PRHA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, December 2, 1997

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, if we could begin, I think you have the orders of the day before you. As I mentioned last time, I see today as an opportunity to deal with a number of things that we have ongoing and to organize ourselves for the remainder of the session before Christmas and get some sense of what we're going to be doing when we come back.

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The three main items are the topics you see before you. One is electronic voting or, as it says very nicely here, “the taking of divisions by electronic means in the House”, which to me is electronic voting. The second one is the Canada Elections Act and our mandate under that act and with respect to that act. The third item is our mandate in consideration of proposed rules for joint committees.

Before we begin, I'd like to say—and I see Mr. Kilger is here—that it's my understanding that the subcommittee on House scheduling will not be reporting today or next week but at some later date.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): Possibly next week.

The Chairman: Okay. The second thing which has nothing to do with the items we have here is our review of the standing orders. I think you all know now that we have Randy White's submission, which started this thing off; we have a letter from Charles Caccia; we have had discussion of report stage voting and applying votes in various of our meetings; and I'm sure there are a number of other things on that topic floating around.

It's my suggestion that before Thursday we circulate those materials and that this Thursday we have a general discussion on the topic of standing orders with a view to moving to our more substantial review of the standing orders when the House returns after Christmas. Is that reasonable?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Okay. So that's set for this Thursday. The material will be circulated. It includes the items I mentioned and any others that exist.

If it's okay with you, because I think it will take less time, we'll deal with items 2 and 3 first. Then we'll deal with electronic voting for the rest of the meeting.

Can I deal with item 2, the Canada Elections Act? Do I have agreement on that?

Some hon. members: Yes.

The Chairman: I've mentioned this once before, and we've given it some thought in previous committee meetings. The suggestion for our consideration of the Canada Elections Act is that we write a letter to all registered parties—parties who were registered in the last election—asking for written input on their experience in the election and with the act. That's number one.

Second, we then consider inviting representatives of the parties that were successful in electing members to Parliament to appear before us in the new year. So we will have written submissions from all registered parties and we will have presentations by the representatives of the parties here in the House of Commons at present.

When we have gone through that process, we will invite the chief electoral officer back and consider then what we will do with respect to his report and with respect to what we've heard from witnesses in writing and orally.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): A simple question, Mr. Chair. When we hear the representatives of the five political parties elected to the House of Commons, would it be possible to invite at the same time representatives of the chief electoral officer; they could answer our questions or point out immediately any incorrect perception a political party might have about the last election process or the legislative framework?

[English]

The Chairman: I'm in the hands of the committee. I was painting that scenario not as a sort of dictator but just to give the committee something to think about.

Any comments?

Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Ref.): That may be a good start. I'm a little reluctant to say that we would only invite parties to comment on the electoral process. I'm sure there are many others who have some interesting points of view that aren't party-related. It's a good start.

The only other thing I'm wondering about is whether there were parties registered as national parties that didn't elect.... There were. There's the Natural Law Party and the Marxist-Leninist party. We all went through this in the electoral process where we listened to these people, and in some ways, of course, they were fringe parties. They didn't get elected, but it may be useful to have some representation of parties that weren't successful in that they may have some comments on it we should hear. Even if we don't like to hear it, I think it's fair to listen to them.

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The Chairman: Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I think it's a good idea to hear from the parties as a starting point, but I think it would be helpful if we sent out to them what it is we're interested in them commenting on: clearly this is their experience in the last election and any changes they feel need to be made to the Canada Elections Act. But I wonder if we shouldn't also be asking for their comments on the report of the Lortie Commission and whether there are issues in there that they would still like to see dealt with one way or another or that they definitely would not want to see dealt with. I think it would just be helpful to them to know what it is the committee is likely to be looking at.

The second suggestion I'd like to make is when we invite the parties that did get elected, rather than inviting individual submissions I find the idea of a round table when everybody's talking about the same issues is more helpful. Then each party gets to make a presentation, but they also get the opportunity for an exchange of views on where they differ. This I find is very helpful to a committee trying to resolve some issues in its own mind.

Thirdly, it may be too early for this, but I wondered if you're considering the idea of setting up a subcommittee of this committee that could perhaps devote a more substantial amount of time than the whole committee could to this issue. My personal preference, Mr. Chair, is that we spend some concerted time on the Elections Act early in the mandate and that we not drag out little bits and pieces of it over the term of the mandate.

The Chairman: Marlene, would you care to comment on Stéphane's suggestion, or would anyone else?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Stéphane's suggestion on what?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: About the possibility of having representatives of the office of the chief electoral officer here when the parties appear. It can be on an individual basis or on a round table format, this suits me fine. We have already tried a few times the round table format and it has allowed much more dynamic exchanges of point of view. Each political party could of course make an opening statement but that would allow a more dynamic and interactive exchange after that.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Fontana.

Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I think I agree with what Chuck and Marlene are trying to do. Essentially I think it's quite appropriate, as you indicated, that all political parties that registered, not that are recognized by Parliament but that registered in order to participate in the electoral process, be asked to comment on the chief electoral officer's report that was tabled with this particular committee as well as any other issues that seem to be important to them. And it may very well be the Lortie Commission.

I think they should have to provide that in writing to this particular committee, at which point then one could in fact call them back as witnesses to explain their report and then, as has been suggested, perhaps at that point we could have some officials of Elections Canada here to answer some very technical questions. As a starting point, though, you may want to focus their discussions, one on the report that was tabled with this committee, and secondly, on any other issues that they may have with regard to the Canada Elections Acts. So I agree with Marlene that if we're going to do any changes it should be done in a comprehensive fashion and earlier in the mandate as opposed to later and doing it in a very ad hoc sort of way.

