There was a new voice in the B.C. legislature yesterday (March 8). A very new voice, in fact. Dev Juno Chandra Herbert only turned one year old last month.

He was in Victoria was his father, Spencer Chandra Herbert, who’s the NDP MLA representing Vancouver-West End.

Chandra Herbert brought his son to the legislature to illustrate a change in chamber rules that now allows MLAs to sit with children two years old and younger.

“MLA's voted to change the rules to make the Legislature more friendly for MLA's with babies today,” Chandra Herbert wrote on Facebook alongside the photo above. “Infants under two in the care of their parent are now welcome on the floor and committee rooms of the legislature, but not when an MLA is chairing as I later learned. Thank you to MLA Linda Reid for her work on these issues over the years, and MLA Michelle Mungall for her work on this too.”

As he alluded there, Chandra Herbert is far from the first MLA to have to consider childcare alongside the responsibilities of public office.

Former premier Christy Clark gave birth while she was a cabinet minister in the government of Gordon Campbell. Reid has had two children while working as a Liberal MLA. And Mungall, the current Minister of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, is expected to give birth this summer.

https://twitter.com/BCLegislature/status/971825483737264128

Mungall is quoted in a report by Global News describing the change in regulations as a win for new parents.

“I wanted to make sure the standing orders would reflect that parents sometimes would need to bring their children onto the floor of the legislature,” she said. “I immediately thought, ‘If I was nursing and the bells rang for a vote, what would I do if I couldn’t pass my child off?’ I have to be in the legislature so I can be sure my constituents’ vote is recorded.'”