THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 7, 2023
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met with video conference this day at 9:30 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(a) of the Rules of the Senate, to consider possible amendments to the Rules.
Senator Diane Bellemare (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Good morning. We begin our meeting today with a new topic, Senate committee structure and mandates. This is pursuant to rule 12-7 of the Rules of the Senate.
Let’s start with introductions. I am Diane Bellemare, a senator from Quebec and the chair of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament.
I will now ask the senators to introduce themselves.
[English]
Senator Dean: Senator Dean, representing Ontario.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, representing Ontario.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo from British Columbia.
Senator Marwah: Sabi Marwah, Ontario.
Senator Black: Rob Black, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: I am Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Busson: Beverley Busson, British Columbia.
Senator Greene: Steve Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Wells: David Wells, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Before we start, I just want to give some little notices.
[Translation]
I want to start by letting everyone know that the speech on the presentation of the committee’s fourth report, which deals with amendments to the Rules, in response to the request of the clerks, was submitted, as you know. I will be giving my presentation on Tuesday, March 21, after the break week, since today’s agenda is quite full.
The second thing I want to mention is that the committee’s fifth report, pertaining to equity between recognized parties and recognized parliamentary groups, isn’t quite finalized. As you know, the committee approved it, and so did the steering committee. We’re having some minor issues with the information tables, but the report should be ready very soon. As soon as it’s ready, it will be tabled in the Senate. I’m not sure whether that will happen this week or after the break. That’s it for my little updates.
Today, we are beginning our study on committee structure and mandates. Given the Senate modernization efforts, this study is very apropos, in my view. We don’t know whether it will lead to changes. I know there’s a desire to create a human capital committee. The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade also made a name change request. You might think it’s a minor issue — perhaps not when it comes to adding a committee on human capital — but a review will be undertaken, considering that we have limited resources. It’s time to ask ourselves whether we can be more effective and efficient, and look at how our material and human resources are being allocated.
For those new to the committee, we decided to start with an overview of figures and statistics. Being an economist, I’m always interested in that, but I realize that not everyone is. For that reason, Shaila Anwar will start things off by presenting some tables on the committee expenditures financial report.
When we meet over the next few weeks, we will be hearing from current and former chairs and deputy chairs, from each committee, so we’ll have an opportunity to ask them questions.
I encourage you to read the exceptional document the Library of Parliament prepared in connection with our work plan. The document lays out the issues that were raised. As always, this is a work in progress.
Now, without further do, I will turn things over to Shaila Anwar.
[English]
Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant, Committees Directorate, Senate of Canada: Thank you, honourable senators, for inviting me back to talk to you today about some of our committee statistics. Now is probably not the best time to tell you that I failed Grade 12 math, but I fortunately had some help in gathering the information. We have a database that tracks these stats for us, and the Department of Finance that helps us with the financial numbers.
I’m pleased to present you, first of all, with a copy of our annual report for the 2021-22 fiscal year. It’s a document that was provided to you in advance, and there are some copies here if you wish. This document is prepared with the input of our entire directorate. All of the clerks contribute to it, and we also have help from our colleagues in Finance. It’s probably not a document that receives quite as much attention as some of your committee reports. However, we do find it to be a useful document for us to track activities, particularly over a period of time.
You’ll find it on the Senate of Canada website. We post it every year, so it provides a useful historical record. We like to share that with new senators in particular. The Budgets Subcommittee receives copies, and it’s available for anyone who is interested in tracking committee activities over time. You’re receiving the latest version first, and the document is expected to be available on the Senate of Canada website later this week.
[Translation]
I was asked first to pull together data on the number of hours and meetings over 10 years.
If you look at the first two pages in the document bundle, you will see various committee activity statistics over 5 and 10 years.
The 10-year statistics may be more useful as they reflect a more “normal” parliamentary cycle, with occasional elections and prorogations that might interrupt parliamentary business.
The pandemic had a significant impact on committee activities over the past two years, but if you look at our statistics for the current fiscal year to date, with one month still to go, our numbers are back up to where they used to be in a typical year.
Most metrics for the past year are comparable to pre-pandemic levels, which is significant considering last spring, most committees were still restricted to one meeting per week. The fall was quite busy.
One area that is still a bit below “normal” is committee travel, which we can look at in a minute.
[English]
The second item that I was asked to prepare is the study of bills per year by committee over the past 10 years. This is the document with the blue-and-white chart. As I mentioned the last time I was here, about a year ago, there are certain committees that tend to receive bills, especially government bills. As such, they tend to be the busiest in terms of overall meetings, hours of meetings and the number of witnesses, while others conduct more special studies and, therefore, they tend to travel more.
I would note that this document shows all orders of reference, including ones where a committee maybe didn’t actually study a particular bill before the end of the session. Not surprisingly, the Legal Committee — LCJC — is the committee that receives the most legislation, followed by the Finance Committee, or NFFN.
What’s more interesting to see is that ENEV — the Energy Committee — is the one that received the second most number of government bills, ahead of committees like Social Affairs — SOCI — and Indigenous Peoples, or APPA. I would note, however, with SOCI — I know this committee has looked at the mandate of SOCI — they also received 39 public bills — that’s Senate public bills and private members’ bills — which is probably a reflection of their rather vast mandate. That’s quite a bit higher than most committees, with the exception of Legal.
The National Finance Committee had the most pre-studies, which makes sense, because they typically are the main committee responsible for all budget implementation bills. Typically, the Senate refers a pre-study to the committee and often to other committees.
Finally, BANC — the Banking Committee — was the committee which received the most special studies in the same time frame, followed closely by the National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs Committee and the Human Rights Committee. However, I would note with special studies, that also includes a general order of reference. Many committees can hold a number of meetings under their general order of reference, so sometimes that’s not always the best measure of activity levels.