I think the process you've begun, Mr. Chairman, is very good, but I think all parties should be asked to report on the chief electoral officer's report, for starters, and any other issues that they believe are important to our discussions.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I agree with Mr. Fontana's opinion, but I also would say that if we're going to head into a round table discussion we should not only get the submissions ahead of time, but we should circulate those to the participants in the round table discussion ahead of time. Otherwise we spend an hour hearing from everybody and we don't get into the debate itself.

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If we are going to go to the round table format, it would be good to circulate it here and to circulate it to all the participants. We could say, you've all seen the thing; let's go. Then we don't waste everybody's time regurgitating the obvious.

The Chairman: Rey Pagtakhan.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): To the suggestion that we invite all parties irrespective of whether they are recognized or not, I agree in principle. I would suggest, however—I thought I heard it from you and I just want it to be clarified—that the initial way of invitation is an invitation to respond to the report by way of a written submission. Thereafter we look at the submission, and if we see something there that is exciting and that may need further verbal presentation we invite them—thereafter, but not simultaneously.

On the last note, Mr. Chair, inherent in this invitation is that we should ensure we send to them a copy of the report, particularly the non-recognized political parties, so they will have the ability in fact to respond to the very document we would like them to respond to.

The Chairman: Ken.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Ref.): I just wanted to make the suggestion that it might be useful for us to devise a questionnaire and send it to all the candidates in the last election; something that would be really easy to compile and give us a picture from everybody.

The Chairman: We are noting this. This is very useful, by the way.

One suggestion I've heard there, Ken, is that we might in fact ask the chief electoral officer to have his local officers contact the candidates.

Colleagues, I think we should move on, if it's okay with you. You have a sense of what we are trying to do. When we get to the design—and, for example, the point about the subcommittee is well taken; the point about the round table is well taken. I don't think at this moment we need lock all that stuff in, but it strikes me there's general agreement that, as Marlene said, early in the mandate we deal with this matter and we deal with it as effectively as we can.

We'll do a draft of the enquiry to all registered parties. It will be circulated before we leave for Christmas, so the thing will go out. We'll have some sort of deadline in it. We'll have some sort of specifications in it. Members can look at that draft and then we can proceed with this process. By the way, maybe next week or the first week back we'll decide on the exact format for how we deal with it.

Is that okay? I thank you for that input.

None of these things on this committee, it seems to me, take as short a time as I think.

We go to item 3, which is the consideration of proposed rules for joint committees. We discussed this before and the material was circulated. I think you've all seen the table with the standing orders in the House of Commons, the rules in the Senate, and the things that were proposed by the working group in the last Parliament. You will notice in the covering material on procedural rules it says once both committees have agreed, the staff of the House of Commons and the Senate will be asked to draft and co-ordinate the necessary changes for submission to the appropriate committees; that is, to the respective committees. The drafting would be done under the direction of the two chairs. That was the suggested procedure.

This is reference 22, dated November 25. Then it says, and this is actually from your chair:

Senator Maheu and I felt it would be desirable if there were a common, self-contained set of procedural rules for joint committees. This could be an appendix, or separate chapter, to each chamber's procedural rules, but, ideally, the numbers of the rules should be the same in both the Senate and the House.

Now I would welcome your comments. You've seen this material. The next stage is staff under the supervision of the chairs. That's what is proposed. You have a sense of the direction it's going in from the last paragraph I read.

Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm not sure how you want to proceed with this, Mr. Chairman, but there are a few things, a few proposals, in here I'm not sure I agree with. I'm not sure how you want to proceed with this. Do you want me just to itemize those? You want to move through this quickly, but there are a few things I don't agree with. I'm not sure what you want to do.

The Chairman: If it is substantial, my sense is that we should leave it for another meeting, simply because we will have the clerk here. Can we hold that for a moment to see if anyone else...?

Does anyone else have any comments on this particular activity?

Might I suggest, then, that we postpone it to another meeting, but soon, meaning before Christmas, Chuck? You and I might discuss it beforehand. We would come back and go through this little thing again that I just tried to do.

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Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. I think that would be useful, because there's no use me debating these things when I haven't even had a chance to talk to you about it.

The Chairman: It's not my purpose to move material through. I simply want to get things settled and get as much committee input as I can. Is that okay, colleagues?

We'll proceed to what I consider to be our main item of business, which is the taking of divisions by electronic means in the House.

You'll notice that Mr. Marleau is here with his colleague. They're here at my invitation. They are not here—again, this is up to you—to make a presentation, but simply to be here to answer questions from members as we continue our consideration of electronic voting.

So if it's okay with you, I would invite Mr. Marleau and his colleague to come forward and be here on that basis.

[Translation]

All right?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Just before we deal with that, Mr. Chair, could I offer you some suggestions on the same subject, about the agreement you just made with Mr. Strahl concerning the proposed rules for joint committees before we discuss that whole question in committee?

The Chairman: Yes, yes, all right.

[English]

So we will discuss that as well before the next meeting, and then we'll decide how we'll deal with it. Okay? Thank you very much.

So again, my point is that Mr. Marleau is here, at the moment anyway, not for us to listen to him but for us to continue with our discussion. Then, at various points, he will be able to give us advice and that kind of thing.

I should say one more thing. We do not have the cost-benefit analysis material yet. We're still lacking that.

Is there anything new that members would like to add to the discussion we had the last time? I do actually have a comment myself.

