Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates
Issue No. 1 - Evidence - May 4, 2016 - Afternoon meeting
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 4, 2016
The Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), met this day at 12:45 p.m. for the consideration of administrative and financial matters.
Senator David M. Wells (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to our second meeting of the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates in this Forty-second Parliament. Colleagues, we're in a different room today, as you know; and this evening we'll be in Room 172-E. It's a difficult time of year and obviously a difficult time of the week to secure a regular room for the duration of our subcommittee.
It has been a busy committee week. I thought yesterday's meeting went very well with Senator Cowan. Today, I would like to welcome Senator Carignan to our subcommittee. For his information and for the information of the listening public, as part of our study we are looking at the structure of the offices of the opposition leader and the government leaders. Senator Carignan has the experience of both Leader of the Government in the Senate and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
Senator Carignan, we will have some questions for you but before that, I'll ask Pascale Legault, our CFO, to clarify a few points that were brought up in yesterday's meeting related to some of the financial allocations.
Pascale Legault, Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Procurement Directorate, Senate of Canada: Just to put the budget information before the discussion, the current opposition has access to four different envelopes. The Leader of the Opposition has access to $600,000 on an annual basis. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has access to $75,000. The whip of the opposition has an office budget of $100,000. Caucus funds for the Conservatives are $500,000. All together, they represent $1, 275,000. This amount is over and above any senator office and research budgets. This is a result of the decision made in January.
The Chair: It's not related to caucus size. It's just for the opposition office.
Ms. Legault: It is related to the number because we have more than 20 members. If the opposition caucus had more than 20 members, it would be less than this funding.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Jaffer: Sorry, I did not understand that.
The Chair: Yes, of course.
Senator Jaffer: I did not understand the 20-member part.
Ms. Legault: I'll just go back to SARs section 504, Government and Opposition Caucus Budget. If they have more than 20 members, it's $500,000 per year. If they have 11 to 20 members, it's $300,000. If they have 5 to 10 members, it's $100,000.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
The Chair: I believe a number related to what independent senators get now was discussed yesterday as $7,800 per year. The number is actually —
Ms. Legault: It is $7,000 per independent senator.
The Chair: Is Senator Harder, as an independent senator, entitled to that as well?
Ms. Legault: Yes.
The Chair: Senator Carignan, the floor is yours if you would like to make an opening statement, after which we'll have questions.
[Translation]
The Honourable Claude Carignan, Conservative Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate: Thank you for welcoming me today as part of this committee study on Senate officers. This is the first time that I am giving a presentation to a Senate committee. So, if you have questions of any kind, do not hesitate to ask me. As a short introduction, please know that it is important for us — and when I say "us'', I am speaking of the opposition — to ensure that the members of our group are supported.
We principally use our budget for services to caucus members, like coordination, support, and relations, given that part of our staff does liaison duties with the other side, such as the study of amendments or of policy positions taken by the other side, in order to better understand the differences that may exist. There is a great deal of dialogue and coordination between our members, both with regard to policy and with regard to speeches and communications. Many of our staff members work in the area of coordination and support to members with regard to research or common studies of legislative summaries, et cetera.
All of my resources are part of the same overall budget. The Leader of the Opposition receives $600,000, the caucus receives $500,000, and I also have a senator's budget of $185,000 or $187,000. For me, all these resources are placed together. For example, my administrative assistant can access both resources for caucus and resources for the administration of my office. I also have a policy advisor who is paid out of my budget of $185,000 or $187,000, and who works both for caucus and for my senator's office, and assists me in my role as Leader of the Opposition. Sometimes there is a division of labour, but from an administrative point of view, I would not be able to tell you exactly how that works. You know better than I which budget is administratively linked to the salary of which individual. For us, in practical terms, we use the various moneys indiscriminately to optimize our resources in performing our duties. That is basically the way it works for us.
For us, as the opposition, it is important to create policies and to take positions independent of what is done on the other side and independent of the government. I was formerly Leader of the Government in the Senate and I have experienced the difference between being in government and being in opposition. In government, we receive significant support from ministers' offices, whether by way of arguments, policy explanations, or briefings on bills. Ministers want their bills to be adopted and they provide significant support to the office of the government leader and to the various sponsors of bills.
