Senator Batters: Also, in the remarks that you just gave, you were indicating that the health information that you provided was from the Senate and not from PMO or anything like that. Are you speaking about the health information just simply being the total number of people who have contracted COVID in the Senate and the Parliamentary Precinct over the last little while? Is that the health information you’re talking about?

Wouldn’t you agree, Senator Gold, that what Senator Plett and now Senator Seidman are requesting is actual health information about guidelines and opinions from the federal government about how to do in-person meetings safely? That’s the kind of information that we’re requesting. Senator Seidman is requesting a letter from Dr. Theresa Tam, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, outlining how we can do these things. That’s the sort of health information we’re talking about.

Is the health information you were speaking about merely just totalling up who might have COVID and whether or not it was simply a positive test but really minimal symptoms ranging from people who are fairly sick with COVID?

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, if you are so concerned about getting proper health information and making a prudent decision here, why wouldn’t you consider the types of health information that both Senator Plett and Senator Seidman are requesting in their amendments to be exactly the kind of information you would want to see? Federal government public health guidelines and current federal government public health opinions about proper, safe ways to have in-person meetings. That should be something that you, as the government leader in the Senate, can very easily get for us.

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise to speak on Senator Plett’s amendment to the Trudeau government’s motion to once again extend hybrid sittings of the Senate, this time to June 30.

Senator Plett is proposing that the government table opinions and guidelines regarding in-person meetings from several public health and other officials before requesting extension of hybrid Senate sittings. At a time when many provinces are dropping their COVID mandates on things like vaccines and masks, it seems incompatible that our Senate is contemplating meeting in only a hybrid fashion. Senator Plett’s amendment would be a way of determining whether the government’s request for continued hybrid Parliament is actually in keeping with the best contemporary scientific evidence.

Senator Plett’s amendment also establishes:

. . . a plan for a transition back to in-person sittings of the Senate as soon as practicable in accordance with the commitment made by the Senate on March 31, 2022 . . . .

Senators will not be surprised to hear that I am in complete agreement with transitioning back to in-person sittings of the Senate, given that I have delivered speeches on this issue here twice before. I submit that in-person sittings are crucial for us to do our best work here as parliamentarians, and that is what Canadians deserve from us.

Of course, I am dismayed that we are once again discussing extending the deadline for hybrid Parliament at all. We should already have been working on returning to in-person Parliament, as set out in the provisions of the March 31 motion. I suppose I’ve been around here long enough to know better than to expect the Trudeau government to fulfill its obligations.

In any case, just look at all the things that have resumed, even since the last time we discussed hybrid Parliament at the end of March, only a few short weeks ago. Even more provinces have dropped their vaccine and mask mandates. Hockey arenas are routinely filled with 20,000 people. Concerts have resumed. Sting plays the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa next week. Even Ribfest will be returning to Sparks Street in early June, and Jurassic Park in Toronto is once again filled with a huge crowd of people celebrating during the Raptors basketball team’s playoff run. All of these places are returning to normal.

Even certain aspects of Parliament have begun to shift. The House of Commons opened its public galleries at the beginning of this week, and its committees have begun to receive visitors. Yesterday, our own Speaker once again introduced guests in the Senate gallery. We can now resume having visitors into our Senate offices for meetings, and stakeholder and lobby groups have resumed holding large receptions both on and off the Hill.

I find this puzzling. We’ve established that it’s safe enough for senators to mix with stakeholders in meetings and receptions, and the public in our offices or in the chamber, and with other senators at receptions or in our respective caucus rooms, but if we’re here in person in the chamber — all of us required to be masked and at least double vaccinated — what’s going to happen? Are we going to combust? The only difference I see is that it is in this chamber that the government is expected to be held accountable, and that is why the Trudeau government wants to avoid being here in person — if you’ll pardon the pun — like the plague.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — a hybrid Parliament is a dull Parliament. An unengaging Parliament won’t and doesn’t receive much pesky media attention, thereby evading public scrutiny — perfect for the Trudeau government, which seems to have so much to hide.

