "100 percent in favour of electronic voting," and you can tell that he gave those marching orders to his members of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, based on their behaviour.  The NDP's House leader, Peter Julian, also agrees, saying "I don't see how any party could be opposed to having all MPs vote."  It's been up to the Conservative House Leader, Candice Bergen, to pump the brakes on this course of action, citing "grave concerns about this proposal," saying that she doesn't trust the government's motives "as they push for a voting system that would keep MPs away from the House of Commons."

In this Bergen is correct the Liberals have been pushing for remote, electronic voting for a while, wrapped up in the guise of needing it for parental leave or to help MPs with work-life balance issues, which is precisely why this attempt to bring it in for the sake of the pandemic is a Pandora's Box  once it's been unleashed, it can't be bottled up again, and these same Liberals aren't letting the crisis go to waste to push forward this agenda wrapped up in the excuse of "modernization."  Like her, I have no reason to trust that any measure they introduce for the sake of the pandemic will only be for the course of the pandemic, which is why we should avoid them altogether.  Instead, there are ways to bring the Commons back to near-full ability or utility without doing it remotely, and part of that solution is to create a parliamentary bubble.

The biggest hurdle here is going to be the whinging of MPs over travel, especially in parts of the country where there are orders to self-isolate upon return.  The answer is not to travel back-and-forth, but to keep MPs in Ottawa for the duration of the sitting, presuming this goes ahead in September.  And yes, this is going to involve sacrifice, whether it means bringing their families with them, or being apart for the course of several weeks, but this is a global pandemic and everyone needs to make sacrifices.  Many front-line healthcare workers can't see their families either for fear of infecting them, and they're making a lot less than MPs are.  As well, it's not like MPs are going out and doing community events because of the pandemic, so why shouldn't they be doing their jobs in Ottawa?  This is how MPs operated for the better part of a century after Confederation, so it's not inconceivable that they do so again for this unprecedented period.  As well, if they don't have permanent lodgings in this city Parliament as a whole should simply rent out the Chateau Laurier to house MPs and presumably senators for that duration, since it's already closed to the public.  It brings jobs back, and it'll keep MPs contained in that "bubble" zone and being forced to spend that much time together may do wonders for collegiality.

The idea that all 338 MPs would be in the House of Commons at once instead of physical distancing is also something of a red herring.  The only time all MPs are in the Chamber are for Question Period and votes, and there is no actual need for everyone to be there for QP, especially in the current circumstances.  Parties could decide on who gets to be in attendance the government obviously needing to put more ministers in place than backbenchers, though not eliminating backbenchers entirely which would work perfectly fine.  If they need additional space for MPs and ministers, the public galleries aren't being used, so they could serve as an overflow area, and a solution for microphones and cameras could be found without too much additional trouble less trouble than the technology necessary for hybrid sittings or remote electronic voting.  New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador's legislatures have been doing this, and it seems to be working fairly well.

This only leaves the issue of voting, and while some of the suggestions brought forward at PROC included block party voting because it works in New Zealand, I would recommend against it because it is intimately tied to their use of proportional representation, where they have actual party-designated seats.  We could instead use the roll-call system with MPs in the Chamber and galleries, and if need be, institute some kind of shift system where they can safely file out and those who have not yet had a chance to vote can take their places to continue the roll-call.  Yes, it may take longer, but so long as no one party is slowing down the vote process to make a point, or MPs don't have any particular conscience objections, subsequent votes can be applied in the manner that already happens.  Nobody needs to re-invent the wheel, and nobody needs to open Pandora's Box and set dangerous precedents.

Resuming full sittings of Parliament is fully possible, if MPs are willing to do that bit of personal sacrifice to ensure that it happens.  And the alternatives of setting us on a path where parliament will be permanently in a hybrid state is far worse than simply having MPs stay in their Ottawa bubble for a few weeks.

Photo Credit: CBC News

On Thursday morning, I was invited to appear before the Procedure and House Affairs committee to discuss the issue of hybrid sittings and remote voting in these pandemic times possibly because of the insight I could offer from my book, but more likely because of the criticisms of these concepts that I have been penning in this space (and in fact this particular column got mention from one of the MPs).  Nevertheless, it quickly became clear that as far as what was being discussed, the Liberals on the committee had an agenda to fulfill they were set on making remote voting happen, and were simply looking to witnesses to bless the notion and to tell them the best way to implement it.