All these resources come from the government, and they are very important to the workings of the office the government leader, but the opposition does not have that support. We thus need to develop our own support, and we have more independence in going about that. For this reason, the Leader of the Opposition needs significant resources to create their own policies.
Moreover, even though we are part of the same caucus, the House of Commons caucus, the independence of the Senate and of senators is very important to us. We do talk about policy, but we have our own research system because sometimes, our interests are not the same. Even though we are members of the same group, our points of views are not necessarily identical. We want to be able to create our own arguments and our own positions when they differ from those put forward by the other party.
For us, the independent budgets of the Senate are very important. If you recall, that is why the opposition budgets, in 2013-2014 I believe, were increased for 2014-2015. When I became government leader, we changed our budget system. There was a sum of about $500,000 from the Privy Council Office which was made available to the government leader's office. When that was done away with, my office asked the Senate for an additional amount of about $500,000. There was a further sum for the opposition leader — Senator Cowan at the time — so that the opposition could research its own positions. This allowed the Senate to become more independent even before Mr. Trudeau decided to separate the House of Commons and the Senate.
So, by the time I arrived as Leader of the Government, we had already adopted this independent approach to developing our policies. That is all for the short introduction I wanted to give you, but I am certain you will have questions to ask me, and I will answer them with pleasure.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much, Senator Carignan.
[Translation]
Senator Jaffer: Welcome, Senator Carignan; we are pleased to have you here today.
[English]
I just wanted clarification from you. From what I understood from the SARs, you get $500,000 because of the number of members you have in your caucus, plus you're getting another $100,000. Do you remember why the extra? You may have said it and I may have missed it. Why was $600,000 allocated to you?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Six hundred thousand dollars is allocated to the Leader of the Opposition's office and $500,000 is allocated to caucus. Those are two distinct envelopes. We recently changed that practice. You may recall that previously, there was a bit less money allocated to caucus and that most of it was allocated to the leader. However, that distribution did not correspond to reality. When I was appointed Leader of the Opposition, the distribution was $600,000 to the leader and $500,000 to caucus, whereas previously, only $242,000 was allocated to caucus, which was unrealistic. In reality, a great deal more energy was expended supporting caucus and therefore, we rebalanced the distribution. The amounts did not change, but we allocated the funds differently, because $500,000 better reflected the work being done to support caucus members.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: I haven't had an opportunity to ask you these questions. Some of the things came up yesterday. One of the challenges that we face is we, at the moment, have two caucuses and then we will have the independents, the leader's caucus. As well, we don't know, but there could be four or five formal or informal caucuses. They could all make a demand to get funds, and it may be very legitimate. I'm not talking about the validity of it. The challenge for us as senators will be how to allocate to all and be fair with everybody.
One of the things I am struggling with, and I would very much appreciate your opinion on it, is that although the Prime Minister has said that there is an independent leader in the Senate that represents him, I could be wrong but I don't think the law has been passed to recognize this new concept.
I feel a little uneasy working with a group that has not been legitimized. I know this is all a work in progress, but I want to know your view on how we should proceed with situations that are not yet clear.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: What is clear to me is the official opposition. An essential element of the way the British parliamentary system functions is the role played by the official opposition of holding the government to account, asking questions and publicly raising potential issues with government positions. This creates a considerable need for resources, no matter how many people make up the caucus. In order to properly play a role within the official opposition, we need a budget. Furthermore, at the House of Lords, a statute — whose title escapes me — was adopted in 2001-2002 in order to recognize the importance of the role played by the official opposition, to which a budget was then allocated.
With respect to the government, the Prime Minister has named a representative as Leader of the Government, whose title has changed. Yesterday, they announced the appointment of two new people whose positions and titles remain nebulous. It appears those persons will perform functions similar to those of the deputy leader or whip. They will be tasked with moving government legislation through the Senate. I believe they have made certain budgetary requests. In my opinion, the Senate must have a government representative in order to answer questions and support the government's agenda.
