Don’t post pix of screen! Canada Speaker reminds MPs of parliament rules as they Zoom
Canada’s parliament has truly gone virtual through the pandemic, assembling MPs across six time zones and giving a rare peek at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bookcase, a deer head and a stifled opposition.
Every Tuesday and Thursday in the last month 338 Canadian MPs logged into Zoom from home to question ministers instead of holding a daily in-person question period.
The first sessions were marred by glitches-“Is it possible to hear me now?” “There’s a concern with the translation.” “The minister has been take off.” “Please unclick your mute.” “You could also hear my son, he doesn’t sound too happy, in the backdrop.”
“This is a historic day,” Speaker Anthony Rota said when it began, while admonishing MPs over sounds of camera clicks “never to post photos on the Internet of the screen,” according to parliamentary rules.
A few others like the British and Latvian parliaments have also gone online to limit person-to-person spreading of the COVID-19 virus.
“We can not be vectors for the virus,” New Democrat MP Peter Julien told AFP, explaining why his party pushed because of this arrangement to keep democracy in an emergency.
“The only method to ask questions with respect to constituents and hold government accountable without endangering the general public is a virtual parliament,” he said.
Critics such as for example Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher lamented that it has diminished the role of the official opposition, while the minority Liberal government of Trudeau uses daily press briefings to discuss policy.
“It’s very difficult in these mass virtual sessions to place a minister or the prime minister at that moment,” Conacher said, describing the sessions as “chaotic.”
He also warned of the chance of abuse if parliamentary oversight is curtailed.
Accountability and oversight
The state opposition Tories had right away objected to the virtual confabs.
“Mr. Trudeau shouldn't be using a pandemic in order to avoid accountability and oversight and really should not be eliminating the role of the peoples’ representatives,” leader Andrew Scheer said Friday.
However the prime minister, with the backing of New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois, had said it will be irresponsible to have regular sittings while public health officials urged social distancing.
Thirty MPs also meet each Wednesday in person-striking “a balance that's yielding positive results,” Trudeau said.
No legislation except emergency spending bills have already been passed during the nationwide lockdown. A ban on assault weapons was enacted by executive order after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia.
Western provinces, which elected mostly Conservatives, say they’re not seeing their priorities reflected in the Liberal agenda.
And the federal government has racked up Can$325 billion (US$230 billion) in pandemic aid.
Working from home in a suburb of balmy Vancouver, Julien doesn’t miss Ottawa, which had flurries this week.
“It’s nice spending additional time in Vancouver,” he said.
But his days are longer as he handles a surge in constituents’ concerns such as for example job losses, and challenges of politicking by phone across 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) from coast to coast.
“When people are scattered over the world’s greatest democracy (geographically) it takes longer to really get people on the phone,” he said, versus walking down the hall to MPs’ offices in Ottawa “for an instant face-to-face meeting.”
Now, an MP in Newfoundland might start just work at 8:30 am local time, when it’s 4 am in British Columbia.
A committee report released on Friday needed establishing a “secure electronic voting system” for the virtual parliament to fully function.
It noted that Zoom also didn't provide satisfactory security for in-camera meetings.
A large number of rural and northern MPs have also been unable to connect due to poor Internet.
Interpreters who translate English into French and vice versa, meanwhile, reported a steep upsurge in workplace injuries including acute acoustic shock and tinnitus.
Rota urged MPs to “please speak at an acceptable pace” because of their sake.
‘Hostage video situation’
The speaker also chided MPs over their selection of backdrops, that ought to be neutral, he wrote in a letter the House affairs committee, to “make sure that what is debated and decided upon inside your home remains more important than what is seen.”
A deer head, for instance, was mounted on a wall behind an MP criticizing the government’s new gun control measures.
Another MP streamed before a white bedsheet, referred to as looking such as a “hostage video situation.” It had been designed to hide home renovations.
Industry Minister Navdeep Bains, a devout Sikh, actually won praise from viewers for utilizing a painting of colorful turbans as a backdrop.
Others noted what books were on the prime minister’s shelf.
This “peak within MPs’ homes,” said Julien, has “allowed Canadians to understand a lttle bit about their personalities, it’s humanizing.”
Another upside: no heckling online, although one MP accused Rota to be “just a little dictatorial” for threatening to mute MPs who interrupted.
In the coming days, parties will need to consent to extend the virtual parliament beyond May 25.
Some said regular sessions likely won’t resume until next year.
Alternately, one MP suggested moving parliament in to the NHL Senators’ hockey arena, with 17,000 seats to permit social distancing.