My own presentation to the committee was predicated on the notion that one of the most important aspects of parliament is its in-person connections that the real work often happens on the sidelines of committee rooms, in the lobbies behind the Chamber, and conversations in corridors.  As well, any changes need to be very carefully considered because there is a very deep history of unintended consequences every time there are rule changes the imposition of limits on speaking times killed debate in favour of reading canned speeches into the record; ending evening sittings meant MPs no longer ate dinner together three nights of the week, and that killed collegiality; and expelling senators from the Liberal caucus excised the institutional memory from the room and centralized power with the leader.

I also gave them a very clear warning instituting any changes, even if the intention is for them to be temporary for the duration of the pandemic, is opening Pandora's Box.  All of the evils within cannot be put back in once they are released once the pandemic is over, MPs will start demanding that hybrid attendance and remote voting be used for parental leave, and once that is granted, they'll demand it for work-life-balance; and when that is granted, they'll insist that they have "so much work to do in their riding," and by then it will be too late.  The West Block will be emptied out, and the House of Commons will become a kind of home room where MPs turn up a couple of times a year, and there won't be any semblance of collegiality, and there will be no personal connections between MPs or stakeholders.

I was fortunate in that most of my co-panellists former MP and one-time Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie, as well as former Nova Scotia Deputy Speaker Kevin Deveaux agreed that in-person connections matter in any parliament, and that it was imperative that any changes were temporary for the duration of the pandemic.  (The other co-panellist, former interim Clerk of the Commons, Marc Bosc, did not offer positions so much as technical advice on procedure).  Derveaux also put forward the notion of the possibility of block party voting as they have in New Zealand (which needs to be contextualized as reflecting their use of proportional representation where there are designated party seats) and the creation of a temporary business committee (and regular readers will know how I feel about business committees).

It became clear, however, that part of my role as a witness was to be painted as the reactionary, as questions from both Mark Gerretsen and Omar Alghabra both kept trying to question my resistance to reforms using non-sequiturs like simultaneous interpretation and voice amplification in the Chamber, or the complete red herring of allowing mothers to bring their infants into the House (though I will say in the last couple of years I've seen more fathers bring their children than mothers, for what that's worth).  None of those innovations has actually impacted the work of the Chamber though the example of broadcasting proceedings to CPAC certainly has, as Question Period soon became an exercise in providing a buffet of clips to media outlets in both official languages, and has since devolved to the point where all interventions in the Chamber are now more for the utility of creating content for social media than they are for engaging with the material before them.  The tactic appears to be used in order to present remote voting likely in some kind of electronic format as a simple technological evolution comparable to interpretation, which it most certainly is not.

Other Liberal members had tightly scripted questions demanding yes-or-no answers, mostly for Bosc, that were leading toward the conclusions that in order for a proper hybrid sitting to work, and for all MPs to exercise their privileges, that there needs to be remote voting, likely of the electronic variety in spite of witnesses saying that it doesn't necessarily have to be a single system, but a combination of different ones, including proxy votes, block votes by parties, or even a roll-call by way of Zoom as the closest approximation to a standing vote in the Chamber.  Even the notion of block voting was problematized as an exercise in centralizing power which it can certainly be, though Deveaux explained how it could be used to record dissents but it was quite obvious that a fix was in, and our testimony was simply being used to justify it.

There are other options to how Parliament could operate successfully and largely in-person when it returns in the fall with slightly more imagination and a willingness to actually work together than is being demonstrated, but they have already determined that Parliament is a technological problem to be solved, and any resistance to that notion is like opposing interpretation or microphones a position that is dangerous and will lead to long-term damage to the institution.  They have their hands on the lid of Pandora's Box and instead of asking whether they should open it, they are instead asking the best way to open it.  If we do go down this road of electronic voting and it seems quite clear that it's what they are aiming to do, no matter how much they protest that it will only be for the duration of the pandemic there will be no going back, and our parliament will suffer for it.