Public health officials have told us all along throughout COVID-19 that as we move through the course of this pandemic we will reach a point where we will have to learn how to live with the reality of COVID, not just hide ourselves away from it. Society is reaching that point. We have lived with COVID for more than two years now. We have listened to the advice on how best to protect ourselves: through vaccines and masks and social distancing and ventilation. I am proudly triple-vaccinated and promote that widely on my social media.

The fact is, the Senate remains one of the very few places left in the country that requires a vaccine mandate and masks for access. Another is airplanes, the primary method of transportation many of us use to travel back and forth to our jobs as senators. Given that, it is curious that the Senate chamber isn’t viewed as one of the safest places to return to in-person work.

Instead, it is as though we’re trying to preserve the rarified Senate “bubble.” Honourable senators, what do we think make us so special? All kinds of people — dentists, taxi drivers, mechanics — are back at work in person, and most have been back for a very long time. All of these people have returned to work using some combination of the protections I’ve just outlined — vaccines, masks, social distancing and ventilation — as they are appropriate and practical. There is no reason the Senate cannot do the same.

The last time I spoke about hybrid sittings, I mentioned that the Senate had published a “return to work” plan for 25% of Senate administration employees. As it turns out, the Senate delayed that “return to work” plan yet again. It was only this week that 25% of Senate administration employees returned to their offices. There still is no “return to work” plan for the other 75%, some of whom have jobs not particularly conducive to remote work. In the private sector, the answer to that would be to return to work in person. Not so in the Senate of Canada.

Downtown Ottawa is still a ghost town. Two years into the COVID pandemic, few federal government workers are yet back at work in person. Government COVID mandates and lockdowns have been devastating to Ottawa’s downtown core. Even a short walk from Parliament Hill, long-standing family-owned businesses have now closed their doors for good, suffering two years of pandemic lockdowns, then weeks of street closures imposed by the city during and after the truckers’ protest.

Infuriatingly, Wellington Street in front of Parliament remains blocked off, for no apparent reason. It’s kind of symbolic of this federal government’s approach on COVID mandates at this point, if you think about it. Everything around this one patch of street has opened back up. No one seems to be sure why the barriers are still there or, really, by whose authority. It impedes freedom of movement through the downtown core. Why? We’re not sure. We all just kind of navigate around it, and it does not seem to serve a useful purpose at this point. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

It’s like government mandates, and it’s also similar to this government’s insistence on hybrid sittings at this point in the pandemic. I look at the text of your motion, Senator Gold, and I wonder: What year are we in? Have we mistakenly been dropped back in March 2020, to the beginning of the pandemic, rather than two years in? Fire up the DeLorean. We’re headed Back to the Future with this one, honourable senators. Hybrid parliamentary sittings are simply not in keeping with where the rest of the world is at with COVID anymore.

When will the Trudeau government finally come clean and admit what they really want is permanent hybrid sittings? So much easier to contain, to control, to keep under wraps. This hybrid sitting motion is the government’s nudge in that direction. It’s a way for the government to keep the Senate on “mute” — to manage it so it doesn’t become too troublesome.

Honourable members can take their cues in the Senate from what we see happening now in the House of Commons. It wasn’t enough for the Trudeau government to forge a coalition majority government with a very willing NDP partner. They’re now bringing in the most draconian of parliamentary motions. If the heat gets too hot for them in the House of Commons, shockingly they’ll be able to just stand up, without notice, and adjourn until the fall, escaping accountability at every turn. This is shameful and not at all surprising that this terrible motion comes just as Justin Trudeau’s “Billionaire Island” vacation resurfaces.

We’ve seen this display from the Trudeau government before. As we like to say out West, “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

The Trudeau government’s dodging of accountability in the Senate may be more subtle, but its effect is the same.