Mr. Joe Fontana: Mr. Chairman, I had to leave early at the last meeting. I understand that a number of questions and concerns were posed by committee members. I wonder if it might be appropriate just to allow Mr. Marleau to have five or ten minutes to address the question of why we don't have a cost-benefit analysis and bring us up to date on some other issues that were raised by this committee last week. At that point, we'll be in a better position to ask some questions or make some further comments. I wonder if it's agreeable that we allow Mr. Marleau to at least bring us up to date on what he has been able to digest from the last meeting.

The Chairman: It's certainly agreeable with me. It's agreeable.

I looked at the material as well as I could from the last time. I'm speaking as a member of Parliament, if I might. As for the question of the costs, they were higher than we expected and that kind of thing. I was struck by some discussions since then by the fact that some of the expenditures are already committed for when the House moves into the west block.

Maybe I can go through this little thought process. Then Mr. Marleau, if you would, following Joe Fontana's suggestion, you can lead into it.

It's my understanding that the facility in the west block is going to have fibre-optic cables and touch-screen monitors, or whatever they're called, on each desk. So in other words, those moneys have been committed.

My understanding is—we have not yet, by the way, done our briefing on renovations on Parliament Hill—that the House of Commons is already wired. We have fibre-optic cables there and so on, which in fact is a considerable investment, but it has not been used.

The higher-end way of electronic voting included some sort of desktop apparatus at our places in the House of Commons. It seemed to me that it would be possible to consider putting in the desktop apparatus early. We would put them in the House of Commons, and those screens would be the ones that have already been paid for, and we would take them over to the west block. We would be making use of the wiring that already exists in the House of Commons. In other words, that would be a useful thing. Members would then be able to contact their constituency offices, or their Hill offices, or the various services on Parliament Hill from their desks.

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We could stop there, or we could take this next step to the voting screens, which Randy White and Don Boudria described to us. With respect to those voting screens, it seems to me, given that there's going to be a move involved, we might consider leasing instead of buying. I mention that because there have been some discussions since. I don't very often interfere in the technical side of this committee's discussions but I would mention that.

I wonder, Mr. Marleau, if you'd care to proceed along the lines Joe Fontana suggested, perhaps bearing in mind what I said.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): Taking into context what you just said, Mr. Chairman, and following your request to try to have a cost-benefit analysis for submission to the committee, we will continue to do that. Between last Thursday and today, including a Board of Internal Economy meeting yesterday on main estimates, it hasn't been possible, really, to advance that along.

But in discussions with Mr. Bard, who was with me last week—and if we get into the technical questions he's here today as well to answer some of those. The long-range plan in terms of the expansion of IT services to members included, as I alluded to last week, a proposal now before the board, yet to be determined, of a third PC in the office. It would essentially become the local powerful server for your own internal network in your office and a migration—to use the lingo of the business—to the full NT 4.0 software as we go out to the members' constituency offices. This is the concept of the virtual office. There is a pilot project right now where members are involved in that concept, where you can transfer files and documents, etc., and be totally transparent, whether you're in your office or in the constituency office.

Then the move to the west block, in the planning stage—on this you used the words “the moneys aren't committed”. I think the moneys are being identified in terms of what the costs would be for the temporary Chamber—to fully network the Chamber along the lines of how we fully networked the members' offices, with electronic voting being a capacity of that expanded network in the Chamber.

Coming out of discussions with Mr. Bard last Friday, it would seem that instead of a cost-benefit analysis we could do a business case for you. This would show the value-added features of going to what appears in the document we gave you, the Cadillac model of electronic voting. In fact the use of this workstation, which could be touchscreen, could also have a keyboard, if you want it, at your desk in the House. I'll pass this around so you can look at it. We have some bad photocopies; that's the only colour copy.

It would seem to me that it would be a better investment, and you could stage it over a few fiscal years, to network the Chamber—even this existing Chamber, and I'll get back to that in a second—to make members more functional and more effective. You could do your e-mail at your desk, you could transfer files, you could send messages, you could receive faxes, send faxes, have access to the parliamentary research centre, the library, have access to Internet and Intranet, yesterday's Hansard—whatever. In other words, everything you could do on a PC station in your office would essentially be doable at your desk.

If we think of the Cadillac model on electronic voting that we were looking at, it's based on that particular unit, about $3,500 apiece. It would have the touchscreen technology for voting yea, nay, or abstention, or whatever formula you like. It would become the backbone of what is an add-on—electronic voting—should you decide to do that.

To choose another electronic voting system that is kind of stand-alone, unidimensional, with one function—it's going to be very hard for us, as I alluded to at the last meeting, to give you a cost-benefit analysis that has a positive on the benefit side, unless we really try to put a dollar value on some of the soft stuff. We're going to do that just the same.

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So what I would like to suggest to you is that we build a business case for you over the adjournment for Christmas, to show how extending the network to the Chamber really has value added in terms of effectiveness and efficiency for the member, and maybe indirect savings for the House.

How many times have you walked into the House and forgot a document in your office and then have had to send a messenger or a page? There are whole spin-offs here, apart from your own time if you decide it's private and confidential and you go fetch it yourself. It has those kinds of added benefits that are a little harder to cost. The electronic voting at that point becomes just an add-on.

Do you want to go to panels? We have costs on that.

We can look at potential leasing, although we're probably talking a lot of custom work on those. It's a little harder to lease, but you could probably finance it over a period of years in terms of lease-to-buy if you wanted to, if they weren't so custom made that we couldn't lease them.