I’ve also included our standard activity chart. That’s on the next page. There’s an English and French version of that chart. That shows the number of meetings, number of meeting hours, witnesses and reports. I often find it useful to track activity levels using that data, since it tends to be fairly consistent for each committee over time and allows us to account for things like certain committees that don’t do bills but may suddenly do a big bill or a big study. Their stats may be a bit different for a particular study.
[Translation]
Turning back to the bundle that was sent out on Friday, you will find a chart that includes the total for all committee budgets, going back to 2011-2012.
I would note that, most years, the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, or CIBA, allocates $2.3 million for committee “special” expenditures. Of that, $500,000 is normally set aside for witness travel expenses, leaving around $1.8 million for committee travel.
Although this budget is administered by the Committees Directorate, funds are released only after a decision of the Senate.
These figures have sometimes been adjusted by CIBA, that is, during election years and during the pandemic. In general, committees will be authorized to travel more in years where there are no elections or prorogations.
[English]
I would note, if you look at the column for the amounts budgeted, it’s significantly higher than the column for expenditures. That’s because although most committees’ budgets is for all members to be able to travel, in reality, travel delegations are much smaller. Any unused funds are returned to the pool of funds available to all committees for future budget applications. You’ll find more specific financial breakdowns by committee trip in past annual reports, which, as I mentioned earlier, are available on the Senate of Canada website.
One final item I was asked to provide information on is the number of hours and budgets spent outside of Ottawa over the past 10 years. Although we track the total number of hours of public hearings and the total number of hours of fact-finding for each committee, we don’t usually combine those two sets of hours for each trip, because most committee trips tend to contain a bit of both, so expenditures are invariably linked.
We do, however, track the overall budget and expenditures for each committee trip, and all committee budgets must be adopted by the Senate before any funds can be released. You’ll find all budget reports are publicly available on each committee’s website and they are published in the Journals of the Senate. We also report on those expenditures through the annual report and through proactive disclosure requirements, and those proactive disclosure reports are also posted on the Senate of Canada website.
I think I’ll stop there. I’ve given you a lot of numbers and information to go through.
[Translation]
I would be pleased to answer any questions senators have.
The Chair: I saw a hand up. I was going to start with the steering committee, if everyone agrees — in reverse order.
[English]
Senator Woo: Thank you, Shaila. This is yet another statistic that you probably haven’t calculated, but I will just put it out there for discussion. Can you tell us anything about the churn of senators in a given committee? I’m referring to the consistency with which a senator who is designated in a committee stays with that committee throughout the duration of the session, and the extent to which that person may be substituted out from time to time.
This is not a comment about attendance. It’s not a comment about whether or not a senator is doing their job. It’s a comment about whether senators have enough consistency in a committee to build up the knowledge, expertise and continuity on a given topic to make an even greater contribution than they would if they were just dropping in from time to time. Do we know anything about that question?
Ms. Anwar: We certainly track attendance. This is something we can go back and look at what percentage of meetings has a given senator attended over a period of time. The reasons why senators get substituted in and out of a committee can vary, though. Sometimes they’re filling a spot for another senator. Sometimes there’s a retirement and so there isn’t a natural replacement for that senator. Caucuses and groups have to make some adjustments and sometimes those can be frequent.
We certainly have lots of examples of senators who have been on a particular committee for the duration of their careers. Certainly, there is a benefit to that in terms of them gaining the experience on the subject matter. But there’s also some benefit to having a fresh pair of eyes sometimes.
It is just a reality that memberships are not fixed in stone; there’s always a bit of fluctuation. It can depend on the length of the session too. We went through a period of time where almost every year there was a prorogation or dissolution, so you would see some flux in committees. Then we had a long session in the Forty-second Parliament. I think it was over five years or close to five years. Of course, in that time, committees went through several different iterations of restructuring based on composition. That also invariably leads to change in the membership.
I don’t know if that fully answers your question.
Senator Woo: That’s very helpful. I’m thinking about churn within the session but also churn across different parliaments. Is it correct to say that in the past there was greater continuity in terms of a senator’s participation in a given committee over a number of parliaments as opposed to now? It’s just an impression I have. Is that necessarily true?
Ms. Anwar: I think the difference is that when the Senate was largely two parties, there was probably a core group on every committee of 25% or 40% of the senators that pretty much remained constant as members of the committee. But there would still be that churn with some of the members. Maybe it’s a bit more noticeable now because it’s not just two parties on every committee. I know some of the groups and caucuses have smaller numbers. In terms of managing the schedule, it’s probably not easy to have members on every single committee, so that probably generates a bit of churn.
Senator Woo: Thank you.
Senator Batters: Thank you for being here, Ms. Anwar. This is very helpful.
When I look at these stats over the last 10 years, if I’m wondering where all my time went, I’m looking at the Legal Committee, which I’ve been on for those 10 years, and I see that in the last 10 years they have met for a total of 637 hours and 57 minutes. That would be where a lot time has gone, but much productive work with 324 meetings for that committee. National Finance, of course, is even a bit higher than that with all their workload.
With committee membership numbers, in recent years there have been some committees that have increased their membership numbers, and I believe this is one committee that has. Can you tell us a bit about when that occurred? And regarding weekly committee hours, some committees only meet once every week for a couple of hours, and some, like the Legal Committee, meet generally twice a week for two hours each. The pandemic was a bit different with the Zoom schedule, but now that’s back to a regular schedule.
With that considered, there are some committees that don’t even meet every week, just maybe once every two weeks or so, or some less than that.
Can you comment on the committee workload and how that compares given committee membership numbers? For smaller groups it’s difficult to maintain when there are only a small number of senators having to be on at least two and usually three committees and sometimes they may even meet at similar times and then also with those weekly committee hours. Can you comment on the committee workload and then whether there are particular committees that you see just by the stats alone — I know obviously that would be up to our committee and then to the Senate to make determinations about that — and on the workload alone and dealing with the membership numbers and the weekly committee hours, if there are some committees that you see by the stats maybe don’t need to meet as often given workload or maybe don’t need to have as many senators on that particular committee? Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: Thank you, senator, for your question. I think the pandemic is such a disrupter in terms of how things have changed and sort of gone back. The one comment I can make is in terms of hours and workloads, so much is driven by what the committee schedule has in place. There are different factors on different days of the week. We do have committees that meet once a week. If I think of Human Rights, National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs, and Official Languages that meet on Mondays, they get a four-hour time shot. They don’t always use the four-hour time slot, but that was part of the agreement when those committees were first created in I believe 2001. It goes back quite a bit.
