Roundup: The “bigger picture” of continued hybrid sittings

Posted on by

The Procedure and House Affairs committee is looking in to the future of hybrid sittings, and the Speaker wants them to consider the “bigger picture” of all of this. Of course, the bigger picture is that a) by trying to tie future use of hybrid to sickness or work-life balance, MPs will be creating an impossible attendance standard and create a monstrous culture of presenteeism; b) ministers will not only evade accountability not being in the House, and will be unavailable for MPs to see them during votes—which is the one time they are most available—and this is already happening as ministers are getting used to taking off when votes start and doing them from their phones in their cars, which is very bad; it also means that minister and MPs in general are less available to be found by the media; and c) the big one is of course the human toll that these sessions take on the interpretation staff. The NDP, as usual thinks you can just hire more interpreters, except there are no more interpreters to be hired. They literally cannot graduate enough of them to cover the existing attrition even before the injury and burnout rate from Zoom is factored in.

But MPs have consistently ignored the human toll, preferring their convenience, and whinging about long travel distances and having families, as though there aren’t options available to them that aren’t to most other Canadians. I will keep beating on this drum, because we won’t be able to maintain a fully bilingual parliament for much longer if this keeps up (we’re barely doing so as it is), and it’s probably going to take things absolutely falling apart for them to care, and that’s a problem.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 223:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces have made rapid and powerful advances in both the east and south, and in places where Russian forces are retreating, they are abandoning posts so rapidly that they are leaving dead comrades behind.

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1577324136220839937

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau was in Halifax to announce a $300 million relief fund for victims of Fiona, in addition to existing relief programmes, to be administered by ACOA.
  • More experts are pushing back against the decision to kludge the dental care programme as a CRA pay out solely to meet the NDP’s artificial deadline.
  • The Environment Commissioner is calling out the slow response to listing fish species at risk, which puts our biodiversity at serious risk.
  • The federal government is moving to have the court dismiss the class action lawsuit by Black civil servants on jurisdictional grounds, that it should go to labour boards.
  • Here are some of the arguments in the court challenge against sex-work laws.
  • The Red Cross are calling for a civilian disaster relief agency so we don’t have to keep relying on the military. (My column on that debate is here).
  • The Commons privacy committee is calling for a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology by police and business, barring a court order.
  • Marco Mendicino appeared at the Commons public safety committee to defend the “assault-style” gun ban and buyback programme.
  • Hockey Canada executives appeared before the Heritage committee and tried to insist their sexual assault scandals are just media smears. (What toxic culture?)
  • Liberal MP Greg Fergus broke conflict of interest rules by writing a letter in support of a TV channel getting mandatory carriage; Fergus says it was an honest mistake.
  • Leslyn Lewis is confident that Poilievre will give critic portfolios for all voices in the party—as in, not side-lining her the way that O’Toole did.
  • Chantal Hébert enumerates the challenges facing François Legault’s second legislature as premier.
  • Heather Scoffield wants everyone to get along so they can hash out the inflation issue (ignoring that the Conservatives are making bad-faith arguments around it).
  • My column points out that if we don’t have the resources to enforce sanctions and terror designations, declaring the IRGC a terrorist entity is a hollow gesture.

Odds and ends:

For Xtra, I spoke with housing minister Ahmed Hussen about how the National Housing Plan prioritises LGBTQ+ people as having greater housing needs.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.