The other thing that we could also phase in in a lease period is those particular monitors on your desk, because the technology does change and advance. It gets smaller, more efficient, and more powerful. By the end of the lease period, which could probably be by the time we move to the west block, we could look at updated equipment to go to the west block, the lease on these maybe having expired.

Those are the kinds of scenarios that a business case could bring to you in terms of both optimum costs, but also in building to allow some flexibility. Rather than committing $3 million or $4 million to an electronic voting system, this kind of approach will allow it to grow and will bring an immediate return to members by expanding the network to the Chamber.

You could go halfway, with one unit like that per desk for members to share. We know both members are not always in the House at the same time. I suppose it means there would be some agreement amongst the members who are both competing for it. There would be swipe card technology for security purposes in order that one member couldn't get into the other member's system, as well as potentially adding the password system you now use in your offices.

This would allow the money to be expended over a period of time, rather than having the hard injection of cold, hard cash up front. It would also allow the flexibility to adapt to the evolving technology. If you don't want to go with display panels, the current OASIS system—that is, the televisions you see in the lobbies—with very small software and equipment through character generation, could act as your displays for the running tally for the question. As well, in keeping with the dignity of the Chamber, some of those could be hung discreetly in the north and south galleries behind the columns so that visitors get the same running display. It allows for various capacities, but the backbone would be a networked Chamber. From there you could go all the way, or you could build your way to the larger displays if you wanted to.

I'll make one final comment about the west block and the move out to the west block in 1999—that is, over the Christmas break of 1999-2000. The move out of this building into the renovated west block and Chamber, on the books, is slated for 2005, or roughly five years.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Out of this building?

A voice: He means moving back.

Mr. Robert Marleau: When the west block is finished and the temporary Chamber has been built, the west wing of the centre block that is the House of Commons-occupied section will move to the west block and the House will sit there for roughly five years. I would say that with the kinds of public works that have to be done in the west block, it wouldn't be unlikely that it slips a year, or maybe two, depending on what the challenges are financially, construction-wise and management-wise.

In that sense, if you're looking at making an investment in this Chamber, the actual cabling and electrification that would be required are going to be done then or could be done now, but whatever is done now would stay put during that renovation. The channels are there, the troughs are there, but they are not wired, sir.

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You mentioned that there was optic fibre there; there is not. It's simply audio cabling in there now. But CBUS, which has been excavated next to the building, will have the new electricity in there. Come this fall we could probably ensure that the electricity is channelled properly and meets with the plans for the 2005 renovation of the centre block.

I'll leave it at that. I think a business case built on a network for the House has more value-added returned to the Chamber, to the member, than a stand-alone electronic voting, single-purpose investment.

The Chairman: Randy White.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As each meeting goes by, I go from an ardent supporter to a very cautious member of Parliament.

I would like to ask three questions. As the first one, I'd like a definition of “committed money” that was mentioned. Is this committed in 1994, 1997, or 1999? What is committed money?

Mr. Robert Marleau: That's why I said the money is planned; it is not committed.

In the Public Works renovation proposal, Treasury Board has set out what I call a notional budget of $250 million for the parliamentary precinct renewal over 10 years. What is committed so far is the cost of CBUS, which is well under way and about to be completed. I understand that a certain amount of that $250 million has been committed for the plans for renovation of the centre block as well. Don't hold me to this figure, but I think it runs close to $26 million for completion of that project.

That is all Public Works/Treasury Board financed, since we're tenants here. We will be responsible for a certain amount of what we call “tenant services”. If you don't like the plug over there and you want it here and it was designed in the plans and approved that it was going to go there and after the fact you change the plug to over here—we would be responsible for those kinds of things, any special fit-ups beyond the normal government type of fit-ups that might be requested.

We managed to negotiate with Public Works the move to the Justice building. The cabling costs for our network are all part of the renovations, since we're going from one building to the next. I can't tell you exactly how many dollars have been committed over that 10 years, but at this juncture there's no House of Commons money yet committed for expenditure in the fit-up of the new Chamber. We'll be coming back to the board, probably around the year 2000, with the specs or those kinds of special requirements that would not be covered by the Public Works project.

Mr. Randy White: Regarding my second question, I've designed a lot of data systems in my day and I know how the costs go on these projects. Very seldom have I ever seen one that stayed within the design limits.

I'm hearing for the first time today desktop monitors, the availability of communications to offices, that sort of thing. If memory serves me right, we've just moved into small laptops in the House of Commons. Somewhere, somehow, the concept to me is getting disproportionate to the needs of members. I'm well aware that a system like this can actually be run on a very small computer, a Pentium, for example. You can get as low as that. That's as simple as you can possibly get, just a read board, and so on.

I'm very concerned that all of a sudden we're sitting here talking about something that is much grander than what I had earlier envisioned. I don't have a question on that; it's a comment.

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My question is on another topic. I'd like both of you to tell us about the voting in the House last night and give us your estimates of how much time it would have taken on an electronic system and how much time it took last night to go through all those motions.

The reason I ask both of you is I just want to double-check and see if you're both in the same frame of mind as an estimate of....

So if you could give me as close as you can to last night's actual time and what it would take electronically, and if Bob could do the same, it would put it in perspective.

It doesn't matter who goes first.

The Chairman: Mr. Marleau, you're on.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Perhaps I could respond to the comment about the cost and the grandeur of the approach.

Yes, I agree that it could be run on a small Pentium as the driver or the engine of an electronic voting system if you scale down, go to a stand-alone, single-unit service model.

