After an outbreak of COVID-19 in the northern part of the province temporarily shuttered the New Brunswick legislature, MLAs say it’s time to implement some sort of hybrid-sitting process.
The legislature was suspended for two weeks on Thursday just a week into what was scheduled to be a four-week sitting after three MLAs, including the speaker, returned to their ridings to self-isolate.
The ridings of all three are in health zone five, the site of all 13 of the province’s active cases of COVID-19.
“We’re in 2020 and, with all due respect, the legislative assembly and the parliamentary work in New Brunswick needs to evolve,” said Dieppe MLA Roger Melanson after the house was adjourned on Thursday.
“I guess it makes in more obvious now that we need to embrace technology … We can have caucus meetings and the business community can have business meetings through Zoom. So the technology is available.”
Melanson is not alone in his calls for legislative work to evolve to meet the current climate.
Green Leader David Coon also suggested that some sort of hybrid sitting, where some MLAs are inside the legislative chamber while others appear via video from their ridings, should be implemented.
The House of Commons in Ottawa is already doing just that.
“We absolutely do have to implement a hybrid model, as the house of commons is doing,” Coon said.
“That means putting screens into the chamber, that can be done … and needs to be done sooner rather than later. As fast as it can possibly be done, we need to do it.”
Ottawa has been holding what it calls a special committee on the pandemic through an upgraded version of the Zoom platform. MPs can be seen, heard and translation services are provided. As of Tuesday, speaker Anthony Rota informed MPs that remote voting could now take place through the platform.
MLAs are scheduled to return to Fredericton on June 9, barring any setbacks, but Coon said finding a way to conduct house business virtually is crucial, as it could be some time before a vaccine is found and life returns to pre-pandemic normal.
“We’re going to be living with this thing for months and months and months, if not a year or two. So the Legislature has got to be able to function when there are regional outbreaks,” he said.
“So we’ve got to put in place a virtual system that enables that mix of in-person and virtual participation.”
The Legislative Administration Committee (LAC) has already studied how the Legislature could sit virtually. Those meetings were also conducted through video chat with simultaneous translation—a must in bilingual New Brunswick—provided to all who needed it.
Government house leader Glen Savoie says he agrees with the need for virtual and hybrid sittings, but says there is still a lot more that needs to be done before the Legislature is ready to take that step. Primarily, how to ensure a virtual or hybrid proceeding is public.
“When we have a democracy that works for everybody we want to make that its open and transparent. So we can have it right now, where the MLAs could all meet, where we can see each other and hear each other and we can have that simultaneous translation,” he said. “What we haven’t figured out yet, to my knowledge, is how we can do that and have the public involved as well, so that the public can see and hear and have that simultaneous translation as well.”
“So can we get there? Absolutely. But it’s going to take some time and money to do that.”