On Tuesdays, one of the factors that does impact the committees that meet in the evening time slot is the sitting of the Senate; unlike Wednesdays, we don’t have automatic adjournment or automatic permission for those committees to meet. So they are often at the mercy of whether or not the Senate is sitting. If the Senate sitting extends past 6:30, their meetings are often cancelled or sometimes because of addresses to Parliament, like we have this evening. Their numbers tend to look lower, but sometimes those committees can’t meet because of external factors that are beyond their control.
Then we have most of our legislative committees that meet on the Wednesday and Thursday time slots: Legal, Social and Finance are on Tuesday morning and Wednesday night, so their meeting time slots are a bit protected from other activities. Of course, Finance and Legal often get permission to hold extra meetings when they have bills or urgent deadlines. Other committees often also get that permission when they’re studying a bill or a pre-study on a bill. So the numbers get inflated, again largely by decisions of the Senate.
In terms of the membership, in the Forty-second Parliament, with the arrival of a large cohort of initially independent or non-affiliated senators, there were sessional orders that were adopted to increase the size of all committees. I don’t know if you recall. At one point, I think it was in 2015, there was a decision to increase all of the committees of 9 to 12, and all of the committees of 12 to 15. I think the 15 stayed — I can’t exactly remember, but essentially three senators were added to all of the committees. That lasted for about two years and then it dropped back to the numbers as prescribed in the Rules.
I should also mention the Monday committees have a lower number of senators — 9 — although there is a sessional order this session for Defence to have 12 senators.
So those types of fluctuations have occurred. Sometimes it’s because there’s a heavy interest in being on a particular committee. Sometimes it’s having to do with other things, like when the composition of the Senate changed; this was a way to add some of the independent senators. This was before the ISG became a recognized parliamentary group. I know there’s been discussions of making those adjustments from time to time for different committees. Like with the Monday committees, oftentimes it can be difficult with travel schedules and things like that to populate those committees. But I don’t know that there’s a specific factor. A lot of times it has to do with things like on a Tuesday, even if a committee were to get permission to meet while the Senate is sitting, if senators have speeches they have to do in the Senate, they may not be able to go to their committee meetings. Choices have to be made in terms of where they will be at a certain time.
One comment I can make is during the pandemic, because of hybrid and time zones and all that, we made a number of adjustments to the schedule to make it work. Regarding the amount of disruption that caused, we are, if nothing else, creatures of habit in the Senate, including the staff. Before the pandemic, Legal sat at 4:15 on Wednesdays and 10:30 on Thursdays. You can kind of organize your whole week around it. Because, unlike the House of Commons, where committees can sit when the House is sitting, in the Senate, committees need special permission to do it. So much of our committee schedule is dependent on the Senate schedule. So those times get carved out and need to be reserved and I think not having the pre-pandemic schedule during the pandemic was a huge inconvenience for almost everybody. Last summer, I believe, the direction I got from senators was pretty strong and pretty clear that no matter what, we want to go back to the schedule we had before, which is interesting, because through the years that I’ve been here, there have been certain complaints about the schedule; the Monday committees have always asked for different time slots, the Wednesday night committees have asked for different time slots. But this time the message was strong that we need to go back to the way it used to be. I think that makes it easier for everybody to organize their week.
[Translation]
The Chair: I just want to say that we are going to proceed as we do for studies, so a round of questions, followed by a second round.
[English]
Senator Ringuette: My first question is: How could we evaluate the efficiencies of committees in the four-hour slot compared to the two-hour slot, two times two hours, in regard to being more efficient, in regard to not only the senators but also the backup staff, translators and so forth. I’m wondering if you would have that.
The other thing that is quite evident, and I want to thank you for this, because it’s quite telling that in the last 10 years, we have 12 Senate committees that receive no government bills to study and we have 11 committees that had no private bills to study. I find that’s quite telling in regard to the mandate of these committees in comparison to Legal and National Finance, that have a huge amount of work to produce.
This is quite telling. I don’t know if there is more that you can highlight with regard to this specific table. I find this is a confirmation that we are very long overdue for an overhaul of our committees and their mandates and so forth.
Ms. Anwar: I should give you, first of all, my predisposition and bias. I was the clerk of Legal for many years and then I was the clerk of Social for many years — two committees that study quite a lot of bills — so I tend to be more in tune with the legislative requirements of committees.
That being said, one point I would make is there are several committees on here that are what we call our internally focused committees, such as the Internal Economy Committee — CIBA — the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Committee and the Selection Committee. These are not committees that would get bills. This also includes the joint committees, and again, the joint committees don’t study legislation per se. There is probably, if I count really quickly —
Senator Ringuette: On average, eight committees.
Ms. Anwar: Yes. There are about eight or nine on this list that I would say wouldn’t normally get bills anyway. Beyond that, there are a few committees that certainly don’t typically get government legislation. Some of it has to do with their area of study not focusing on items that would typically see government bills. Obviously, the Legal Committee, because of the Criminal Code and amendments — the number one bills that we see in Parliament are Criminal Code amendments and then budget bills are number two.
Senator Ringuette: I still find this is quite telling in regards to how we move forward with this committee review mandate.
[Translation]
The Chair: Senator Ringuette, that makes me think that perhaps we should break it down into two lists, one for internal committees and one for committees that study legislation, from largest to smallest. By that, I mean the number of hours. Those three lists would help give us an even clearer picture of the situation.
Ms. Anwar: We can definitely do that. I wanted to give you an overview of the past 10 years for all the committees.
