Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 6 - Evidence - Meeting of September 26, 2006
OTTAWA, Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 7:13 p.m. in camera to study the present state and future of agriculture and forestry in Canada.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The committee continued in public.
The Chairman: We have two budgets; one that is small and one that is big.
Senator Segal: I would be glad to move adoption of the small budget for $8,300.
The Chairman: Is that agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: There is also the big budget in the amount of $465,745.
Rural poverty is a big issue and we will be putting in a big effort. There is no way we will get away with conducting this study halfway. All summer the staff has been working at determining the best and most frugal way we can do it. We have been talking tonight about what kind of study we are doing and, in the end, what kind of report we want. I have heard that we want to go to the places in Canada where this issue is alive and there are people who are part of the issue themselves so that we can hear and learn from them.
Much work has been done on the question of where we should go, and I want the clerk of the committee to go through this proposal with us. Being a Scot, I have asked staff to keep the expense down as much as possible because it will be a big sum.
Ms. Richardson, would you take us through how you have arrived at these conclusions?
Jessica Richardson, Clerk of the Committee: Certainly. First, I prepared these figures based on instructions I received from the steering committee. The draft budget is based on the places that were included in the suggested work plan from the analyst. We are looking at travelling to Prince George, B.C., and Lethbridge. In every place that we go, I am renting chartered buses to get us to the small communities that are close to these regional hubs. The idea is not to stay in Prince George. We may do a morning of public hearings there and then get out to do some fact finding. Those details have not been worked out, but I built the budget around that idea for every venue in Canada. We will charter a bus to get us to these small places, depending on where we decide to do public hearings. The draft budget is also based on the idea that we want to have some public hearings and some fact finding in every province.
I priced both entirely commercial flights and partially commercial, partially charter. Because we are travelling to rural areas of Canada, it does not work logistically to use commercial flights the entire way. For example, travelling from Prince George to Lethbridge would waste over seven hours in travel time because we would have to fly from Prince George to Vancouver to Calgary to Lethbridge. On a chartered aircraft, it will take us about two and a half hours.
I priced the travel in Western Canada, including Dauphin, Manitoba. Because Dauphin is more than a four-hour drive from Winnipeg, I have included chartering all the way back to Winnipeg on the Friday afternoon to get people home. That leg can be cheaper if we choose a place in Manitoba that is within a couple of hours of Winnipeg. In that way, we could be done with the charter on the Thursday and get back to Winnipeg by ground transportation. That could save us about $10,000.
We will probably also be able to save money by chartering smaller planes once we know the final number of people who will participate in the trip. However, I had to budget assuming that every committee member would come on these trips.
In the East, even if all members participate, we will save about $20,000 by chartering flights rather than using commercial flights, having priced, in the way that we do, full fare economy for staff and business class for senators where available. There is a balancing out between the East and West trips.
In Ontario and Quebec, it is not possible to travel by ground transportation to the areas suggested in the budget because it would simply take too much time, so I factored in some charter flights. I was trying to be frugal while balancing time efficiencies. I did not want to waste the committee's time with enormous travel times just to save a few thousand dollars here or there. That was the logic I used to come up with these figures.
I can take you through each specific item, if you like.
Senator Segal: I have a few generic questions. The core problem is that we are studying poverty and spending a lot of taxpayers' money to do so. We all know where that leads in the hands of a newspaper editorialist or local weekly, et cetera, that will want to know. It strikes me that senators' accommodation at $175 a night is pretty pricey in some parts of Canada. I have paid $75 and $80 and no one died.
Ms. Richardson: I will be looking for costs that will keep the budget down as much as possible. I did not want to leave us short in case we ended up in a town when the rates are higher due to a convention. Most clerks generally budget $200 per night to include the local taxes that we cannot get back and other things. I bumped that amount down. I can bump it down a bit further. In planning this trip, I have always keep that in mind because that is the instruction from the steering committee.
Senator Segal: I am the newest senator at the table, so I may not understand fully. I am glad that Senator Kenny is here because if there is one tiny piece of this I misunderstand, he will correct me.
There is a per diem when any one of us is on Her Majesty's business, whether we are in rural New Brunswick or at our desk here. Why would there be an added per diem charged to this committee because we are doing Her Majesty's business elsewhere? We all file for per diems under our existing Senate budgetary arrangements. Why is that added to the committee's budget? Am I missing something fundamental?
Ms. Richardson: It is my understanding that when you are travelling the committee pays the per diems and not your office budget. However, I am a relatively new clerk.
Senator Tkachuk: It is part of our travel budget. For those of us who travel all the way from Saskatoon, for example, it is enough of an issue to deal with our travel budget in the press just for coming to Ottawa let alone travelling on committee business.
