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Results: 1 - 15 of 35
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I apologize for being a little late to today's meeting. I was in the House to give a speech on the opposition motion. I was a few minutes late, but I've been listening to the discussion for about 20 minutes already.
I am entirely of the view of Mr. Holland in terms of the time we're spending now in discussing whether this matter should be addressed in public. Mr. Holland has made a very compelling case as to why this circumstance is extremely serious, and I think we should be in a public meeting. We would invite Mr. Lemire to come and discuss this in an in camera session.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I was just going to note exactly what you said.
Mr. Julian and I had the experience, at least for some time, of being together on the Board of Internal Economy when another great Speaker of the House of Commons, Andrew Scheer, was in your seat, Mr. Chair. I listened to my friend, Monsieur Deltell, and the Conservative whip talk about the importance of consensus. They're right; the board usually functions and that's a good thing. It's an efficient way to do business.
I also remember those board meetings where Peter Van Loan, who was then the Conservative House leader, or John Duncan, who was the Conservative whip, were very happy to force recorded votes—as were the Liberals—on a difficult matter involving the use of House of Commons funds for satellite offices.
The board was having regularly recorded votes on a matter around using House of Commons resources for satellite offices. I would think the inappropriate distribution of an intimate image over the Internet and social media that affected one of our colleagues in a very significant and enduring way feels perhaps more serious than what was the right procedure to use House of Commons resources for opening satellite offices in Montreal.
Around that issue, we regularly had recorded votes. The board continued to function. Members continued to work on matters important to the financial administration of the House of Commons. I don't think it's a huge traumatic moment that we might take a recorded vote and move on. Parliament survived. Mr. Scheer went on to be leader of his party after he presided at the Board of Internal Economy during many of those votes.
Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that our whip Mr. Holland had a good suggestion. We should move on to the agenda following a vote on this matter. For a group of people who get elected, we shouldn't be afraid of votes.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I also agree with Mrs. DeBellefeuille and Mr. Julian.
I accept Mr. Paquette's recommendation.
I get Blake's comments if the government fails to vaccinate people by the end of September, etc. I get all of that. That should maybe be reserved for question period.
I think we have to be careful. The idea that certain public health requirements, as Mr. Julian said, to protect the staff who work for us or protect constituents who may visit constituency offices.... Some of those decisions, as advised by public health officers, may be separate and apart from the vaccination schedule.
I wouldn't suggest that this committee has views on appropriate public health measures. I would suggest that those decisions that MPs need to make to protect the people who work with us and constituents who visit us would coherently be subsumed in a financial year. That's why I accept the recommendation put forward by Monsieur Paquette and endorsed by Mr. Julian and Madame DeBellefeuille.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
My problem, Mr. Rodriguez, is I don't have 10 bottles of hairspray like you. This being Mr. Deltell's first meeting, we should tell him that, in Quebec, it's the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec that pays for hairspray, since it's considered an innovation.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
You walked right into that, Mr. Chair.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Ralph Goodale, actually, was here when it was built the first time.
Voices: Oh, oh!
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The fundamental issue of the employer function that MPs also perform, in addition to their role as MPs, has long been discussed at Board of Internal Economy meetings. In fact, both Ms. Daigle and Mr. Parent raised it. Especially in recent years, some unfortunate events have occurred, and everyone has tried to improve processes. In my opinion, Mr. Parent and his team have succeeded in doing extraordinary work in an often difficult context due to the public nature of our duties.
These additional resources would be perfectly appropriate and would improve the services offered to members of all political parties in the House of Commons, professional and confidential services that would help to avoid all kinds of situations that would be less than ideal.
They would also better support MPs in their role as employers. Indeed, with the exception of some MPs who have already managed a business or staff before their election to the House of Commons, few new MPs have experience as employers. However, as soon as they are elected, they are expected to set up a constituency office, hire staff in Ottawa and therefore act as an employer in several respects. Everyone wants to do it properly. In my opinion, these services are truly an ideal way to help MPs, not only those who are already in office, but also those who will one day succeed us in Parliament.
I am therefore fully in favour of these additional resources.
