Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Internal Economy,
Budgets and Administration
Issue 8 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 4, 1998
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 9:00 a.m.
Senator Bill Rompkey (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, Senator Stewart is with us this morning, and I would ask him to now proceed.
Senator John B. Stewart, Chairman, Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs: Honourable senators, there is nothing exciting about this proposal. We have a major reference, namely, Canada in the Asia-Pacific region. We presented an interim report in June of last year. We had hoped to conclude our work months ago, but all sorts of financial difficulties arose in certain Asian countries and those have had serious ramifications in those countries. There has been economic, social and political unrest. Ramifications have also been felt in Canada.
First, there has been an impact on our exports to that part of the world, particularly to Japan. The economy of British Columbia has been hit quite hard and to some extent Alberta. The impact will even be felt in Nova Scotia, the other end of the country, where the price for the snow crab is down and where fishermen are afraid that the price they will get for blue fin tuna will be very low. Ontario will also be affected, more indirectly than directly, because U.S. exports to some of these countries will be down, which, in turn, will affect the exports from Ontario's manufacturing industry to the United States.
The result has been that the committee has continued to work on that particular reference. Our report date is the end of October. We must now draw together a report. I expect that we will not spend the money that is being asked for here. In a sense, this is a precautionary measure.
You asked me, "What conferences?" My answer must be, "I do not know." It is in there against the possibility that there will be a relevant conference that we would want to ask one or more senators to attend, with the approval of both sides of the committee. Early this calendar year, there was a conference in Vancouver under our previous budget. Senator Carney, who had had an interest in the topic of that conference, which was relevant to the work of the committee, asked that she be sent to that conference, so we did that. I had no way of knowing that that request would arise; the same applies here. I do not know what conferences there might be or who in the committee might be a suitable representative at a conference. The agreement between myself and the vice-chairman, Senator Andreychuk, is that no one will be sent without such an agreement.
You know about the communication consultant. I wish to call your attention to Item No. 4, "Research and Drafting of Report." We have had a student working with the committee. We would like to continue to employ her during the summer, for the preparation of the report. Other than that, I suspect that almost all this money will not be spent.
The Chairman: With regard to the communications consultant, in previous committee meetings we have noted that everyone must include an item for communications in their budget. Where committees have not done that, we have asked them to go back and redraw their budgets to include that item.
In addition to including the notion and the amount, it is important that committees make a special effort to engage in communications on what they do. We have discovered that, for example, only 50 per cent of the available space to us on CPAC was taken up. We have not been using the mechanisms available to us for communicating what the Senate does, and it is good work. We keep saying that the jewel of the Senate is its committee work. The Foreign Affairs Committee is eminent proof of that. It is important that, in addition to hiring the communications consultant, we actually have a plan for communications.
Senator Di Nino: In his committee, Senator Stewart has a habit of reminding witnesses that "nods" are not taken down for the record. So for clarity purposes, could you put on the record the numbers that we are talking about? That is an important component of your report. Since this is a public meeting, they would not have been recorded otherwise. That is the only comment that I have.
Senator Stewart: Certainly. The "communication consultant" line is $3,000. We have included a provision for $600 for a couple of working meals. As well, we have included an $800 provision for participation at conferences. And the last item there is $5,000 for research and drafting of the report. That totals $9,400.
Under "Transportation and Communications," we have air transportation for someone going to conferences, $5,000; ground transportation, $200; per diems $600; hotel accommodation, $1,000; and contingencies, $500, for a "Transportation and Communications" total of $7,300. Under "All Other Expenditures, there is a provision for $500 for courier services. The grand total is $17,200.
I wish to respond to the chairman's comments on communications. Our previous main reference related to Canada and the European Union and what is happening there. We did use the services of a consultant in that connection. I was a bit disappointed by the Canadian media. Perhaps "disappointed" is not the right word. I was unhappy but I was not surprised.
What has interested me most has been what I have heard from representatives of foreign countries. I was told just within the week that this report attracted a great deal of attention in the European diplomatic community. They said that Canada is interested in what is happening in Europe. They, in turn, reported that to their home governments, and the home governments then said that they should give more attention to Canada. That was a curious byproduct, one that I certainly never anticipated.
One of the consequences has been -- and again this is something I did not anticipate -- that many of the countries seeking admission into the European Union and into NATO now want to talk with me. They come in and tell me how desirable it is that Canada support their admission into NATO and that we do all we can to say that they would be good members of the European Union. I would never have anticipated that this report would have had those remote consequences. They are important consequences, but I would have thought them as quite remote.
I do not know what will happen with the report on the Asia-Pacific region. The big problem there is the fact that billions of dollars have sloshed into certain countries in Asia. Expectations have been heightened. Buildings have been built, and then, lo and behold, the money is pulled out. There is real economic trouble. There is social trouble and political trouble in some of these countries, as I mentioned.
Mr. Martin has talked about the possibility of some sort of mechanism to regulate the financial institutions in countries that hope to be eligible for IMF assistance when they get into trouble. How much we can do in our report on that I do not know at this point, but if we do get into that, I think the report shall attract a great deal of attention. It may be controversial, and that would mean that it would be news.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Each time we consider a request for funds for committees, we ask that at least $3,000 or $4,000 be earmarked for communications. We recently approved a policy change. Up to $4,000 can now be transferred from one item to another. However, should it not be our policy that funds earmarked for communications be strictly reserved for that purpose, and therefore non-transferable?