[English]
Senator Ringuette: I don’t think she answered my first question. Do we have any means to look at efficiency of committee meetings, whether it’s four hours or two times for two hours? Or is it possible to have one for three hours? That would be sufficient, considering the mandates that we see.
Ms. Anwar: During the pandemic was the first time where we really had to be creative about scheduling options. One of the things we looked at, because committees were cut to one meeting per week, we were looking at different ways that we could give committees a little bit more time, because for certain committees, definitely two hours per week was very limiting. One of the things we looked at was, instead of some committees getting two two-hour time slots and some getting a four-hour time slot each week, what if everybody has one three-hour time slot per week? It was not very well received. It was not very popular. I know with the Social Affairs Committee and Legal Committee, there is an advantage to hearing witnesses one day and doing clause by clause the next day, for example, so the two meetings per week allows them to do that.
I think during the period when we were doing virtual meetings, a four-hour committee meeting on Zoom was not —
Senator Ringuette: First of all, it’s the first time I’m being informed that there was a proposal for a three-hour slot, and I would like for you to expand on who did not receive that option well.
Ms. Anwar: During the pandemic, the Selection Committee was given the mandate to come up with recommendations on the virtual and hybrid schedule, so various options were prepared for them. One of the options was also to look at having all committees meet once every two weeks. That was one option. I think we had only 14 time slots per week, and normally we have 28, so everything was cut in half. We looked at different ways that we could manage the schedule, and really, the strong preference of senators was to find a way to go back to the pre-pandemic schedule, which took some time, but we’re back to that now.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much. This is fascinating.
I have two questions, both to help understand a little bit more the nuances on some of this data. I’m not sure if it’s a valuable contribution or if it’s even possible, but bills, be they government or non-government, are not all of equal complexity, nor do they generate equal enthusiasm. It may be that some committees are receiving bills that are incredibly complex and very contentious, which would require a lot more study. And other committees like SOCI, which I sit on, get bills that are yet another framework, so they’re much less complex. I wonder if there is a way of nuancing that in some of the data.
Ms. Anwar: I’m not sure. I would have to think about it, senator, but it’s absolutely true that some bills are relatively straightforward. Some bills may be politically quite contentious or they may be very technical in nature, so outside of the normal type of bill that we do. That’s where the expertise on a particular committee becomes very important.
Committees that tend to study bills a lot, I find they are able to conduct their studies in a slightly, I would say, faster way, if they want to. Things really occur at the speed at which the members around the table want it to go. There can be any number of reasons why something happens very quickly. Sometimes it’s the length of a bill that makes it necessary to take a long time to go through it. We have certainly seen bills that are in the hundreds of pages, whereas other bills, I have seen one-clause bills that can take weeks and several meetings before a committee is ready to make a decision on it.
The nuances are definitely there. I don’t know how we would make a qualitative analysis. That’s where the anecdotal evidence becomes a little bit more relevant, probably. I’m saying this, again, as a person who is not generally friendly with numbers and math. I have that bias.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for that. That’s something for us to keep in mind.
The other and very simple question that I want to ask again about the data on the committee budget history and travel piece — it’s maybe because I watched Senator Black give his pitch, which was very warmly received — it’s very hard to compare year by year. Year-by-year comparisons are fraught with problems because things are so different from year to year. I wonder if it would be more useful for these numbers to actually reflect the cost per senator per year, because when I look at numbers like $593,000 for 29 senators or $588,000 for 54 senators and $866,000 for 150 senators, those big numbers may give us a misguided idea of the spending. But if we have a chance to look at it by senator, we would maybe have a better idea of how much is being spent year by year on these travel budgets because it’s down to the small number per person as opposed to the large number. I wonder if that would be helpful.
Ms. Anwar: Certainly, once we get into the nitty-gritty details and what we post in the proactive disclosure reports, costs are attributed per traveller. These costs include the cost of sending staff on the trip, so it’s not just senators’ costs.
But if you look at the proactive disclosure reports — and I’m happy to send you those; we have a few now that have been posted online — those reports have the cost per traveller. If you travel on a committee, it’ll say the Honourable Senator Kutcher’s transportation was this, his accommodation was this, and then there are some grouped expenses, such as charter planes and buses, those types of things, which are attributed to the group and not to individual travellers. We do have that information.
In the past, with post-activity reporting, we definitely separated senator expenses from staff expenses and group expenses. That’s how budgets are, generally speaking, broken down.
Senator Kutcher: I appreciate that. My purpose for asking that was not to get that nuanced, but that would be really important. For comparative purposes — while realizing and accepting that all those other costs are in there — if we use a per-senator number, it would be more useful to understand than looking at raw numbers. That’s all I was wondering.
Senator Black: Thank you for being here. You talked about the Tuesday night cancellations of some committee meetings. Are you hearing through our clerks how the witnesses feel about having been cancelled? Personally, I find it offensive that we would call folks in and sometimes bring them in and then say, “Sorry,” so is there any feedback there?
My second question is with respect to joint committees. I have been appointed to sit on the Joint Library of Parliament Committee for two parliaments and we have yet to meet. We haven’t had an organization meeting. Does that happen with other joint committees?
Ms. Anwar: For the first question about Tuesdays, certainly the clerks take some proactive steps to mitigate potential disappointment or disruption with witnesses that are scheduled for Tuesday night. They are typically always told that there is a possibility that, due to the Senate sitting being extended, the meeting could be delayed, postponed or even cancelled. There is a tendency to try — especially with witnesses that don’t live in the National Capital Region — to book witnesses by video conference so it’s a little bit less disruptive to witnesses. However, there have been times where it’s a succession of Tuesdays where all of those meetings get cancelled. Sometimes they get cancelled five minutes before the start time. Sometimes they get cancelled five minutes after the start time. Every week, it’s sort of a, “Will we meet, will we not meet?” We’re so used to it in the Senate bubble that I don’t think we always realize that it must appear to be strange to operate that way. It is the nature of the Senate sitting. I understand the priority is the Senate chamber, but if there are other ways to adjust the schedule or to give permission to the committees to meet on Tuesdays, there are different ways that it could be addressed.
