If, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, she must surely be the mama of our new-fangled hybrid Parliament, as the House of Commons ventured into the digital age in its effort to carry on as normally as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the most radical innovation since the introduction of television in the House in 1977.
In the hybrid system, a corporal’s guard of MPs from each party, masked and socially distanced, physically attended each day’s sitting while most members tuned in remotely from their homes, offices or wherever they happened to be. They were able to ask questions, to join debates and, once the bugs were out of the technology, to vote.
By the time MPs went home for the summer (and an anticipated election), they had become familiar, if not comfortable, with the changes born of necessity. Most seemed to feel the system had worked as well as could reasonably have been expected, given the unprecedented circumstances. But there was no clamour to extend the digital experience beyond the end of the pandemic.
Jenny Kwan, the NDP member for Vancouver East, expressed a common view when she said the hybrid system was “the best that we could do. There were times you would spend so much time getting everything functioning technically, and by the time you do, you have no time to do the actual work.”
The Hill Times, the daily newspaper on Parliament Hill, interviewed assorted MPs as they prepared to leave the capital. They offered some strong opinions. Manitoba MP James Bezan reflected the hostility shared by many of his fellow Conservatives toward the hybrid operation – especially the way they felt the Liberals had manipulated it to their advantage. Bezan claimed the system undermined democracy:
“It has given the government the ability to restrict sittings in the House, has restricted the ability of members of Parliament to speak, and as we witnessed at the national defence committee, aided the government in obstructing the work of committees, allowing filibusters to stretch on for days and weeks, rather than hours, which would have happened in normal sittings.”
Ontario Liberal John McKay, an eight-term veteran from Scarborough, acknowledged concern about heightened confrontation. “You’re not actually talking to anybody except through Zoom calls or other filtered mechanisms, and those mechanisms tend to distort the message. And I think the consequence is that governments feel emboldened to do what they feel needs to be done as opposed to what maybe Parliament feels needs to be done,” he told the Hill Times.
McKay cited the Conservative motion passed in June to declare the Liberal government in contempt of Parliament for refusing to provide unredacted documents to explain the firing of two scientists from an infectious disease lab in Winnipeg. “I don’t think we would have ever gotten to that level of confrontation [in the past] between Parliament and government, and I think that’s actually not a good outcome,” he said.
Green Party MP Paul Manly from British Columbia said he especially missed personal interaction with other MPs, cabinet ministers, and parliamentary secretaries, but he did not miss the heckling that characterizes Commons sittings in normal times – “On Zoom, I haven’t had to deal with it.”
Forty-four years ago, when television came to the Commons, its introduction was widely applauded as a long-overdue step to increase public understanding and appreciation of the role Parliament plays in the life of the nation. Live TV would make Parliament and government more open. Canadians, young and old, in all corners of the country, would come to value their democracy more when they could observe their representatives in their elective habitat, beavering away in the service of their constituents.
It hasn’t worked out quite that way. On television, the House becomes a stage more than a workplace. MPs become performers, competing for audience attention by striking poses for the cameras as they strive to deliver killer soundbites destined for newscasts and social media posts. The House has always been more of a combat zone than a forum for discussion or the exchange of information. Television has increased the intensity of combat, inflated the level of hyperbole, and boosted the volume of hollow rhetoric. Questions are shouted as weapons, seldom as inquiries. The more dramatic an assertion, the better television likes it.
Quite a few MPs say they hear from mothers in their ridings who no longer let their children watch Parliament on television. Most MPs sympathize with these complaints, but they feel powerless to make parliamentary TV suitable family fare.
I was cautiously optimistic when television was introduced. Today, I believe it has driven away more viewers than it has attracted to the daily demonstration of democracy in action.
By now, the television era is too deeply embedded for it ever to be exorcised from the daily life of Parliament. The digital era, with its hybrid Parliament, seems fated to pass as the pandemic ends. There is one innovation, however, that is worth retaining. That’s remote voting. Why should the division bells be kept ringing for hours, as they sometimes are, to summon members from nooks and crannies throughout the capital when a close vote is expected?
Why should votes on crucial issues, ones that could bring down a minority or bare-majority government, be put off for days, as they occasionally have been, until MPs can be
brought back to Ottawa from wherever they happen to be in Canada or abroad? Why not allow members to Zoom their votes from their home, car, constituency office, vacation retreat or cruise ship? The technology exists. Covid has demonstrated that. So why not make use of it?
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail. His new book, Flora! A Woman in a Man’s World, co-authored with the late Flora MacDonald, is being published this fall by McGill-Queen’s University Press. His column appears Mondays. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com.