The National Assembly in the Time of COVID-19.

• Author: Paradis, Francois

The National Assembly of Quebec was one of many Canadian parliaments that had to confront the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, the author outlines the steps taken to ensure parliamentary activities could continue and what temporary--and longer-term changes were made to respond to the directives of public health officials.

**********

The National Assembly of Quebec was not spared the significant upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. The exceptional circumstances we faced forced our parliamentarians to swiftly adapt their practices.

One of the difficulties confronting our elected representatives at this time was agreeing on how to adapt and modify our rules so that the National Assembly and its parliamentary committees could play their respective roles. For instance, we had no rules allowing sittings to be held remotely or with a reduced number of MNAs. Many important, even historic, decisions had to be made in negotiations held outside the usual framework governing parliamentary proceedings. Tantamount to parliamentary high-wire acrobatics, this exercise required a significant degree of trust between the different parliamentary groups and considerable flexibility on the part of both the Government and the Opposition parties.

On March 13, 2020, by virtue of the powers conferred on it by the Public Health Act, the Quebec government issued an order in council declaring a public health emergency throughout Quebec. At the time, the National Assembly was engaged in the budget process for fiscal 2020-2021. The Minister of Finance had delivered the budget speech on March 10 and, the next day, the parliamentary committees had begun examining the estimates of expenditure. The Assembly was also slated to examine the supplementary estimates requested by the Government for fiscal 2019-2020.

The onset of the state of emergency cut this process short. It soon became apparent, given the scope of the situation and the disruptions that were bound to follow, that it was unrealistic for the Assembly to continue its regular proceedings as we moved into what would become a near total lockdown of Quebec society. The unusual nature of these events is reflected in the fact that the last time the Assembly had to suspend its proceedings for a similar reason dates back to 1852, when a cholera epidemic broke out in Quebec City.

Already on March 12, together with the Premier and the leaders of the parliamentary groups, I announced that the Assembly's reception pavilion was closed and that visitor access to the Parliament Building was suspended. This preventive measure, aimed at limiting the number of people present at the Assembly, remained in force in the summer of 2020. In addition, all MNAs' international missions, and hosting of foreign delegations, were cancelled.

In the days that followed, the parliamentarians...