Senator Black: Before you move on to the next question, I would like us all to keep that issue in mind as we go through this study and their report. I think it’s very disheartening for our witnesses. In fact, I think it’s rude. Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: The second part of the question was on the joint committees. Sometimes for the joint committees — and Senator Woo is here as the chair of the Joint Scrutiny of Regulations Committee, or REGS — although they have met, it’s quite an odyssey to find agreement with the House of Commons on a time slot and to get them to meet. I believe the Library of Parliament Committee has always been one of the committees that meets the least.
I probably ran out of colours. I was recently asked this question. I did an analysis over the last 10 years of how often they have met, and it’s typically very low.
Senator Black: For four years now, they have not met at all.
Ms. Anwar: They have not met at all in that time. Again, the word has gotten out. Generally speaking, when there is a desire for a committee to meet, I’m approached as the Director of Committees to say, “Okay, Shaila, we need to get a meeting together.” Those types of discussions haven’t really progressed. We had the Medical Assistance in Dying Special Joint Committee and the Declaration of Emergency Special Joint Committee and, between the House and the Senate, there wasn’t a time slot available for the Joint Library of Parliament Committee. One of those joint committees has now stopped; the other one only has, I think, a few more meetings planned in their agenda. That’s something we could look at.
Senator Black: I will leave it that the committee hasn’t met for three and a half or four years, yet there has been significant work that’s managed by the library on the new welcome centre in the new build. Money is being planned to be spent, but that Joint Library of Parliament Committee has not had any oversight on that.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you, Shaila, for appearing before us. Are the committees still on a hybrid schedule?
Ms. Anwar: Right now, regular standing committees in the Senate don’t have permission to meet in hybrid. By that, I mean the senators don’t have the ability to meet in hybrid. There are a few exceptions: the Audit Committee, because of the external members, and the Conflict of Interest Committee. Also, right now, those two committees are alternating time slots, so they don’t have a fixed time slot per week to give them a bit more flexibility. Those are two committees that also have permission to meet during adjournments.
Regarding the joint committees, the House of Commons hybrid permission extends until June, so it would be a bit awkward to have senators that can’t participate virtually and MPs who can. The decision was taken to give the joint committees permission. The subcommittees and steering committees have typically always had the ability to meet in alternative ways. There is no restriction at this point for them. But the regular standing committees are all meeting in person, with witnesses being able to appear by video conference.
Senator Ataullahjan: I asked that question because committees like the Human Rights Committee, which meets on Monday, always struggle to find replacements because nobody is actually here on Monday unless you have to be. If you remember, a few years ago we asked for the time slot on Wednesday afternoons. Most senators on the committee said they don’t mind foregoing their lunch period if we can have that time slot. I’m consistently asked about that again. The reason I’m told it’s not possible is because we are still on a hybrid schedule, so it’s not possible to get that Wednesday time slot. Is that true?
Ms. Anwar: Well, what I should say on that is some of our services are still on a hybrid schedule; the Senate is not on a hybrid schedule. On Wednesdays, we are limited to the afternoon committees that were in our schedule. The Veterans Affairs Subcommittee — VEAC — has had that lunchtime slot for a while. Right now, we don’t have the services capacity to increase the number of meetings. We could do it on an ad hoc basis, but wouldn’t be able to guarantee that every week the Human Rights Committee would be able to have a one-and-a-half or two-hour time slot on Wednesdays. That’s why you still have the Monday time slot.
[Translation]
The Chair: Before we start the second round, I have a question that ties in with what Senator Ataullahjan asked.
[English]
In the past, there were some special committees that met on Wednesdays at lunchtime. When we sit on Tuesdays, sometimes we have a break from six o’clock to eight o’clock. Was the possibility explored to have committee meetings between six and eight on Tuesday and regularly meetings on Wednesday during lunch?
[Translation]
Ms. Anwar: As far as the six o’clock to eight o’clock time slot on Tuesday goes, I think you’re talking about the break. It’s a suspension of the sitting of the Senate, not an adjournment, so committees would need the Senate’s approval to sit during a suspension. The Senate can decide to allow committees to sit, and has done so from time to time, but there is currently no sessional order to allow that.
As for Wednesdays, there was indeed a lunchtime slot. Right now, interpretation capacity prevents us from adding more committee meetings. There is a maximum number of hours per day, and committees that normally meet Wednesday afternoons and Wednesday evenings max out that capacity. If we had more capacity, we could schedule meetings at lunchtime, as was the case in the past.
The Chair: I gather, then, that if the Rules permitted us to meet between six o’clock and eight o’clock on Tuesdays, it would be possible. We could. There’s nothing preventing that other than the current Rules. Is that right?
Ms. Anwar: That’s correct.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Woo: This report is very successful in measuring the inputs and outputs of committees, but it doesn’t talk about results or impacts. You know the conventional wisdom about the Senate is that the best work of the Senate is done in the committees, right? Everybody has heard that phrase.
If you look at special studies, which is what they are referring to — a number of them, 160 in 10 years — I have no idea which ones are emblematic of that saying that the Senate does its best work in the committees.
Do you have thoughts on how we can begin to measure the impact of committees? I am not talking about government or private bills, because the impact there is that we did our work. That is as far as we can go.
On special studies, surely there has to be a way in which we measure our own efforts and track them, partly to boost our institution, but also to tell the world and Canadians that our work is not in vain.
Ms. Anwar: It’s a very good question. It’s something that we have certainly looked at. It has been talked about: What kind of metrics can we use to measure the effectiveness of committees? Anecdotally, this work has been done periodically through time, whether it’s for presentations that we have done to external groups or organizations like the Canadian Study of Parliament Group.
There are academics who have looked into this, academics that have been focused on the Senate. Professor David Smith comes to mind, and Paul Thomas from Manitoba is another one. I know Senator Joyal has his book; he has two books on the Senate. In one of them, there is an article by Paul Thomas that does a more analytical look at the effectiveness of Senate committees. Because there is a bit of value judgment there, it becomes a bit more of an academic exercise.