Ms. Richardson: My understanding is that when a senator is on committee travel, the committee pays.
Also, there are no lunches included because I am planning every single lunch as a working meal; so, you will not be paid a per diem for lunches. I also planned for three dinner working meals, so you are not paid for every dinner.
Senator Segal: With 11 travelling senators and eight staff —
Ms. Richardson: That is the membership of the committee.
Senator Segal: — that is better coverage than a kindergarten class.
Ms. Richardson: That is because when doing public hearings we have to travel with three interpreters. We also usually travel with one stenographer because you cannot find French stenographers in most provinces, and we hire English stenographers locally. When travelling in Canada, it is normal for the clerk to bring along an assistant because when holding public hearings we need someone who can take care of things outside the room during the meetings when we have to be at the committee table. We have also budgeted for two analysts. That accounts for the eight staff, which may seem excessive, but half are required under the Official Languages Act.
Senator Kenny: Since the ``Honourable Hugh'' is egging me on — I am an easy egg — just as our clerk has described, the Defence Committee budgets for the full committee, but we buy cheap tickets.
Senator Oliver: How does your committee do that?
Senator Kenny: You can budget however you want, but we buy the no-refund, bottom-line economy tickets, and we find it is a good bet. Our assumption is that if we fail one time in five and do not use the tickets because there is no refund, it is a good bet. We are still dollars ahead. When you see how cheap some of the seat sales are, it is remarkable how much money you can save. We still budget the full amount and then return the remaining money. You get some grief in the chamber for the budget you put in, but at the end of the day you will not spend all the money and Her Majesty will do quite well.
Senator Segal: When I had to take the budget of the Foreign Affairs Committee to the chamber, I was able to report accurately that my predecessor and predecessor members of the committee had a budget of X but came in at substantially less, for reasons of good management, et cetera.
Senator Kenny: Precisely.
Senator Segal: Are you saying that if we take this as a worst case number, we could say with some confidence that we may be able to come in at perhaps 20 to 25 per cent less?
Senator Kenny: Yes. That is consistently the case with committee budgets right across the board, even without using cheap flights.
Senator Tkachuk: You rarely ever have a full contingent.
Senator Segal: I defer to everyone who has been through this process many more times than I.
Ms. Richardson: We have budgeted to start and end each trip with commercial flights and most travel in between will be done by charter. I will hold off on actually booking until I know how many senators will travel. I do not want to charter a bigger plane than is required. I think we will be able to save quite a bit of money there. However, like Senator Kenny, I budgeted for the full committee and we need the bus to take 19 of us around with our luggage.
Senator Oliver: We do not want to come back halfway through the study and ask for supplementary funding.
Ms. Richardson: Exactly. I definitely tried to keep in mind the desire to be frugal, but I did not want to leave the committee short. It is a real balancing act.
The Chairman: If we are all satisfied with that explanation, can I have a motion to adopt this proposal?
Senator Mahovlich: I so move.
The Chairman: Is that agreed by all?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Ms. Richardson: I have one minor point. Because the charter flight in the West will probably be above the $35,000 mark, even with the savings I expect to be able to achieve, if the committee decides to do so it will need a sole-source exemption. I have discussed this matter with staff in Materiel Management.
Senator Segal: Why can we not have different suppliers bid?
Ms. Richardson: I talked with my boss, Heather Lank, about doing it that way. The reason is the time frame. If we do competitive sourcing, we would have to do it for the large plane to take 11 members and eight staff. Materiel Management explained that this could lock us into a contract for a much bigger plane than we need, whereas if we wait to book with a shorter time frame, there would not be enough time to do the competitive sourcing. We will probably end up saving money. It is for the committee to decide how it wishes to proceed.
Senator Oliver: I must be getting tired, but I do not follow how we can be locked into a bigger plane. What am I missing?
Ms. Richardson: If we put this out for tender and the tender is accepted, we would have to tender for a large enough plane to transport all 11 members and eight staff. If one month or a few weeks ahead we know that only five or six senators are travelling, we would have been able to use a smaller plane.
Senator Oliver: I understand.
Ms. Richardson: A tender would lock us into using the larger plane. It is up to the committee how it would like to proceed on this issue.
Senator Tkachuk: I would like references on those sole-source bidders so I know whether I have to pray before I get on the planes. The good news is, senators, we have a very cheap plane.
Ms. Richardson: We would definitely use reputable firms. I have discussed this issue with people who are much more experienced than I, and they thought the better way to proceed was to ask for the sole-source exemption so that we could book a smaller plane later because we will probably not need a big plane for these trips.
The Chairman: Is there agreement?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The committee adjourned.