The reason we've come up with this business case proposal that I think you may want to look at is that for the cost of roughly a Pentium per member, which would be a little bit over $1 million for those screens and maybe $200,000 on top for the server or a powerful Pentium to run it and cabling the west block, you would have a networked House. Then it depends on what you would choose on panels, whether you go OASIS, whether you go panels, whether you go no panels, no display. That was the basis of the proposal. It's not so much that we just came up with a better idea. It's that the electronic capacity of that is a value-added if you make that investment.

Yesterday we had 25 divisions set. When we began, the bells rang a little bit longer. We began at 5.37 p.m. and we were finished at 6.09 p.m. There were 24 divisions in all taken. There was one roll call and the rest were applied. If you include the roll call and average it out over the divisions, it took 1 minute and 20 seconds per division. If you exclude the roll call, which took about 10 minutes, the balance of those 23 divisions took 22 minutes, or an average of 58 seconds per division.

I don't know if Mr. Kilger has more precise data than that.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Yes, right.

No, I certainly don't. My estimate was approximately 30 minutes.

In the end, I don't know that there would be a great time saving regardless of what improvements or changes we might make, be they electronic voting or otherwise. I think the next best improvement we're going to make—hopefully we'll have that opportunity when we deal with the standing orders—will be with regard to the issue of unanimous consent being refused by one member, whether we would adopt a different formula, whether it would be five members—for instance, five members force a recorded division—or some formula of that nature.

I think Mr. Marleau last time.... I believe it was at this committee that we identified another problem area, and that was report stage amendments.

So I think if we deal with those two issues—

The Chairman: I actually thought we'd ask for some sort of analysis—I don't mean for today—of report stage and some sort of analysis of the applied voting procedure.

Randy, I would see that as feeding very nicely into the review of standing orders.

I think, Bob, we did ask for that the last time.

Mr. Robert Marleau: We did give that to you for the 35th Parliament, the analysis of how many were applied, how many were report stage, how many were roll call. We circulated a chart. That analysis has been done and was left with the clerk.

Mr. Randy White: That was manual. But electronically now are you both saying that there would be no time saving basically? Or would it take more time?

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Mr. Bob Kilger: I don't know if it could take more time, Randy, but I don't believe we could in fact save any amount of time.

Mr. Robert Marleau: My response to a similar question last week was that you gain the time if you start the voting within the bells, in the first 15 minutes. It's how much time you will allow for the member to be seized of the next question—by the time you flash it on the screen, whether it's on his or her desk or on a panel, and decide how to vote. If it's a minute, then you save whatever you take in the bells. If it's two minutes, you probably come out even. That's off the top.

The Chairman: Joe Fontana, then Carolyn Parrish and Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Joe Fontana: Mr. Chairman, let's just step back a bit in this sense. For over 12 years, members of various parliaments have looked at the question, why even consider electronic voting? I'd like to talk about three or four scenarios.

The bottom line is to save time, to make parliamentarians more productive, more efficient in their use of time. I would agree that over the past year or two there have been substantial gains, thanks to the goodwill of all parties, in working towards applied votes.

Chuck and Randy and some of you weren't here nine years ago, when I first arrived on the Hill, and I can tell you, we could never get any agreement whatsoever. So we were sitting two, three, four, and five hours to vote, doing an awful lot of roll calls and so on.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: That's right.

Mr. Joe Fontana: So the fact that all parties have been able to work together on applied votes is absolutely admirable. As to whether or not that can continue, hopefully so, because at the end of the day we all saved some time.

If you apply and do a cost-benefit analysis as to whether it took 58 seconds to apply a vote or whether or not you pushed a button, I can tell you the cost-benefit analysis, in my opinion, would show that electronic voting is much quicker and you'd save some money.

But I want to talk about the quality of time of MPs, because at the end of the day, that's essentially what we want to get to, isn't it? That's why for 12 years this Parliament and members have been seized with this issue. We're the only country in the world, with all due respect, that hasn't moved to electronic voting. Why? Because of tradition, because of cost, and so on and so forth.

I got the impression that some members were saying that if they had their choice between better computers in their constituency office or in their Hill office—that is, better member services—and electronic voting.... Well, of course most members are going to say, “Give me the better equipment.” But I was happy to hear today—and perhaps this wasn't known to members here—that all of that has been planned. We are getting new equipment. We are getting new computers in our offices, regardless of whether or not we do anything with electronic voting.

Let's just step back a bit and say this. Not only are we spending time in the House when we do vote—and I'm assuming that it's as short as possible, because the vote is at the end of the debate, and the sooner we vote, the better it is—but also, whether you do it electronically or by applied votes or by standing up in a roll call, most of us can probably put our time to better use. You have to realize that most of our votes take place at a time when we can be calling our constituencies and constituents to deal with their particular issues.

Give me an hour or two hours instead of sitting in the room doing absolutely nothing, waiting for votes to be applied or having to sit around to see whether or not I'll have to get up in roll call. In my opinion, that is not the best use of a member of Parliament's time. We can't do anything at those desks, can we? There isn't anything you can do. If you have correspondence, yes, you can do correspondence.

To tell you the truth, I like it, because under both scenarios, the low-case and the high-case scenario, we are looking at getting more connected, more with it, as every other country in the world is doing in becoming more productive. If it means looking at a business case scenario, such as putting laptops in our office so that no matter whether we're on duty day or voting or in the House during Question Period, we can be much more productive and efficient and doing some work on behalf of our constituents, then I think that's absolutely fantastic.

I don't really care whether or not an electronic voting system helps the administration. I care if it helps members of Parliament do their work. I can tell you, if I can be a lot more functional in the House of Commons and if you can help me by putting in systems, electronic and otherwise, for me to do my job, I'd like to do so.