That is something this committee could certainly contemplate doing. We have done it before in the Committees Directorate as a value-added type of thing, because we often get asked to talk about committee reports. It’s good to have those linkages between recommendations that have been made and committee reports that have led to legislation being introduced, or policy changes of the government. There are many examples that I can think of historically.
What tends to happen is we often don’t have the time to do that exercise in a methodical way. We do have examples where we have collected information and looked at not just committee reports and recommendations, but there are a million different ways Senate committees have contributed. Sometimes it’s done through observations to a bill. There might be a suggestion and an observation that the government look at X, Y or Z, so making that straight-line connection takes more work than just looking at numbers, is the way I would put it.
Certainly, there is a value in that. It’s good for us as representatives of the institution to have that information available. Certainly when we’re talking to groups of Canadians, this is information we like to share, of course.
Senator Woo: I hope we can come back to this question, chair, later in our study.
The Chair: Absolutely. It’s a great question, and it’s an important one.
Ms. Anwar: Sometimes it’s the work that the Senate does, whether it’s a statutory review of a bill that typically no committee has time to do; there are dozens of statutory review provisions in legislation. The Senate has done several. Those are useful exercises.
Also, I’m thinking of user fees. There are provisions in the user fees. I don’t think they are called user fees anymore. I cannot remember. There are provisions to allow Parliament to deem those as being adopted after a certain period of time. In the Senate, most committees tend to actually do a study on user fees. I don’t know, Senator Batters, if you were with the Legal Committee at the time, but there was a thing about Parole Board fees. It hadn’t been studied anywhere else. It was the Senate committee that decided to look at it. I believe at the time Senator Pate appeared as a witness for the Elizabeth Fry Society and gave information that, as it turned out, ended up being very relevant.
The Senate committee was able to do a useful study on something that wasn’t obvious or a big-ticket item. Sometimes the best work the Senate does is those important studies.
Senator Woo: Can I clarify? Are stat reviews counted under special studies?
Ms. Anwar: Yes, it would count as a special study.
Senator Woo: Thank you.
Senator Batters: Another study that I was thinking of that the Legal Committee did — and we don’t generally have time to do lengthy studies — was after the 2015 election, when we had quite a considerable time where we didn’t have any legislation coming from the new government. We undertook a lengthy 18-month court delays study, which was a crucial area at the time — and continues to be a crucial area, because criminal charges could be dropped if charges are not laid in time. With the Supreme Court case that had come out, we did a study where we did some travelling and had many witnesses who helped us do valuable research to help develop some practical solutions as to how different provinces and justice systems across the country could work with that more efficiently. That was another example.
I have a couple of questions following up on what I was asking you in the first round. There was a brief time where I had to step out so I might have missed you saying this: Have all the committee membership numbers then dropped back down again to the general numbers? I had the impression that some of them were still a bit higher.
Another question I had is that, under the old pre-pandemic committee schedule, some committees were slotted for two times per week but didn’t use that second slot almost ever, but could once in a while. My impression is that those slots have generally been — if there was two times per week but one was almost never used, then I think it’s only allocated as a once-a-week committee now. If I’m understanding that correctly, that would be appreciated.
Then, of course, for committees that need permission to sit when the Senate is sitting, that permission is granted when it’s necessary, when there is a government bill to be studied or something like that. Senator Black earlier spoke about witnesses needing to be cancelled with little notice if there is a Tuesday night Senate sitting.
I have just recently started on the Energy Committee. Something that the chair often does there is hold committee meetings with witnesses on the slot that is not a potential Senate sitting time frame so that you are not cancelling witnesses at the last minute. If you wouldn’t mind just commenting on those points.
Ms. Anwar: Sure. On the first point, in terms of membership, I believe all the committees are back to the membership that’s prescribed in the Rules, with the exception of the National Security Committee, which was raised to 12 by a sessional order. The Audit Committee was also raised to four senators by sessional order. The rest are all either 9, 12 or 15 according to the Rules.
What was your second question about?
Senator Batters: The committees scheduled previously for two times a week.
Ms. Anwar: Yes, it is true. There were some committees that just chose not to. I think it had to do with the volume of work. Sometimes it also had to do with committees studying bills where there might be more urgency, so they have to meet on a certain time frame, whereas if you are doing a special study, the committee is a little bit more on their own schedule. That might be a factor. Sometimes it was just a preference. That’s the way the committee organized their work. I know when we were coming back this fall, the direction I got was to go back to that old schedule.
Certainly, there is probably room for adjustment at this point. We have the data for September until now. We will track it. We track this stuff all the time. It’s something we can certainly look at. I can bring that back to the committee in terms of the days and hours per week.
The one thing that it won’t necessarily tell us is if a committee has less meeting time by choice or because of external factors, such as the Senate sitting being extended.
Senator Batters: Right. I have a couple of other points. Senator Kutcher was asking earlier about how to tell which committees sat for how many hours on particular bills because some bills might be less complex. One way that I guess you could tell is by the sheer number of hours sat. The Legal Committee generally has a number of complex bills and lengthy studies, so you can tell by the sheer volume of hours that Legal has sat in total as compared to a committee that maybe has quite a few bills but with less complexity. There could be a possibility of doing an assessment of the average hours per bill studied. That may be able to tell you something like that.
With respect to the Scrutiny of Regulations Joint Committee, prior to the 2015 election, I sat on that committee and for about the last year and a half before that I was the co-chair. At that point, we were actually sitting very regularly. Every two weeks we had a sitting of at least a couple of hours.
The last thing I would want to know is if you could provide some guidance. The House of Commons and the Senate continue to share the broadcasting and interpretation services, those kinds of things. That was a real hiccup — more than a hiccup — and it continues to provide challenges, because the House of Commons is still meeting in hybrid. There’s the necessity of those shared services, but also the House of Commons can take priority on those types of services. How is that still impacting the Senate now even though we don’t have hybrid sittings but we have to share with the House of Commons and they are taking priority on some of these things? How is that having an impact on us?
