QUESTION PERIOD — Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Business of the Committee
May 4, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, Senator Marwah.
Senator Marwah, last Friday, senators and Senate staff received a memo from the committee announcing the reopening of the Senate gym and yoga room in the Victoria Building. I didn’t even know we had one of those.
Despite vigorous activity in close quarters in these rooms with the potential for the spread of a lot of droplets, masks there are only recommended, not required. Meanwhile, mandatory masking still applies in common areas in the Senate, including this chamber and, according to a March 25 press release, “entrances, hallways, washrooms and break rooms.” Why the double standard?
Thank you, senator, for that question. I don’t think it is really a double standard. I don’t think you can compare doing an exercise workout to sitting in the Senate Chamber or in the hallways. There you are going through an exercise. You are exhaling. And it’s also recommended that masking should be required unless you can keep the two-metre distancing. The change rooms all have mandatory masking. All of the aspects of the gym are mandatory masking, except when you are exercising. I think that’s an appropriate application of the guidelines.
Senator Marwah, the broadcasting agreement between the House of Commons and the Senate uses House of Commons resources for broadcasting Senate committees and gives the House of Commons priority access to resources when both chambers need access at the same time. Exactly one year ago, you told Senator Griffin that the House of Commons had, in fact, offered to:
. . . add additional capacity to give us more availability, but they require several months to train the staff and the person. This would have taken us to the end of June, by which time we would have risen anyway.
That was one year ago. Since then, Senate committees have limped along at maximum 50% capacity. In the past fiscal year, the Legal Committee sat only 14 times, the Rules Committee 7 times and your own Internal Economy Committee only sat 9 times. Normally it would sit that often in three months.
A year ago, you told Senator Griffin, “We will be revisiting the decision, and if things don’t improve, we will take the appropriate steps.” So, Senator Marwah, why didn’t you?
Thank you, Senator Batters. I think that’s a fair question, but I think we’ve heard time and time again in this chamber that the bottleneck is not technicians; it’s not broadcasting services or clerks or capacity. The bottleneck is translation and interpretation services. We did increase capacity last year. We hired one more — I think it’s called an MMS technician, with which the House of Commons helped us. We hired one which allowed us to go from two simultaneous virtual meetings to three. Beyond that, there was no point in hiring additional technicians or increasing other capacity because we couldn’t get additional interpretation services. That is the bottleneck, Senator Batters. If that is resolved, other capacity can be increased. Otherwise we’ll be increasing and spending money for no benefit.