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Now that Mr. Marleau has talked about how our offices are going to be connected in Ottawa and in our constituency, then it's natural for us, if we want to be progressive, if we want to build the new House of Commons for the future, because most of us aren't going to be here in 2007 or 2009, I can tell you that right now.... We're building it for the next members of Parliament. We are planning something for the future. What it comes down to is that under the lower-cost scenario, I've done some numbers, and what it essentially means is that even if you went to the high end, with the touch screens and everything else, at $3.5 million, taking the infrastructure costs out and everything else, it amounts, colleagues, to $10 a day. Is your time worth $10 a day?

So if we were prepared to invest $10 a day, which has already been planned for in some way, shape or form, I'm sure that $10 a day in order to be totally connected would help us do the best job possible for our constituents. And you know what? Being hooked up in the House also has an added advantage. If we want to go to electronic voting, it's just a simple application of a touch screen that says “we're going to vote”.

So Randy, we're looking far beyond electronic voting here. I think we're talking about becoming much more efficient and productive as members of Parliament.

The Chairman: Next are Carolyn Parrish, Chuck Strahl, Rey Pagtakhan, John Solomon.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I have to be careful here because I'm going to show my age. I am not computer-literate. The definition of a “laptop” for me is a future grandchild.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I have absolutely no interest in being computer-literate at my desk in the House, thank you. I don't want it cluttered. I don't want buttons; I don't want gadgets. But that's an aside.

This reminds me of about six months ago when I went to buy a fuse for my fridge and walked out with a fridge that does crushed ice, ice cubes, water, and plays music!

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: So what is happening here? Am I losing my mind? We talk about a $750,000 voting system, which it turns out we don't really need because the whips of all the parties are co-operating so nicely that we don't need that any more and now $3 million to $4 million, without infrastructure, for wiring in electronic gadgets...I feel like I'm in the twilight zone here.

Let's go back to the fuse. I'm very interested in what Mr. Kilger and Mr. White mentioned. While we're doing this business project over the Christmas break, could you also come back with some changes or suggested changes to the standing orders that would fix the fuse problem, or in other words, John Nunziata standing up in the House and holding everybody up? That's what the problem is. Could we also have some sort of presentation that addresses that problem?

I'm surprised to hear Joe say that there are no other countries in the world that don't have this. I remember Mr. Marleau saying most of the Commonwealth countries based on our type of Parliament don't have it. So I'd like a little bit more research on that as well, please.

I'm just very nervous about this. This is just like me coming home with that $1,500 fridge, and I'm really nervous. I'd like us to proceed very slowly and just remember that there are some of us who consider laptops grandchildren.

The Chairman: Chuck Strahl, Rey Pagtakhan, John Solomon, Marlene Catterall.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: That will go down as one of the most memorable descriptions that I've heard in a while in the committee. That was pretty good. And it does kind of describe my feelings a little bit too. Bob described it a little bit differently. He talked about “going all the way”, and I know Bob's that kind of a guy.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: The discussion we're now having, Joe and others, has moved away from electronic voting. It really has. It's moved to a discussion of good use of the members' time in the House. I think we have a whole other discussion going on here, Mr. Chairman. This is not about the electronic voting any more. I don't think we could be faster, other than a few standing order changes, perhaps the “stand in five” idea, than what we're doing right now.

The bigger question has to do with whether we really believe that members are going to go to the House and do their business on a laptop in the House when they're going to get an extra laptop for their desk in their offices. Right? We have to go to a third computer in the offices. I think it will be as it is now. You'll have a quorum of members kicking around and 270 people elsewhere where it's more comfortable and they can talk on the phone and do all that stuff.

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So unless we really believe people are just going to roar into the House like eager beavers, tapping diligently, ignoring the beehive of activity around them, I'm not convinced that's the way to go. But I think that's a whole other discussion. In fact, this is the first I've ever heard of it.

You mentioned the other day, Mr. Marleau, that one of the very expensive parts, if we go to electronic voting, is the screen itself. I mentioned before that at the Reform Party convention we have had electronic voting. One of the ways you save a good deal of money—and we have a mobile system that has its own faults and so on—is that the actual screen is just a projection system. You go to a straight projection system where you take whatever you have on the computer and flash it up on a 20x20 screen for that period only. We say what the results are and go through the whole thing with pie graphs and so on.

You can do anything else with the computer, because the computer, as Randy says, isn't that difficult. It's the display system that's going to cost us a million or two more than we want.

If we could go to a very simple voting-only system, and then project it somehow—and again, this is not my technical area—it seems to me that if that's the big-ticket item, and it's also the difficult one perhaps to move and integrate and all that stuff, and it's site-specific and it can't be leased, perhaps there is some way to consider a projection system. It has been done. I just don't know if it can be done on this one.

The Chairman: Rey Pagtakhan.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Mr. Chair, first I would like us to address the question, in light of the developments in this discussion, whether indeed we can make a decision on electronic voting ahead of a decision on information technology enhancement. Which should come first? It appears critical if whether in fact there has to be a sequence in the way we address the two issues. One is very specific, a subset of the larger information technology issue. I would like the committee to resolve that issue.

Having said that, were we to proceed with this information technology enhancement, I am sure, Mr. Marleau, you will consider at all times people with disabilities, particularly those with disabilities in terms of vision, hearing, and limbs. I'd like to put that on the record.

I like the idea of value added, the business case. It reminds me of what basic research is all about. It's very scary, because we do not know what is ahead of us. But I think sometimes we have to be bold to be able to reap the benefits of that boldness.

