New year, new e-petition system in Ottawa

TheStar.com
January 4, 2019
Charlie Pinkerton

The federal government is modifying its e-petition system so Canadians can get responses to their inquiries faster.

On Jan. 22, online petitioners will be allowed to choose whether their petitions will remain open for signatures on the government’s e-petition site for 30, 60, 90 or 120 days.

E-petitions are a well-used section of the House of Commons’ website. From the day e-petitions were implemented until October 2018, 205 MPs sponsored an online petition, and there have been 1,628 signatures per day. A third of all visitors to the House of Commons website between October 2017 and October 2018 viewed e-petitions, or pages related to them. In total, the online-petitions site attracted 1.2 million visitors.

Currently, e-petitions stay open for a default period of 120 days.

Petitions are sometimes in reaction to current events. The 120-day signing period can mean that the government resolves a problem before it’s presented with a petition and is required to table a response.

An e-petition sponsored by Michelle Rempel calling on the government to cancel Statistics Canada’s plan to collect depersonalized data from banks is an example: Rempel sponsored the e-petition on Nov. 1. One week later, Canada’s chief statistician told the Senate banking committee that the project would be paused. Rempel’s e-petition will remain open for signatures until March.

The change to an optional number of days was recommended by the House procedure committee in its report on the petitions system in November.

“The inflexibility of (a) fixed time frame can impede the use of an e-petition as a tool to raise matters of concern in a timely manner,” reads the committee’s report.

E-petitions were created by the Conservative government under Stephen Harper as an alternative to paper, with the provision they’d be reviewed two years after implementation. The new system was implemented on Dec. 3, 2015, the first day of sitting for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

E-petitions are a well-used section of the House of Commons’ website. According to the procedure committee’s report, from the day e-petitions were implemented until October 2018, 205 MPs sponsored an online petition, and there have been 1,628 signatures per day. A third of all visitors to the House of Commons website between October 2017 and October 2018 viewed e-petitions, or pages related to them. In total, the online-petitions site attracted 1.2 million visitors.

The government decided unanimously to implement the procedure committee’s recommendations on Nov. 29. Other recommendations include dropping the term “sponsor” from a petition, because some MPs thought it implied support. In reality, an MP might post a petition only because he or she receives it from a constituent.

The government’s paper petition system is also being tweaked to allow for different sizes of paper to be submitted, and for submissions to be typed, written or printed.

Once the next government is elected, paper petitions will be published online, as well.