After a tumultuous 2020, did the House of Commons achieve a new normal this year?

The House of Commons has wrapped another year of activity, its second during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The chamber has been looking to find its feet after an at-times chaotic 2020, when it sat for a historically low number of days and was forced to innovate in the face of the pandemic.

To cope with the crisis in 2020, the House first suspended itself, then sat as a special COVID-19 committee, then finally settled on an evolving hybrid model, where some MPs are present physically and others participate online.

That format may be the new normal, even as the rise of the Omicron variant raises question marks about how politicians will go conduct business on the Hill. MPs voted in November to continue the hybrid model until at least June 2022, though just prior to the break the Liberals said they would further limit the number of MPs they had physically present in the House because of Omicron.

"I think what happened is in 2021, parliamentarians came to the realization that this was a reality," said Speaker of the House Anthony Rota in an interview with CBC News.

But it's not the same. When almost all members of parliament were back in the House at the beginning of the first session of this new Parliament — with some controversy over the institution's vaccine mandate — Rota said it brought renewed energy to the chamber.

"It was nice to see everyone come back," he said. "And no, we're not sure what's going on with the the Omicron variant, but it was nice to see so many people back in the House, being able to interact with each other and talking — and even shouting at times."

Rota has served as Speaker since 2019, and as MP for Nipissing—Timiskaming from 2004-2011 and again since 2015.

Overall, he said, the House has managed the pandemic situation in 2021 well.

"There have been some glitches, but people have handled them very well. And again, it hasn't been overly partisan. People have come together to make sure that democracy continues to do well in Canada," Rota said.

Technical glitches have been commonplace, especially early in the pandemic. More serious issues have also arisen, including stress and injury experienced by House of Commons interpreters, who provide the crucial service of simultaneous interpretation in French and English.

The House of Commons sat for 95 days in 2021, up from 86 days last year. That 2020 number was remarkable: the fewest days the House has sat since the Second World War, outside of an election year.

The tally this year may seem like only a marginal improvement, but it is actually higher than the average number of sitting days in election years in this century (just over 91), though still below the post-war average (106).

In contrast, non-election years since 2000 saw an average of 118 sitting days, and 141 in the post-war period.