For example, Joe Fontana was alluding to increasing the depth of our services to constituencies. What I can envision—and this is purely a vision, because I do not know what is ahead of us—is that we can even expand the breadth, not only the depth, of constituency services once we have the information technology.

In other words, as the House goes to information technology, we meanwhile will see in the country the availability of more computers in homes. So in a sense we will not be left behind in the House, because our mission is to serve the constituencies by way of information, to say the least.

So I see this as being almost like semi-applied research. The prospects for the future are there but we are not clear about what will be there. We have to take that step of boldness for us to be able to progress, I would submit.

The Chairman: John Solomon, and then Marlene Catterall.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I remain unconvinced that electronic voting is something we have to look at. Having said that, however, I'm attracted to what we're looking at here in terms of some computerization of our desks. I'm not convinced I'll support that, because when I go to the House of Commons, I like to go there to speak. That's our function, to speak—parlez; parliament. I also go there to listen to other members give speeches, and of course Question Period is a natural. When I go there I like to get away from computers and telephones—although I carry a telephone with me and have messengers bringing in notes. It's a very busy place, Parliament Hill.

If we had the kind of technology Mr. Marleau is talking about in our offices, both in our ridings and on the Hill, that would be wonderful. It would be a wonderful stride for Parliament to take, a very large stride we haven't taken yet.

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I feel isolated in my constituency office. We're not connected to the Internet because of some restrictions. I think that's disgusting and we should have access to the Internet there. We should have decent computers provided by the House in both offices. Once those are covered off we should look at having something at our desks where we can obtain quick information for giving speeches. I don't necessarily feel we should be voting from our desks by computer, but that would be a nice enhancement once the full package is provided.

That's my position, and I think it would be shared by most of my colleagues in the NDP. The voting we have right now is superbly quick and is actually too quick to keep track of how we're voting sometimes.

Mr. Joe Fontana:

[Editor's Note—Inaudible]...it happen like this forever and a day?

Mr. John Solomon: If it doesn't happen...this is what Parliament is. We're here representing 30 million people and there are 301 of us. Sometimes there's going to be a delay, or a tactic or strategy will be used in the House to emphasize a point that somebody wants to make. I think that has to remain in terms of some flexibility. If it's a prolonged, aggravating problem then we'll deal with it. If it's a from time-to-time tactic we have to accept it, embrace it, and allow it to proceed. That's what Parliament's all about.

I will leave my remarks there. But I really like the idea of these computers, especially if we had them in our offices.

The Chairman: Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Strahl is absolutely right, we are a bit off topic, but since everybody else has done so, let me add my comments off topic.

I personally look at how much of this I deal with every day. There's not a thing in this file that I had to bring to this meeting that I couldn't have available on a computer screen right now. It's all there. The first thing 80% of our members ask when they walk into the House for a vote is “What are we voting on?” There's no reason why what we're voting on can't be right there on their screens. There's no reason why I can't send a message across the hall instead of having to ask a page to come and pick up a piece of paper and deliver it 30 feet. There's no reason why I can't refer to the standing orders from my desk or to Beauchesne's to see what the orders of the day are instead of having a quarter-inch thick stack of paper delivered to me every day.

That's the kind of thing that's really important, and it's not for the sake of using technology just because it's a nice idea and we're going into the next millennium. There would be really practical, helpful results from having that available to us as we sit down either at a committee meeting, in the House of Commons, or whatever. It would mean better informed members of Parliament, less paper, less cost over time, and easy access to what you're looking for. Why should I have to send a page running for a copy of Hansard from three months ago when it's right there for me?

I'm happy we're moving in that direction. I don't think we should do anything just because using new technology is a neat, smart thing to do and makes us look up-to-date. Nonsense. If you don't use it appropriately and use it for the sake of using it, that's not a smart thing to do.

I don't know when and where we have to make a decision on this, but since we've already got into a discussion on broader issues here, I like the direction we're heading in. I think this place is starting to take advantage of the technology available to us. Most businesses wouldn't be without this kind of thing and wouldn't be dealing with the kind of paper we're dealing with still. I don't want anybody to get the idea we shouldn't keep heading down that track unless they hear an overwhelming, differing opinion.

I think most of us want to become more efficient and that's certainly one way of doing it.

I don't know where we're at now in terms of electronic voting. Do we have to make some decisions now or what, Peter?

The Chairman: We have a little bit of our normal time left, but we could wind it up at this point.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: There seems to be a consensus that the system we have works very well and has one small glitch in it. We used it last night for 25 votes in 32 minutes and we used it a couple of weeks ago for nearly 20 votes.

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I'd like to ask if there's agreement around the table that we should proceed with amendments to the standing orders that would incorporate that in the standing orders.

The Chairman: If I could, Marlene, I don't think—

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That's irrespective of whether or not you had the electronic voting.

The Chairman: Fortunately, we actually have a review of the standing orders under way, and that is Thursday's topic.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Okay, I'll wait until Thursday.

The Chairman: I'm not sure, but it's my hope that we'll conceivably cover some sort of stuff on votes at report stage on Thursday. More information on the applied voting will be a part of our discussion then, so I think that's part of it.

Joe, if it's very brief, go ahead.

Mr. Joe Fontana: Yes, it is.

Could I make a suggestion? Obviously, a number of things that have been touched on today show that some efficiencies are going to be gained by standing order changes that we should make anyway, regardless of whether or not we're talking about electronic voting. Let's get on with changing the rules of the game, because they've been archaic for a long time and we can make some efficiencies.