[English]
The Chairman: That is a good point. We did agree to move that we should really protect the communications portion of committee budgets. Is there a consensus around the table on that?
Senator Forrestall: Almost. Some say yes.
Money does not seem to be solving our problem. The moneys that I have spent trying to attract public attention to the work we are doing failed, and they failed in this respect. I can show you full-page articles on transportation safety written in Japanese of the work that the Canadian subcommittee is doing from 20 different countries around the world, but you would be hard pressed to find a paragraph in any Canadian paper. There have been one or two articles in some trade journals where we talk about sterility in airports.
At some point, I will be getting ready to ask our Director of Communications to do an analysis for us because we are up against the wall. I do not think that I have seen half a dozen stories. That is what we are after. We are out to publicize the work we are doing.
The Chairman: That is a point we have taken. It is a wider issue, and we will discuss communications at some length later on.
Senator Forrestall: I do not think we should do it in perpetuity, but for the balance of Parliament, that is fine. We should revisit it in three or four years' time.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the communications portion of the budget be protected?
Senator Di Nino: I do not agree.
Senator Maheu: It is difficult to judge what we are trying to do with our communications budgets. We have just started. I do not think any committee has had a chance to really move on communications. I think we should at least give it a chance and let it roll. If we find at the end of this Parliament it has not worked, we will look at it again.
Senator Di Nino: Senator Robichaud, I fully agree with the principle of you what you are saying. It has been drummed into the heads of all the committee chairs each time they meet, but I think we should respect them for being intelligent enough people to understand and use their own good judgment and the judgment of the committee members on how they wish to deal with the funds we give to them. To give and take back a little bit, I do not think that brings in the flexibility considered in this particular document we passed.
I say that we should leave it alone. We will be talking about communications on a regular basis. If we find that it is a problem, then we will deal with it. Otherwise, give credit to the Chair and to committee members. Give them flexibility by passing this motion.
This is not a major component of any budget. We are only talking about an extra $3,000. If we find that sum insufficient to do the job it should do, then we can revisit it. This is why I think we should not do it now.
Senator Poulin: On a point of order, this is such an important discussion that I feel that we are being unfair to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who is waiting for us to discuss his budget. Someone informed me that we would be discussing communications next week. Perhaps we could discuss that issue as a whole later and get back to our discussion with Senator Stewart.
The Chairman: Yes, we will have a discussion on communications later.
Senator DeWare: Senator Stewart, I am not familiar with all the work of your committee, but I have the impression from listening to you this morning that you are not happy with your communications consultant. Would it be possible for to you change that person?
Senator Stewart: No. I said I was disappointed, and then I withdrew that word. The reason I withdrew it was that I had not anticipated that there would be a great interest in our media in that particular report.
I have watched the reporting of Parliament deteriorate for most of my life. I have come to the conclusion that if there is a shouting match in the other place it is news. Perhaps if we had a good shouting match in the Senate it would be news, but we are short on shouting matches.
There is very little substantive reporting in most of our main-line newspapers in Canada. I am not disappointed. I am saddened, but not disappointed. I did not expect any better.
Senator DeWare: They just do not feel that it is newsworthy.
Senator Stewart: They do not think the subject is newsworthy. I do not think if it were a House of Commons committee dealing with exactly the same material that the media reaction would have been much different.
Senator Stollery: Chairman, I certainly would approve Senator Stewart's budget, as I am a member of the committee.
I did want to correct something about committees and their publicity problems. Actually, there have been several big successes, and let us not forget that. Senator Kirby's Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce received press all across the country. I do not recall what they were doing, but they certainly got a lot of press out of it. The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry received a lot of press. Senator Kenny's tobacco bill has had an enormous amount of press. I am not making any criticisms, but let us not leave ourselves with the idea that there have not been successes to which we might give further consideration, to determine why they were successes.
As Senator Poulin says, this is a subject for another discussion, but I did not want to let this pass without saying that there have been some spectacular successes.
Senator Callbeck: Mr. Chairman, I agree that this is a topic on which we need a full session. I am wondering, Senator Stewart, what your communications consultant does. Is a press release issued for meetings when you have various witnesses? Is it just for reports?
Senator Stewart: It is primarily on the report. I might even say it is exclusively on the report. The consultant examines the report and prepares a release, one release or more. That release comes back, and we scrutinize it to ensure that it is accurate because we are dealing in fairly complicated material, which is internationally sensitive in some cases. I read the releases on our interim report word by word. Certainly, in this instance, if we get into any comment on the action of the IMF in Indonesia, it must be read very carefully to ensure that we do not produce a reaction that might be counter-productive.
Senator Callbeck: I realize that from being on the Banking Committee. In other words, it is really just the report on which there is communication.
Senator Stewart: I think that is a fair statement.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: When the agriculture committee recently held a series of public hearings in Western Canada, we truly got value for our money, and then some. Communications were handled very well. It was worth the cost in this instance.
[English]
Senator Poulin: I would commend Senator Stewart and his committee. They are touching upon an extremely important issue, one that The Globe and Mail covers daily. The work that committee is doing is a true example to Canadians of the value-added, because of the experience the committee brings together and its capacity to analyze, so we can look forward, as a country, to the committee report. Therefore, I recommend the approval of the budget.
The Chairman: It is recommended. Is it so approved?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Thank you.
The committee continued in camera.