Opposition leader apologizes for 'clumsy' remarks while arguing for change to legislature hours

An 11-year-old debate over the sitting hours of the P.E.I. Legislature took some unexpected twists Friday, leaving the province's 27 MLAs somewhere short of deciding once and for all whether the legislative assembly should meet during the evening.

Even before debate on the latest proposal to eliminate evening sittings could begin Friday, Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly, the only black person ever elected to the P.E.I. Legislature, took Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker to task for, as McNeilly put it, using "the plight of marginalized people to further his argument about changing house hours."

The day before,Bevan-Baker had invoked the Black Lives Matter movement while asking fellow MLAs to adopt changes to the legislative calendar as a means to make the assembly more inclusive.

"Black lives matter, black history matters, and black experience matters," said Bevan-Baker. "Those people deserve to be in these seats, representing their community, representing the viewpoint that they have with a very different lived experience than anybody else in the house currently has."

"The challenges associated with race must stand on their own," McNeilly said in his rebuttal. "Historic wrongs are not a prop.Furthermore, minority communities do not need special rules. And if the Green Party seeks to impose rules on this house, I would ask them to use different arguments, better rationalizations and resist the opportunity to exploit cultural divisions."

In response, Bevan-Baker told the legislature he felt his remarks from the day before were "clumsy."

"I feel that I did not express clearly enough that the centre of my concerns is about making this house a place that represents our community, all of our community, and I regret if anything I said has been interpreted in any other way."

Change meant to improve work-life balance

According to its current rules, the legislature sits Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. when in session.

Ending evening sittings was one of 17 recommendations in a 2009 report from the P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government meant to encourage more women to run for office. While the idea has come up in debate before, no change has ever been made.

The report found women were required to spend more time on caregiving duties than men, and the long hours MLAs work wereidentified as a barrier preventing more women from running.

The number of women in the P.E.I. Legislature has historically been low. Currently 7 of 27 members, or 26 per cent of MLAs are women.

Further changes proposed to calendar

P.E.I.'s standing committee on rules, regulations, private bills and privileges has recommended regularly-scheduled evening hours be eliminated, but that special ad hoc evening sittings be allowed following a vote by the assembly.

It's also recommended that sittings start earlier in the calendar year, with the start of the spring sitting moving from April to February to allow debate on the province's operating budget to begin before the fiscal year for that budget begins on April 1.

I truly understand how this job can limit who can do it. Sidney MacEwen, PC MLA

"I really believed that when the standing committee on rules presented this report that we would have a vote and that it would pass quite quickly," said Premier Dennis King as the current debate on changing the hours was well into its second day.

"Many of the changes involved here are progressive and they are long-needed," said King. "Our schedule as we've talked about was built around the train schedule Mr. Speaker, and trains haven't run in this province for 40 years."

"I cannot believe, it blows my mind that we are actually in here during an emergency sitting, talking about politicians when we should be talking about Islanders," said Liberal MLA Hal Perry, opposing the change.

His caucus mate Robert Henderson argued MLAs chose their profession knowing what the demands of the job would be.

"If I want to come and offer my name for office I can do that," he said. "There's no advantage to being female, there's no advantage to being male, there's no advantage to being different of any kind. You put your name on the ballot, you do the work as it pertains to this profession."

Minister for the Status of Women Natalie Jameson read from a letter written by the P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government.

"Parliaments across Canada, including that of P.E.I., were designed at a time when democratic process excluded the voices and experiences of women," she read, "when women didn't have the right to vote or be considered persons under the law.

"It is not surprising, then, that certain aspects of parliamentary institutions fail to meet the needs of women members."

PC MLA changed sides

A veteran of previous debates, PC Sidney MacEwen told the house he had changed his mind since he argued against getting rid of evening sittings during the last debate in2018.

A fisherman and a father of young children, MacEwen said what he didn't realize back then"was the privilege that I had I can go fishing at four o'clock in the morning, and stay in [the legislature] until 10 o'clock in the evening, and not have to worry a whole lot because I've got a support system."

"I truly understand how this job can limit who can do it," he said.

Changing the hours and the schedule, MacEwen said, would be "small steps to getting more inclusiveness" in the legislature.

A pair of amendments introduced by Perry and Henderson pushed the debate past the 1o'clock Friday closing of the legislature, meaning no vote was held, with debate set to resume again on Tuesday.

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