Ms. Anwar: Before I answer that question about the orders of reference and the complexity of studies, I should have mentioned that we do have reports that tell us that, on this bill, the committee met this many times for this many hours with this many witnesses. It’s a really long report, so I didn’t print that for you. I did look at that report over the 10-year span; it was something like 36 pages, and I figured I gave you enough paper. But if that’s ever a question, if you are curious, that’s a good way to look at some bills that take less time than others to study and fewer witnesses. That’s probably a good indicator. I can provide that by committee or for all committees for a given time period, if ever you’re interested.
With respect to the services, as of September, the Senate is back up to the capacity that was provided before in terms of the number of meetings and meeting hours and Senate sittings. Where we run into difficulty is if a committee needs extra time, we have subcommittees that want to meet and there’s a whole host of other activities that senators have and we don’t have the service capacity to provide those. There are some restrictions.
In terms of the House and the Senate, although we share those resources, it’s always been proportionately because they’re bigger and they have more committees. I don’t think they are up to their maximum or their full capacity just yet. We are; we just don’t have that extra bit of flex that we sometimes need. Soon we’ll have BIAs and pre-studies and things like the Main Estimates. That will require some juggling and that’s when I’ll be looking at committees that might not be using both of their time slots to see if those can be given to committees like National Finance.
With respect to REGS, with the joint committees, because of the complexity of hybrid meetings, initially the marriage of the two chambers was something that was a little bit — we had enough to deal with, I guess, with the regular committees for both chambers. It took a bit of time for us to analyze how it would work with joint committees and then it became a question of finding the schedule time, which was difficult. The House has made some changes to their normal schedule. For our schedule, the real difference is that we used to have time slots on Tuesdays and Thursdays that started at 8:00. That morphed into 9:00, and nobody has come to me to ask to meet at 8:00. Right now we can manage it.
Senator Batters: I won’t be.
Ms. Anwar: I won’t make any promises, because I might be coming back to this committee soon to say we have to move you back to 8:30. So far, we’re managing with the 9:00 time slot. That’s really the only difference between the pre-pandemic schedule and now. That’s where, as Senator Ataullahjan mentioned, we’ve lost the flexibility to maybe give somebody a Wednesday lunchtime slot. It’s basically a no; we can’t do it. We haven’t gained that back, and that has to do with some of our services; their hours have been adjusted to the point where they don’t have the capacity that they used to.
Senator Ringuette: It seems that committees are able, on Monday, to meet for four hours and there’s not an interpretation problem. Correct me if I’m wrong. There’s no problem there. Okay.
Second, I’m very sympathetic with Senator Black’s comment and I agree with him. Inviting witnesses, whether it’s virtual or physical, and at the last minute having to say, “Sorry, folks. We have to be sitting,” is not an issue in the House of Commons because in the House of Commons committees can sit when the House is sitting. It’s not the same situation.
How many committees sit on Tuesday?
Ms. Anwar: Tuesday evening there are three. Three plus a joint committee, the Declaration of Emergency Committee, but that’s on the House side. That’s temporary.
Senator Ringuette: We really have to pay a lot of attention to this issue because I don’t think it’s becoming of the Senate to do that to witnesses whom we value.
The third thing that you’ve raised, and I believe that we’ve sidetracked that responsibility too many times, is the mandatory review of bills. I think that’s where we can have the impact, Senator Woo, that you’re talking about; the impact on government policy and government legislation is in those mandatory reviews.
Is it possible that every September the Senate, as a whole, would have a list of these mandatory reviews to be done during that current September-to-September year, and that either the Selection Committee or whomever in leadership would assign the review to the different committees as the number two priority? Number one would be government bills and number two government’s review of bills. Is it possible for your unit to provide the Senate with such information and that it becomes a permanent structure of how we do business?
Ms. Anwar: That’s a very good question, senator. One of the legacies of Senator Nolin is that the Library of Parliament does produce a list, and I’m sure it’s available now, of all the statutory reviews in legislation and what the status is. They also track whether a House committee has done a review or a Senate committee has done a review. I’m sure we can provide that to this committee fairly quickly.
The challenge is, as I mentioned before, the vast majority of bills are Criminal Code amendments, which means that the vast majority of statutory reviews will probably fall under the mandate of the Legal Committee to do, and Legal, being one of the busiest committees, is probably the one that has the least amount of time to do those statutory reviews. It’s not exclusively Criminal Code amendments; there are lots of other pieces of legislation that aren’t necessarily legal in nature, but the vast majority are. That is one of the challenges.
I know that document is given to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and oftentimes that is, especially at the start of a session when it takes time for legislation to make its way to committee, that’s often the time when Legal will take a look at doing a statutory review, but then they invariably run out of sufficient time to do it.
Senator Busson: I wanted to echo the comments of Senator Ringuette talking about Tuesday, and Senator Black as well. I sit on the Fisheries Committee. It not only lessens the value of witnesses, it also lessens of value of the thing we keep saying, that committee work is the most important work that we do.
The expense of having things cancelled at the last minute I think has to be taken into the equation as well. I wanted to get in my two cents’ worth on that comment. Having experienced over and over the frustration of that breathless moment when one person, at 6 o’clock, can change the whole direction of what we’re doing for two hours and cause that kind of frustration for a lot of people in those committees, I think that should be a priority for us going forward, to make that better.
Senator Ataullahjan: Here I’m thinking out loud. The committees’ travel is available online for everyone to see how much they’ve spent. I’m talking about the Human Rights Committee, or RIDR. You must have seen that we travelled last year. It says it is the most travelled committee.
I’ve been on that committee since 2010 and this is the second trip we’ve done. It’s all been within Canada. Yet when these figures are put out, there’s that perception that the Senate is going out and having a great time at our expense, and people will ask the question.