We hold the government accountable by asking it questions, which must be answered by the Leader of the Government. If there is no Leader of the Government, there is no one to hold accountable as a representative of the government, which may lead to certain problems. In my opinion, the notion of independence around the role of the Leader of the Government seems somewhat contradictory.
As Leader of the Opposition, I am satisfied by this decision so long as the Leader of the Government commits himself to answering questions on behalf of the government. The rest is just routine for them.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: As a matter of interest, I understand that Senator Harder has said that he would like to have nine employees. I know you mentioned some but I wasn't counting. How many employees did you have when you were the leader, and how many do you have now?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: The exact number of people — I thought that I had this information.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: You can get it later.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: I do not have the exact number with me, but I could send it to you later. It is important to point out that the caucus has resources and that other resources are allocated to me as Leader of the Opposition. The sums before you reflect the reality. The $600,000 budget more or less corresponds of the resources allocated to me as Leader of the Opposition, and a $500,000 envelope is allocated for caucus coordination and members' support. My staff is composed of a chief of staff, a communications officer, a question period assistant and a parliamentary business director. And so these are essential resources, but some of their duties are linked to the caucus.
Simply said, the $600,000 envelope represents the reality. When I was Leader of the Government, I received a similar budget. The rest of the credits were for coordinating my team but mostly for caucus. This is a question of choice. We can decide not to hire staff by contracting out the work to be done. It is difficult to give you a number. We make our choices based on our needs. What counts is having a budget that allows us to make these choices. We can decide to abolish a position to focus more on research, polls, constitutional law, or communications. The most important factor is having a budget that allows us to make judicious decisions and fulfil our role as leader.
[English]
The Chair: Senator Carignan, to Senator Jaffer's last question on the complement of employees you have in your office, I assume that includes staff paid under your senator's office budget of $185,000 or something like that. Do you make any separation? Do you have an executive assistant for your responsibilities as a Quebec senator and an executive assistant for your responsibilities as Leader of the Opposition?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: No. To be efficient, the tasks must not be separated. For example, the administrative assistant will not be asked to strictly adhere to that role and not deal with calls coming from the media or my constituents. Tasks are not separated, they form a whole. That is how we manage our office. For example, as Leader of the Government, I had to prepare my answers for question period with the help of someone working full time. All of the senators have staff available to help them prepare for question period. It is also necessary to be able to count on staff responsible for coordination. Currently, I have a part-time staffer responsible for coordinating a question period team. This person also offers support to members of the team. We try to make judicious choices while staying within our budgetary envelope, respecting Canadian citizens and trying to be efficient.
[English]
The Chair: The current opposition whip maintains two offices: his whip office and his Senate office. You have been in the unique positions of Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. In those positions, did you also maintain a separate senator's office? When you were named to any of these positions, did you relinquish that and have the consolidated amount?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: No, everything is grouped together. For example, the position of deputy leader comes with a deputy leader's budget. Because of the additional workload associated with the Rules, we need additional resources, particularly when it comes to the Rules and preparing the orders of the day. The deputy leader's role is to go and get independent senators' support during votes, specifically within the government. The whip seeks to obtain votes, just as the deputy leader does. We also have an expert for interpretation of the Rules. When unanimous consent is needed, independent senators' support must be obtained. The deputy leader must ensure that the independent or unaffiliated senators give their support. Therefore, the deputy leader is responsible for coordinating with unaffiliated senators. Thanks to those additional resources, I was able to get my work done efficiently. I do not know if I have answered your question in full. Would you like me to provide more details?
[English]
The Chair: Yes, it gives me a better understanding of the structure.
As Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, what resources did you have from the House of Commons side or from the party structure to help you with Question Period or policy development, as Leader of the Opposition and as Leader of the Government in the Senate?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: For the Leader of the Government, it is completely different. In terms of support for bills, the list of potential witnesses, the availability of the minister, and technical briefings with public servants, all of this comes from the government and does not require office resources, unless, obviously, when it is the director of parliamentary affairs, who liaises with the various ministers' offices to obtain this information, and these technical briefings from public servants.
With respect to question period, normally, the government meets prior to each question period, and all ministers are present. I attended these meetings most of the time. We examined the issues of the day, the questions likely to be asked, and we discussed the various viewpoints to answer questions.
