THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL ECONOMY, BUDGETS AND ADMINISTRATION
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 8:30 a.m., in public and in camera, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), for the consideration of financial and administrative matters.
Senator Sabi Marwah (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. My name is Sabi Marwah and I have the privilege of serving as Chair of this committee. I would ask each of the senators to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: Good morning. Éric Forest from the Gulf region of Quebec.
Senator Moncion: Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Quebec.
Senator Forest-Niesing: Josée Forest-Niesing from Ontario.
Senator Verner: Josée Verner from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Wetston: Howard Wetston, from Ontario.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas, from Alberta.
Senator Marshall: Elizabeth Marshall, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Plett: Don Plett, from Landmark, Manitoba.
Senator Frum: Linda Frum, Ontario.
Senator Dean: Tony Dean, Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you. The first item is the minutes from April 4, 2019. Are there any questions or changes?
Can I have a motion to adopt the minutes? Senator Plett, thank you. It is moved by Senator Plett to adopt the minutes. Agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
The next item is a report from the Subcommittee on Committee Budgets.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: Honourable senators, I have the honour of presenting the twenty-fifth report of the Subcommittee on Committee Budgets, which includes a recommendation for a committee budget.
I want to remind you that the committees have a $1,882,000 budget to fund travel activities in 2019-20. To date, $628,732 has been allocated for three travel activities. One committee is travelling this week, and the other two activities will take place in the next two weeks.
The subcommittee met earlier this week to review a supplementary budget request. The request was for a new budget to make it possible for a committee to hold public hearings in Canada. We met with the chair and the deputy chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. They presented a budget application that contained proposed expenditures of $153,750 for public hearings in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Edmonton, Alberta, over a period of two to three days in the week of April 29 to May 3, 2019.
This mission is related to the study of Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act. It concerns the oil tankers that travel along British Columbia’s north coast. This is a supplementary request, since the committee recently received an allocation of $136,640 to travel to British Columbia on the same order of reference. The trip is scheduled to take place next week. This supplementary budget includes a request for funds to enable 12 senators to travel. The committee is also requesting funds for three staff from the offices of the chair and the two deputy chairs of the committee.
The subcommittee would like to remind the committee that all senators can now have their staff travel with them by using their points, if they wish. However, the Senators’ Office Management Policy now allows committees to include the staff of chairs and deputy chairs in their committee budget requests.
The subcommittee stated previously that it would approve or deny the requests included in the budget requests on a case by case basis. Having carefully considered this specific request, the subcommittee feels that the interests of the committee will best be served by including the three staff in the budget. Based on this information, the subcommittee is recommending the release of $153,750 for the trip. This shows that a total of $782,482 has already been authorized to fund four travel activities, leaving $1,099,572 for the remainder of the fiscal year.
As in past years, the subcommittee notes that the committees’ actual expenditures are often about 40 per cent of their total budget request. We therefore anticipate that a significant amount will be returned to the main budget for the committees’ travel expenses well before the end of this fiscal year.
I recommend the adoption of the report, and I’m available to answer your questions. Thank you.
[English]
Senator Batters: Thank you very much for bringing this forward. I’m very glad to see this because, being a senator from Saskatchewan, I wanted to see both Saskatchewan and Alberta, which are so key in the oil industry, have the ability for us to hear from them face-to-face in those two provinces. I’m very glad that the committee has reconsidered and decided to add locations in both of those provinces, given the subject matter, because that’s where the oil comes from that goes on those tankers dealing with this bill.
I had one question, and I’m not sure, Senator Verner, if you’re able to answer this for me, because it might have been dealt with at the Transport Committee level as opposed to coming to you. I’m wondering if you have any information. I had understood at one point that Estevan, Saskatchewan was potentially also going to be a location that would be travelled to as well, because it’s a two-hour drive from Regina and it’s known as The Energy City. It’s kind of the oil town in Saskatchewan and a bit of a microcosm of Calgary. I’ve made statements about that particular location before. I lived there for a few years when I first start practising law and it’s a small city that’s been hit hard by the oil industry downturn and I thought it would be a perfect place to provide an illustration and hear from people who may not have otherwise been able to be heard from. I wondered if you had any information about that.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: In the request submitted to us, this visit wasn’t included in the official budget request. If some of the senators around the table sit on that committee, perhaps they could tell us whether the discussion took place in the committee, provided, of course, that the discussion wasn’t held in camera. However, according to the official documents, this visit wasn’t mentioned in the request submitted to us.
Senator Forest-Niesing: Thank you for your report.
I’d like to raise an internal management issue regarding air travel expenses. This expense constitutes the highest amount in the total budget and the largest share of the budget. I suspect that the higher fees for senators’ airline tickets are related to the requirement to purchase a ticket that allows for flexibility, given the need to make changes and the fact that this privilege often involves a higher cost. However, the amount makes me wonder about the real needs. I’m wondering whether we could achieve economies of scale by choosing a different category of airline tickets from the one recommended, while setting aside part of the budget to cover the additional costs if changes are required.
Senator Verner: I’ll answer based on the information that we’re provided each time we consider a budget. In the case of this specific request, it should first be noted that the people in charge can’t purchase airline tickets for the trip until the expense has been approved by the Internal Economy Committee. You and I both know that, in our personal lives or in our day-to-day lives, if we purchase an airline ticket two weeks or a week in advance, the price is very different than if we purchase a ticket three months in advance.
I don’t know whether the clerk has anything to add. However, I think that we must consider the fact that, not only do we need to purchase airline tickets that allow us the flexibility to make changes, but we must basically purchase the tickets at the last minute.
[English]
Senator Plett: Let me say I very much support the motion. It is imperative, as Senator Batters has already said, that we visit the areas that are most impacted by this horrific bill. That is indeed Alberta and Saskatchewan.
I’m on the Transport Committee. Very typically, by the time a trip goes ahead, not all senators go, and so there are typically savings there. As a matter of fact, we always need to include the entire committee because everyone has a right to go. As we get closer, typically not entire committees go; so there are savings.
Certainly, as Senator Verner has said, it’s impossible to buy an excursion ticket, if you will, that is non-refundable because we all have other schedules, and that could cost us more money and completely waste money. I very much support the way we’re doing it.
I want to make a brief comment. I don’t want to get into a huge debate here because we had that at Transport, and that was at least in the evening when we were done with our meetings after the debate. We don’t want to start our day off the same way that one ended.
But there was a lot of discussion around Estevan. As a matter of fact, we were led to believe at one point that steering had agreed that we would go to Estevan. I guess that wasn’t as ironcladly as we thought, and there was a motion made at the Transport Committee in public — so I think I can speak about it — that we only go to Regina and Edmonton. There was a lot of debate about why not go to Estevan, and there were comments like, “Well, Estevan is only two hours away; so the people from Estevan can come to Regina.” My argument was it was the same two hours for the committee to travel from Regina to Estevan as the fine folks of Estevan travelling to Regina. To me that was not a valid argument.
There was a decision made that if there were a lot of people from Estevan who wanted to testify, then we would increase our hearings in Regina by half a day or a day to accommodate those people. The fact of the matter is that may be sufficient. I don’t think we need to be in a town just for the sake of being in a town if there isn’t a specific reason.
I felt there was; the majority felt there wasn’t. There will be time allotted if there are enough witnesses from Estevan who want to go, the time in Regina will be extended.
Again, like I say, I was not supportive of that idea but the majority were; so at least we did compromise to that extent that they will be given a fair chance to come to Regina and testify there.
The Chair: If there are no other questions, it is moved by Senator Verner that the report be adopted. Is it agreed to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. Carried.
There is no other public business so we will go in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)