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Results: 1 - 15 of 151
View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to address two items of business arising from the previous meeting.
I would like to talk about the dashboards first. I read them carefully and they are very useful in my work as a whip. If I may, I would like to ask a few questions about the dashboard.
On page 3 of the report, it says that the preliminary tests are 96% done. Does this mean that 96% of witnesses have undergone a preliminary test? Is that what that means, Mr. Janse?
Eric Janse
View Eric Janse Profile
Eric Janse
2021-06-10 11:11
That is exactly right, Ms. DeBellefeuille.
View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
All right.
Does what is written on page 4 mean that half of the witnesses did not have headsets that complied with our standards?
Eric Janse
View Eric Janse Profile
Eric Janse
2021-06-10 11:11
Either they didn't have a headset sent by the House or they were using a headset that was not approved by the House. Obviously, there are improvements to be made in this area. The difficulty is always having the time to send headsets to witnesses.
Lastly, we have put in place a process in collaboration with Mr. Aubé's team, which has approved a list of good headsets. When we don't have time to send a headset to witnesses, we encourage them to buy one themselves and then we reimburse them. We hope this will help us to have a better success rate on future dashboards.
View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
Good.
The last question I have on this part is about page 6.
When witnesses come to committee and they don't have headsets or they don't have the equipment, what happens?
Are witnesses automatically invited to reappear? Has there been testimony without headsets, and therefore without interpretation?
Eric Janse
View Eric Janse Profile
Eric Janse
2021-06-10 11:12
If there are any problems during the pre-test or on the day of the meeting itself, or if the witness simply does not have a headset, the clerk will notify the committee chair following discussions with the technical team. The chair can provide this information to the committee, and it is up to the committee to decide what to do.
The committee can decide to hear the witness anyway, or, as you suggested, they can ask that witness to come back to another hearing when they are better equipped. This is really at the discretion of the committee, which decides how it will proceed.
View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
Fine.
Yesterday, at the Standing Liaison Committee, someone said that most committees have adopted housekeeping motions that ask the committee chair to tell members at the beginning of the meeting whether the tests have been done and whether the witnesses have the necessary equipment. This makes things easier.
It was noted that few chairs made this statement at the beginning of the meeting. Knowing in advance that witnesses do not have helmets or that they have technical difficulties can be helpful. It allows the committee to make a decision at the outset rather than finding that the witness does not have everything they need during their testimony. Members may be too uncomfortable to interrupt.
So committee chairs have been asked to indicate this at the beginning of the sitting. I encourage the whips to remind all committee members that it is important to know this at the beginning of the meeting so that good decisions can be made. This prevents witnesses from appearing without the right equipment, which has implications for our interpreters.
The other point I wanted to make is to you, Mr. Chair.
It concerns your ruling in the House on Monday, June 7, regarding the misconduct of the member for Pontiac and your willingness to ask the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to look into this matter. I had discussions with my colleagues prior to the Board of Internal Economy meeting. I had invited you to review the decision to put the April 14 incident on the agenda, and I note that this item is absent. So I wanted to thank you for listening to all the members of the committee.
View Blake Richards Profile
CPC (AB)
Okay. Thank you, I appreciate that.
I have two things to raise.
The first one is that we have been provided some information with regard to technical incidents, etc., at committees. That brings to mind for me that there has been some discussion around here about fairly significant technical upgrades that are required this summer that would make resources unavailable for a couple of different and fairly lengthy periods of time.
I wondered if we could get a bit more information on what those upgrades entail. Specifically, we've been operating in a hybrid manner and we've seen some challenges with the availability of resources as a result. Particularly in the last couple of days, we've seen the other three whips agreeing to cancel meetings to ensure that certain other committee meetings occur. Of course, that's not something I've agreed to, but it has happened, and obviously it's unfortunate to say the least when we are in situations where committees are not able to do the work they're supposed to do.
I would assume that with vaccination rates rising and whatnot, we'll probably be seeing an end to hybrid sittings of committees within a fairly short period of time, but I am curious about the technical upgrades being done this summer. Are some of them related to hybrid sittings? Are technical upgrades needed for other reasons? Maybe you could just elaborate a bit on what those upgrades are and why they're required. I'm not certain I have enough information.
Stéphan Aubé
View Stéphan Aubé Profile
Stéphan Aubé
2021-06-10 11:18
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Richards, thank you for the question.
We're planning two windows of maintenance for the summer.