I also had a staff member who was assigned to question period, who liaised with ministers' offices to find out the various questions likely to be asked about their department and the answers that they would like to propose for a host of questions. Therefore, this required a great deal of logistical work, but normally, the Leader of the Government must designate one person who is assigned solely to the coordination and the preparation of question period.
You spoke about support from the government; broadly speaking, everything relating to support for the content of question period came from the government, as did anything related to the content of bills and briefings. In the end, my office needed two individuals for these tasks: one director of parliamentary affairs who liaised with ministers' offices, and one individual assigned to question period, who liaised with the various ministers in order to send me the information and follow up on responses.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: I'd just like your thoughts on a couple of things, Senator Carignan. We do have a formula to fund the government that exists presently in the Senate. We have Rules that say the governing party, which has to be five members or more and have a name of some sort, will receive this much money because they're the governing party.
Now, the principle of independence is what they're talking about, but the principle of independence of a party is different from being independent and also a member of a caucus. They're not separate and apart. They're symbiotic, if we think about it.
What the Prime Minister wants, without him knowing it, is an American Senate, where there are cross votes. That's what he's thinking of. He didn't know how to phrase it and implement it. I don't think you can implement it because we have a different system of responsibilities. They go to the people; we respond to the people who appointed us.
The allocation of funds should be easy. Senator Harder should be able to find five people in all of that caucus or all of those independents and Liberal members who will become a member of a party under the Elections Act, and that would give him automatic funding. We wouldn't be having these meetings. The reason we're having these meetings is we're solving a problem that he and the Prime Minister have created. We don't have a problem. We have the Rules; we have the funding; we have the budget, so to speak.
If he can't find five people to support him and get a party name, he has more problems than I think he has, but I don't think he has a problem doing that. Then the funding would be there, and we'll see what happens. I think that's what we should do. I'm sitting here wasting my time talking about an issue that we have fully resolved.
The onus is on Mr. Harder to solve the problem, not on me to solve his problem. He wants me to solve his problem. I don't have to solve his problem. We're a member of the opposition.
Senator Carignan: It was a question?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, I want to know what you think. I want to have a little debate, Senator Carignan, like we have in caucus all the time, by the way. If you agree with me, we're done.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: If I look at what goes on on the other side of the Atlantic, in the House of Lords, for instance, the government funds the office and resources of the Leader of the Government. So everything I said earlier with regard to what is included is there, of course, but in addition to that, the staff working for the Leader of the Government in the House of Lords is also funded by the government. It is part of the government's envelope, and it is the government which is responsible for those costs.
Here in the Senate, we have traditionally decided on the amount for the Leader of the Government. In my case, if I did not have to manage the caucus, if I only had duties as a leader in the Senate, be it as Leader of the Government or of the opposition, and if I had $500,000 or $600,000 in my budget, I would be able to do the work, either as Leader of the Government or Leader of the Opposition.
Most of the resources are spent on coordinating the content and research, and on aligning people and communication. If you want communication to be consistent, that requires coordination, and the same applies to content. You have to make a choice and decide whether the government will fund all of the Leader of the Government's activities, or whether the Senate shoulders those expenses. It is up to the Senate to decide. I personally have a voice in this.
[English]
Senator Campbell: Senator Tkachuk is on a roll the past couple of days. It's refreshing to see. It must be spring.
Here is where I see this: We're actually dealing with the future, not the present and not the past. If this were fully resolved, none of us would be here, so clearly it's not fully resolved. We're ahead of the Rules, quite frankly. We're going into an area where the Rules don't apply. I shouldn't say that. They do apply, but they're rapidly becoming antiquated.
The Rules will be changed, make no mistake. Like most of us, I have some idea of mathematics, and I can count numbers. Since I'm from British Columbia, I can look into the future, and I see an overwhelming number of people coming who will be, at least title-wise, neither Liberal nor Conservative.
My whole point on this at the committee and now is to simply bring a little bit of fairness to play. We have a person who has been appointed leader. You can call it whatever. I call it leader, deputy leader and whip. That's what I'm familiar with. We have somebody who has been appointed Leader of the Government in a manner that's not something we recognize. It's not something we've ever seen here or have ever had to deal with.