The manner in which the government communicates on the issue of COVID mandates is specifically to avoid accountability as well. Other countries around the world are dropping their COVID restrictions, yet Canada’s federal government continues to act like a helicopter parent. When Prime Minister Trudeau is asked about it, he not only refuses to state any intention to lift Canada’s mandates but can’t even articulate a plan or a time frame to do so. The only thing for which Prime Minister Trudeau can be relied upon is a divisive quote against Canadians who have decided, for one reason or another, not to be vaccinated. After all, if he keeps Canadians divided among themselves, they have less time and energy to devote to holding him and his government accountable. Are you sensing a theme yet?

Prime Minister Trudeau’s government follows his lead. His Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, this week testified before the Emergencies Act parliamentary committee about a fire started in a downtown Ottawa apartment building where the perpetrators were rumoured to be convoy participants. Of course, this claim has been repeatedly exposed as fake, including by the Ottawa Police themselves. But that didn’t deter Minister Mendicino, who is a lawyer and a former prosecutor. Misinformation is useful if it obscures the truth, I guess, and that really is what this Trudeau government is known for. It again distracts from the larger issue — that maybe the government had no real, credible evidence on which to invoke the Emergencies Act — by whipping up resentment against the trucker convoy participants.

This Trudeau government’s affinity for subverting democracy and then hiding behind cabinet confidence should worry us all. It is definitely a well-established pattern. This lack of transparency is even more reason why senators should want to be here in person, to question and challenge the government on the decisions it is making. That is far more effective in person than it is from behind a Zoom screen — and the Trudeau government knows it.

Only yesterday, Minister of Justice David Lametti appeared at the Senate Legal Committee. We were able to have a robust exchange in person and to go back and forth and actually challenge his testimony. It makes for more compelling viewing, and better Parliament, when someone is not continually saying, “You’re on mute” and, “You’re frozen.”

The first few years of my time in the Senate coincided with a time of real soul-searching for this institution. We devoted a lot of time to talking about the Senate, its purpose and its mandate. One of the big areas of focus was how to make the Senate more relevant to the lives of Canadians.

Honourable senators, I think hybrid Parliament diminishes those efforts. We fought to have Parliament broadcast live via video so that Canadians could see the good work that we do in this place. I’m not anxious for the public to tune in to a Senate sitting now, only to see senators reading from a prepared script on Zoom, not really engaging with one another. This should be a chamber of lively debate and discussion — a place where we represent our regions and protect the rights of minorities, where Canadians can see themselves in the debate. I fear that element will be absent in a hybrid Senate.

Honourable senators, I ask that you carefully consider this decision to extend hybrid Parliament. While it might seem like no big deal, or only a matter of convenience, I ask you to consider what path it might put us on in the future in this place. I fear, and I suspect many of us feel, that these continued extensions of the hybrid model will soon morph into something more permanent. What will that mean for the future governance of the Senate? Might we be running the risk of compromising the very characteristics that make the Senate unique? Will virtual Parliament help or hinder government accountability? Does accessing Parliament by Zoom potentially hinder a senator’s independence? What kind of image of the Senate are we portraying to the public through hybrid Parliament, and is that detrimental for the Senate’s reputation in the long run? I think this is the biggest question: Is hybrid Parliament ultimately good for democracy? I say it is not, and I think that is dangerous territory for us to start eroding.

Furthermore — and this brings me back to Senator Plett’s amendment — is hybrid Parliament necessary in the current situation, when health authorities are currently removing mandates? We are at the point in this pandemic where there are ways to manage group activities and still be COVID-safe. Continuing to just shut everything down is not feasible. All parliamentarians, staff and visitors must be at least double-vaccinated even to be in the Parliamentary Precinct, and we must all wear masks when moving freely around the buildings. At a time when most mandates are in the process of being lifted, it seems the Senate is actually one of the safer workplaces to attend in person.

For these reasons, I will be supporting Senator Plett’s amendment and voting against the main motion. Please join me in standing against a further decline of our most important democratic institutions. Thank you.

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, earlier today in your speech about hybrid sittings you were saying you really didn’t want a permanent hybrid sitting situation, yet I think you let the veil slip a little bit near the end of that speech when you said that you were talking about extending to at least the end of June. What is the real answer of when you want to actually extend hybrid sittings until because you definitely said at least until the end of June.