The plan is for the first period to deal with updates to the chamber systems and committee rooms. We haven't had a chance since the end of January to do the necessary maintenance for security reasons, because all the systems we're using are actually connected to the Internet.... There's some patching to be done. We tried to do it, sir, during the March and April time frame and then we ran into a lot of issues because we didn't have the appropriate time frames to do the testing required before releasing these into production. So we have moved all of our scheduled windows to two windows this summer.
The first one is right after the adjournment of the session, hopefully after June 23 to the end of June and the beginning of July, and then the last window, sir, is for what we are calling a “multimedia operation centre” where we distribute all content to Canada. All of the maintenance for that system hasn't been done in over eight months, and it's required so that we can properly support the chamber, distribute the content to Canada, and also ensure that we have a secure environment for the operations to work.
It's not about our people, sir. It's really about making sure that the systems are up and functioning and that we can do the necessary testing so that we can minimize the number of incidents we have in the chamber or committee rooms. Those are our plans.
Usually we do this on a year-to-year basis. We've been doing it since I've been at the House, for more than 20 years. We've always used these windows because we've had the opportunity in the summer, but this year has been a little bit different because we haven't had a lot of the windows we usually do. That's why we're focusing on this at this time.
Having said that, sir, if ever there's a need for the House to come back, if there's ever a need for another priority, as we did at Christmas, we have plans in place to make sure that Parliament can sit. If ever it is the decision of Parliament to bring back the House, we will certainly make sure that you can do your work as usual.
That's my commitment to the House, Mr. Speaker.
View Blake Richards Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, I just have one very short follow-up. I appreciate the information, which is very informative and helpful.
You mentioned that if there were a need for the House to sit, you would make sure it could happen. That's obviously incredibly important.
Would the same apply if there were emergency committee meetings? Would you be able to find a way to make sure they can operate as well?
Stéphan Aubé
View Stéphan Aubé Profile
Stéphan Aubé
2021-06-10 11:20
It would be our goal to do so.
Our preference is to keep that window open if we can. If the House decides that we need to have this to happen, sir, we've always found ways to make it happen. We're going to try to do our best to make this happen, sir.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would reiterate Mr. Richards' request. I am concerned with high turnover. When we lose three people, who've given so much to the House, in rapid order in what seems to be their stepping down early, it's a matter of concern.
I thank you, Mr. Chair, for responding to Mr. Richards' request. I also believe that at the next BOIE meeting, perhaps in camera, we should have a discussion to determine if this is something we should be concerned about.
I want to come back to Mr. Aubé, because we have two dynamics at work. One is the new variants. I don't think we can, at this point, anticipate that in September, if there is no election, the House would reconvene as if the pandemic didn't exist. We're all hopeful that, eventually, the pandemic will die down, but the variants have meant that there's been a third wave, and there's anticipation now of a fourth wave this summer. We have to plan for that, of course.
There are discussions taking place in other forums about how that will look over the course of the summer.
Perhaps I missed this, Mr. Aubé, but I'd really like to get the dates at this point when committees can meet. Committees will be meeting over the summer—there's no doubt about that. There will be issues that will come up that require committee participation. I gather there are provisions if the House is recalled, and that's good. Committees will meet.
You mentioned June 23, and it wasn't clear to me what the end date was in that first preference for the administration that committees not schedule meetings. You then talked about further dates, but I didn't grab the dates that were mentioned.
What are the very concrete blackout periods that we can pass on to our caucuses of the administration's preferences of when not to hold emergency committee meetings during the course of the summer?
Stéphan Aubé
View Stéphan Aubé Profile
Stéphan Aubé
2021-06-10 11:28
We're currently looking at two windows. I want to be specific with exact dates. We are looking for a break for committees from June 30 to July 18. The other window is from August 21 to September 13. These were the two windows we requested the House leaders to consider.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you for that.
I think Mr. Richards asked this question, as well.
In the case of a committee that absolutely needs to meet during that period—we live in times where emergencies arise—is there a provision for a committee to meet even during these periods?
Stéphan Aubé
View Stéphan Aubé Profile
Stéphan Aubé
2021-06-10 11:29
As I committed to Mr. Richards, and to the Speaker, in the case of an emergency, we would certainly make the appropriate arrangements for a committee to sit, if required.
We're asking... If all committees were to sit at the pace they're sitting right now, we wouldn't be able to provide maintenance during that time.
That's the comment I'm making here.
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