My whole point in this was not in particular to support Senator Harder. It was to support the idea that he is the Leader of the Government, in whatever name they want to call it. That's why I asked that it be increased to $400,000.
Interestingly, the Leader of the Opposition says that with $500,000 to $600,000 a year, you would have been able to do a sufficient job. You wouldn't have extra but enough to do a sufficient job.
That's the point I'm trying to make and why I asked this to take place, because we can't ignore it. We can't say, "Oh, go find five buddies and form the Rhino party or some other party that is recognized.'' That would defeat the whole purpose of what the government is doing. Whether we like what they're doing or not, they are the government that was elected with a majority by the people. It's not like it was a secret that the government was not going to appoint Liberal senators and that they were going to appoint independents.
We're grateful for all of your insights, and they're well taken, but the $500,000 to $600,000 stood out for me. We'll have to hear from the other leaders and continue the debate as it's not fully resolved.
I don't especially want to come back here every year to go through this. How would we have known, but I wish we had moved forward with the Modernization Committee and looked at the Rules, but we haven't and so we're seized with this.
The Chair: Did you want to comment on that, Senator Carignan?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: If you take the current budget of $400,000 allocated to the leader, plus his senator's budget, we are talking about some $600,000. There are five or six positions: administrative assistant, chief of staff, director of parliamentary affairs, the person responsible for question period, and a communications support person. Those are the beginnings of an effective office. The rest is up to the independents.
When you look at what they do in the House of Lords, they allocate an amount to each of the opposition parties. The Official Opposition gets a bigger share, but the other parties receive an envelope too. However, there is no additional amount for the crossbenchers. They are considered independents, so they do not have all of the team coordination work to do. They are experts in their fields. They stick to one or two specific fields and use their expertise, with support from the Library of Parliament. Those are operational choices, but the fact that they are independent certainly reduces the financial needs of the non-affiliated lords.
[English]
The Chair: Senator Carignan, during your time as Deputy Leader under the leadership of Marjory LeBreton, did Senator LeBreton have additional resources from PCO at the time, or was it just the budget granted by the Senate? Do you recall?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Yes, I do recall. There were some resources coming from the Privy Council Office. The order of magnitude, just off the top of my head, was around $500,000.
[English]
Senator Campbell: On another matter, Senator Carignan, independent senators get $7,800.
Senator Jaffer: $7,000.
Senator Tkachuk: We were wrong yesterday.
Senator Campbell: Another first for us. Independent senators get $7,000, whereas senators that belong to a recognized party get nothing. What is your thought on that?
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: The objective in allocating amounts to the caucus is to support team work. So, being able to share resources, create our own research centre and focus our energies through team work and communication makes our needs somewhat different from those of a senator who decides to go it alone and choose their own strategies, policies or files to work on.
It is a choice between different ways of carrying out your duties: one way generates a certain type of resources, whereas another one generates others. It is completely different. Managing the caucus represents a huge part of a chief of staff's duties. If there is no caucus to manage, the chief of staff can do a lot of work relating to parliamentary affairs. He can look at the content and draft speeches. That is allocating another type of resource to another type of duty. So each person can chose to carry out their duties the way they see fit.
When you are a caucus member, you do not have $7,000, but you can rely on the group. However, we need additional resources. For example, we have a full-time translator because, given the number of people we have, we want to be able to constantly communicate with all caucus members in both languages. Many documents that are sent out have to be in both languages. The translator really helped me during question period. Many documents had been prepared for unilingual anglophone ministers. We did not necessarily have to prepare documents and personal notes in French for ministers, but I myself needed them to be in French.
You need different kinds of resources depending on individual people and the choices they make. There are no good or bad choices. It is a matter of how each person wants to work: individually or in a group. If you work on your own, you need certain things, but if you work in a group, you may need other things.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Carignan, for being a witness today. You did a good job in your first appearance as a witness before the committee.
Our next meeting is at 6:30 this evening in Room 172-E. I look forward to seeing everyone. Senator Harder and Charles Robert will be the witnesses.
(The committee adjourned.)