I also wanted to congratulate Mr. Parent and his great team. In recent years, we have all benefited as MPs from their very professional and accessible work. It's a way to take this work even further.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
You have that many on your Facebook, don't you?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Congratulations, Mr. Robert. I agree with my colleagues. It is a very interesting and very well prepared report that gives people an understanding of the work done by all members of the House of Commons.
I would like to offer some words of encouragement.
As the Speaker just pointed out, the Teachers Institute and the Forum for Young Canadians are places where this report could be distributed, either in its current form or a modified version. The communications services team could give that some thought.
The schools in my riding really appreciate the material they receive to encourage young people to participate in the Page Program, and I see the Speaker agrees. This is a time of year when many MPs try informally to get school principals to encourage their best students to register for this program. In the material sent to francophone high school students in New Brunswick, perhaps attention could be drawn to this report or it could be included in some way in grade 12 classes that pertain to law or political, economic or legal institutions, in short, subjects related to the work of Parliament. There are all kinds of programs across the country that address the civic responsibility of youth. Such programs could be used to encourage young people to sign up for the Page Program, which we know is a success. That is just a suggestion.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry for being a couple of seconds late. I was coming from another meeting. Maybe Michel addressed this already.
I appreciate and understand the presentation in terms of the House.
Asking you to speculate is not fair, but I will do it anyway. In terms of what we understand from our colleagues on the Senate side—because we've talked about this at this table before—if our state of readiness is where it is, and it's thanks to all the good work that you describe, do we have a similar comfort that the Senate...? Do we have reason to think they're in a circumstance where they're going to conclude something different in a month from now or two months from now, or are you comfortable, based on what you hear? It could all change. I understand all of that.
I'm curious if people have an insight into whether the Senate process with respect to the train station facility is equally reassuring.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the presentation.
I think all of us who have constituents or colleagues who have been able to interact with the guides, the staff the library hires to do the tours, will share my experience, which has been that they are a remarkable group of young women and men. It's a credit to the library and to Parliament that we're able to offer that high-quality service. Visitors I've had a chance to talk to are consistently impressed with the people they meet, and you can pass that on to your colleagues.
As we were discussing, at this time of year we all have school groups. I met one yesterday from a village called Cap-Pelé in my riding in New Brunswick. A bunch of grade 8 kids were here. It's a very busy time of year, and that's probably a function of why booking these tours and so on has to be done so far in advance. As Bardish said, because the Centre Block will likely be closing, the pressure has probably increased the demand on the services.
I like your idea in your presentation of extending the hours, simply because I have the anecdotal impression that a lot of groups would accept to come at a later time of the day or earlier in the day if they could get access. With the restrictions in the West Block that colleagues have talked about, I think that's going to be even more important.
As we see what it looks like after a year of operation, I guess you'd have to come back to this table. The funding issue is always of concern, but I think we should keep a very alert sense to the pressure in demand that's going to come and look at whether it's possible to extend the hours even further than what you're planning or to have additional staff during some of those extended hours.
I think we miss opportunities sometimes, and it's nobody's fault. It's a reality of Parliament's sitting late in the evenings, the security context. I think we should look for maximum opportunities to increase the access as we gain a sense of the first year of the new operation in the West Block, for example. This is a suggestion.
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the work that you're doing.
I completely agree with our colleagues. I find that following the recommendations and the process you've provided has been helpful to us in many respects. My question is mostly on security issues. You've probably dealt with issues that have caused our colleagues concern on a number of occasions in their constituency offices. On the topic of security and data protection, I imagine that these computers contain an enormous amount of private information on the people who come to visit us in our constituency offices.
Are your concerns around security, or even vulnerability, going up? It's not just a matter of thinking about specific incidents.
If, as the Speaker mentioned, a future internal economy committee should ultimately decide to standardize or centralize the devices, computers and security resources in constituency offices, I hope that these changes will lead to a drop in costs. That would make sense. I hadn't thought of that, since I was focused on the security issue.
In going forward with this standardization, depending on the results of the pilot project, and based on your experience, would you say that the level of security and protection will increase?
Have we properly understood this?
View Dominic LeBlanc Profile
Lib. (NB)
Thank you very much.
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