CP Green Party Parliamentary Leader Elizabeth May and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer are shown in a composite image of photos from The Canadian Press.

OTTAWA — Green Party Parliamentary Leader Elizabeth May is lashing out at Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, saying he should be more focused on safeguarding the public’s health and economic well-being than on holding in-person sittings of Parliament. “Andrew Scheer should be thinking over whether his actions look like he’s putting the public interest of all of Canadians first or his efforts to be part of this crisis,” May told HuffPost Canada from her home in Saanich–Gulf Islands Tuesday. “I don’t think Canadians will appreciate people [and] parties that try to seek partisan advantage right now.” May was responding to Scheer’s demand that the Liberal government, in return for the Tories’ support on postponing Monday’s scheduled return of all 338 MPs to Parliament, must agree to hold frequent in-person sittings of question period in the House of Commons. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent earlier this week, Scheer laid out his demand, saying that an agreement “must include regular opportunities for myself and other Opposition leaders to question you, as we would normally during Question Period. It must also include regular opportunities for all members of Parliament to question ministers in the House of Commons on all aspects of the government’s response to COVID-19.”

Continued in-person sittings have allowed Opposition parties to debate, discuss, question and ultimately improve the government’s legislation. They are an essential part of our democratic process and ensure better results for Canadians. My letter to the Prime Minister: pic.twitter.com/4VlK0wEPs6 — Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) April 14, 2020

To delay the return of Parliament, House leaders from all the recognized parties — those with 12 seats or more, the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and the NDP — must agree and inform the Speaker. May, whose Green Party holds only three seats, has no leverage in the negotiations. Scheer publicly argued Tuesday that sittings are important, that they are “an essential part of our democratic process,” and that they allow “opposition parties to debate, discuss, question, and ultimately improve the government’s response to this pandemic.” He pointed to two emergency sittings of the House, the last one on Saturday, when 32 MPs and the Speaker assembled to pass a wage-subsidy legislation, as a demonstration that MPs “can meet in a responsible manner while respecting public health advice.” Wednesday morning, during a press conference in Ottawa, Scheer reiterated that message, saying surely in a House built for 338 MPs, 40 members could operate while respecting social distancing guidelines. “Let me be clear, this is not about partisanship. This is about getting the best possible results for Canadians,” he said. But May disagrees. Even with a tenth of MPs in the chamber, she said the opposition lobby was so crowded Saturday, the 65-year-old avoided it because social distancing measures could not be respected. Watch: Scheer speaks about deadline for Parliament’s return

“I don’t understand where Andrew Scheer is coming from. I can’t understand why he wants to push physical meetings when we shouldn’t be having physical meetings,” she said. “Every time we convene Parliament, it imposes a risk on a lot of people, no matter how much we say we’re going to do social distancing.” Even with a smaller crew of MPs Saturday, approximately 40 staff were called to the West Block — extra security staff, cleaners, transcribers, interpreters, clerks, and broadcast technicians, plus, of course, political staff. During a pandemic, parliamentarians don’t need to meet in person to get the job done, May argued. “If we had a situation where the Liberals had essentially seized power, were unaccountable, didn’t answer our questions, and we had no venue for speaking about things that worried us, I would say we better get Parliament back in session because the Liberals are running roughshod over democracy. But that’s not what’s happening. We’re actually being consulted … MPs are engaged,” she said. “In terms of transparency, co-operation, sharing of information, working the way Parliament really should work, it’s working better with it closed, quite honestly,” she added, laughing.

Except for Easter, May noted, MPs and senators have been briefed every day and allowed to question government officials on the Liberals’ response to the coronavirus pandemic. A hole in the legislation that prevented churches in her riding, for example, from using the wage subsidy was fixed because of concerns she said she raised during one of those calls. “There is an openness to good ideas,” she said. “The fact that it is all hands on deck, it’s working in a very different way, but it is working.” “There’ll be time enough after,” she added,” to study “who knew what when,” and what the federal government has learned from the pandemic. May also noted that Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, is looking at ways to set up virtual sittings of Parliament. In an April 8 letter, Rota said he thought that could be established in about four weeks. The Commons’ procedure and house affairs committee is also meeting Thursday to discuss ways MPs can do their jobs — such as voting — from a distance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual sittings are not intended to be a permanent fixture or a way of allowing 338 members to participate at once, one official told HuffPost. And getting an agreement between the opposition parties may prove difficult.

Justin Tang/CP Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet rises in the House of Commons on April 11, 2020.