I think the second thing is important too. Even from the low-cost situation that results in the event that one may want to use electronic voting in its simplest manner—by pushing a button; forget about computer screens and all that sort of stuff—if you can get down to $1.5 million or whatever the price is, that's $2 or $3 a day. So we ought to look at that scenario.

Thirdly, if we have been talking about information technology that, to some of us, is that much more important if we are in fact going to get with it, then perhaps you ought to let the administration give us the full package on the business case on what this new concept of information technology is and how it may or may not work with electronic voting. They can give us this business case so that we can take a look at it when we come back in January or February.

I think all the pieces are coming together, from the changes to the standing orders, to electronic voting, to information technology. They're all integrated.

If Marlene is asking that we make a decision today as to whether or not we have electronic voting or not, I would say no. I don't think we can, because some of those changes have to in fact be put into place. We're not even going to be able to make a decision on Thursday, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest that we allow the administration to get us a little more information. They've had to do this in only two weeks; I'm surprised they've been able to do the great work they have. We should allow them to come back after our recess in February, with a full integrated package of a business case on information technology, along with any other information that might help.

In the meantime, I think it's important for us to get on with changing the standing orders.

The Chairman: Carolyn Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: There's one question I would like addressed too when you come back with this package. Does this communications package ensure or precurse off-site voting—in other words, voting from your office in your riding or voting from your office on the Hill? I want that presented very clearly. Mr. Doyle is not here, but we once had a discussion that if you open the door a little bit, sometimes you get what you don't want. I think that would have to be discussed with the members of all parties in the House. Once you bring that in, it brings in the concept of voting from your offices, and nobody will go to the Hill. I would therefore like that addressed.

The Chairman: Before I ask Mr. Marleau to respond, my thought is that this and the previous weeks have been very useful to us. We've put this in the context of the standing orders, which are of great interest to us anyway. We've put it in the context of a virtual office for members and that kind of thing. And it's made us think about stand-alone voting against a not-stand-alone voting system.

My thought, though, colleagues, was Mr. Marleau's main point. It seems to me the difference is this business case versus cost-benefit. It seems to me that it's a cost-benefit analysis, but it has a particular slant to it. Are we agreed that this is a reasonable approach?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: What, this business case?

The Chairman: Yes, for want of a better word, because you could think of it as something else. It's a particular type of cost-benefit that builds in the business side that we've been discussing today. Are we comfortable with that? Then I would suggest that on Thursday we proceed with the aspects of the standing orders that relate directly to this.

Mr. Marleau, to you and your colleagues, we'd be most grateful if you would think about the things we have discussed and if you would contact us in the new year, when you're ready. We would then re-engage in this discussion of electronic voting.

Colleagues, do I have the sense of everything right here? Okay.

Mr. Marleau, would you like to say something before we conclude?

Mr. Robert Marleau: Again just briefly, the reason I'm reflecting on the various points of view about electronic voting at the last meeting, and particularly Ms. Catterall's comments at the tail end of the last meeting, is that we have an IT strategy that is a roll-out for the next ten years. Essentially that strategy, pending approval of moneys by the board over time, would do exactly what we're talking about now.

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My submission in building this business case now ought to demonstrate whether it's sound to go ahead or not. If you're going to spend it in 2007 but spent it now and had the benefit and electronic voting remained an option, that's the approach I was thinking of. It's not a question of being for or against electronic voting, but should the House culture be ready at any moment, then I think it would be cost efficient to proceed in that way. That would be the slant. It doesn't exclude electronic voting; it's an add-on. It can be as fancy as you want it or as simple as what Mr. White was saying, as an add-on as well.

On the standing orders, there is no great difficulty in even providing you a draft for the applied votes for your Thursday meeting. I think we can do that. We worked on some text in anticipation.

For report stage, however, I think we need a little bit more direction from the committee. There are issues at report stage that are government driven and opposition driven, and as procedural officers, servants of the House, we find that it's hard for us to advocate a certain slant in change unless there is some agreement. We could provide you with what goes on elsewhere. This is not a new discussion, the report stage, but I think on that one we'd like a little bit more direction from the committee as to what you're looking at.

The Chairman: Mr. Fontana, very briefly.

Mr. Joe Fontana: With regard to report stage, that's probably the most cumbersome time period in the House; in fact, 55% of the votes were dealing with report stage. I think this committee ought to view whether or not—and we understand why you wouldn't put an amendment in committee because you could introduce it in the House...with the view of forcing all parties and all members that if in fact they want to put amendments, they be forced through the committees. If you want to empower the committees, if you want to empower those things, the committee ought to be the relevant place to pass those things.

The Chairman: That's been discussed, and it's my understanding now that this is going to be a part of our discussion on Thursday, specifically to that. So I don't think—

Mr. Joe Fontana: Which would mean the removal of report stage in the House of Commons. If that was the ultimate—

The Chairman: The point has been made here, Joe, a number of times—

Mr. Joe Fontana: Yes.

The Chairman: —for and against.

Colleagues, my understanding is that report stage is part of it, and I hear the clerk saying to us that he needs more direction if he's going to give us more material on that topic.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Marleau, and you too, Mr. Montpetit.

[English]

It was very good of you to do this.

So, colleagues, on Thursday we will begin our review of the standing orders.

[Translation]

Do I speak too fast in English or in French?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: No, you are doing fine. We just wish, Mr. Chair, you were bolder when you choose to speak in French.

The Chairman: I see. I thank you, I think.

[English]

The meeting is adjourned.