Is there any way one could put that this committee incurred so much expense this year, but look at the past five or ten years in terms of what they’ve spent? Like I said, I’m just thinking out loud. With my committees, I haven’t really travelled with the committees; and the one time we do, it was within Canada. Maybe if the fares weren’t so high in Canada, we wouldn’t incur such expenses.
Ms. Anwar: The expenses of a committee trip vary according to what the committee is trying to do. If they have public hearings outside of Ottawa, there are expenses involved with travelling to certain parts of the country. Committees travelling up North, for example, can typically incur quite a bit of expense. There are a lot of different factors that can affect this.
Yes, we keep track and that information is available in every annual report, if you look at the appendix at the back. Unfortunately, because there was no travel in 2021, you can’t see this. I did bring one of our annual reports from 2016-17 and I can send you copies. In the appendix, we list by committee what specific travel activities they did, what cities or countries they went to and what the costs were by trip.
Senator Ataullahjan: For the previous year?
Ms. Anwar: For previous years, yes.
Senator Ataullahjan: How far back do you go?
Ms. Anwar: Annual reports predate when I started, and I’ve been here for 17 years. The trips that RIDR did last fall, you’ll see that in the annual report for the current fiscal year, which won’t be ready until at least the fall. Your fall trip, I believe, has been posted on the proactive disclosure website.
Senator Ataullahjan: It has, yes.
Ms. Anwar: That won’t necessarily give you the snapshot for past years, but the annual reports will.
[Translation]
The Chair: I have two questions for you, Ms. Anwar. The first is about the budget figures, what was requested versus what was actually spent. Overall, there seems to be a big difference depending on the year. The budgets requested are sometimes very large, but the actual amounts are nearly half. Can you comment on that situation? I was surprised by what a difference there was between the two figures.
Ms. Anwar: A number of factors come into play. The main ones are prorogation and dissolution. In election years, for instance, the election is usually held in the fall, so the period between April and June is usually quite busy in the Senate, with bills and studies that have to be completed. That means fewer trips. Afterwards, when Parliament returns in the fall, it’s usually not until November or December, so there’s basically no travel.
The Chair: Are you saying that any trips that were scheduled are cancelled? If the travel was requested and agreed to—
Ms. Anwar: Either that or no requests are even made.
The Chair: Nevertheless, the funding was requested and agreed to by the Senate. Expenditures are lower for the same period. Why is that? Is it due to the fact that planned activities weren’t carried out?
Ms. Anwar: Usually, it has to do with the fact that budgets include funding for all the members of the committee to go on the trip, but only 45% to 50% of them actually do, in most cases. That brings down the spending.
The Chair: I see. Before we go to Senator Black, I’d like to ask my other question, which is about subcommittees. There are a lot of subcommittees between the Internal Economy Committee and the National Defence Committee. National Defence has the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. Those are the only ones I saw, but there may be others. Does the creation of subcommittees take resources away from other committees that could be created? What if committees wanted to create more subcommittees? Are there limits to that, and does it then limit other committees?
Furthermore, we don’t really have any data or figures on the Internal Economy subcommittees. For instance, we don’t know how many hours they met for or the resources used for those activities.
Ms. Anwar: We have data on subcommittees beginning with the Forty-third Parliament. We have the same information that we have for committees, so the number of meetings, number of meeting hours and so on, but we don’t have the information for prior to that. I didn’t include the subcommittee figures in the tables I gave you because I didn’t have the information for the past 10 years.
I can tell you that priority is always given to standing committees, so even with subcommittees, committees always have priority when it comes to time slots and resources.
However, we don’t have additional resources for subcommittees, so they draw on the resources we have. That means subcommittees sometimes have to wait to hold their meetings, except for the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. It’s a public committee that meets on a more regular basis, so it has a regular time slot, Wednesdays at noon.
Does that answer your question?
The Chair: Absolutely. That answers my question. Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Black: This might be more of a comment, but with respect to budgets and committee travel, the templates that are provided require the maximum amount. Then, as pointed out in a recent presentation that I gave, usually it’s just about half, which you’ve said again today. Yet SEBS — the Committee Budgets Subcommittee — in this last go-round limited the number of people who could travel on a committee. They took your comments that it’s usually half or less, but then said, “Well, only a certain number of committee members can travel with your committee, and you can’t actually take translation services,” which we weren’t going to take anyway, but they put further limits on it, even knowing that, as we’ve seen in budgets in the actuals, lots of times it is half or less.
That is just a comment. Any further comments that you might have would be welcome.
Ms. Anwar: I think the only thing I could add to that is that’s also been cyclical. There are times when the direction from the subcommittee and from CIBA has been that, “No, your budget has to include funds for all members to travel.” Certainly, if a committee is doing public hearings, it would be difficult to limit the number of senators. But for fact-finding, from time to time, for various reasons, CIBA or the subcommittee have imposed limits. That’s a new direction for the upcoming fiscal year.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you.
Are there any other questions? If not, all that’s left to do is thank you, Ms. Anwar, for giving us that stellar presentation and sharing all that information with us. I’d also like to thank you in advance for making yourself available to answer future questions and provide us with other statistics. I sincerely thank you. Until next time.
We have 10 minutes until the end of the meeting, so I’d like to leave you with this. We’ve heard a lot of information today. The plan is to hear from current and former committee chairs over the next few weeks, so we can ask them questions about their work and get some food for thought on how to be more effective and efficient.
However, Senator Woo and others brought up a new point that we should perhaps think about when considering the efficiency and effectiveness of committee work — the impact of committee reports and observations, including in the other place.
We could examine a host of qualitative factors. Ms. Anwar mentioned two academics, Professor Smith and Professor Thomas, so it may be worthwhile to hear from them. I have taken note of this, and I will work with the steering committee to come up with a schedule for the next meetings. We are planning to meet in March, and I think we could invite the former and current chairs of two committees to appear then. You’ll receive the agenda soon.
Are there any other comments or questions? No, all right then. That concludes our meeting. See you next time.
(The committee adjourned.)