Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Issue No. 2 - Evidence - March 24, 2016
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 24, 2016
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), met this day at 7:33 a.m., in public, for the consideration of financial and administrative matters; and in camera for the consideration of financial and administrative matters.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, colleagues. Welcome to the nice bright-and-early meeting.
Colleagues, we have until nine o'clock today. I understand there is a special meeting of the national Conservative caucus, I think, with regard to having some kind of memorial for the late Jim Hillyer. I will try to respect the time situation today and wrap this meeting up, with your cooperation, by 8:55.
Colleagues, again, I want to stress that, as we deal with the issues, let's try to be concise. We can be effective, as we have been in all previous meetings, but we can also be concise and responsible when it comes to time, because what happens is the agenda piles on and I don't want to get to the point where we're convening meetings of Internal Economy at 6 a.m. Now we're down to 7:30, and hopefully we can get it back to 8:00 instead of 7:00 for the next meeting.
Let's go right to the first item on the agenda, which is the adoption of minutes of the proceedings of the March 10, 2016 meeting, the public portion.
Senator Downe: Moved.
The Chair: Moved by Senator Downe, seconded by Senator Tkachuk. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Item 2, the report of the Subcommittee on Budgets. Senator Tannas.
Senator Tannas: Senators, I have the honour to present the Second Report of the Subcommittee on Committee Budgets, which includes the recommended allocations for five committee budgets.
I want to provide a bit of context before talking about each individual budget. The 2016-17 budget, in terms of funds available for committees, is $2.382 million. We have allocated $500,000 for witness expenses, which would leave $1.882 million for release to individual committee budgets. Of that amount, $236,070 was previously released to the Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee for their fact-finding and public hearings on their study on internal trade barriers.
We wanted to be sure that each committee had clear objectives for this genre of expenditure and that the strategy would effectively reach its intended audience. The subcommittee took special note of each committee's intended travel dates, communications plans, expected reporting dates and commends those who provided us with very specific and detailed plans.
We also note that several other committees have yet to submit their budget proposals, and we have taken that into account in considering each of the following budget requests.
We met with the chair and deputy chair of the Aboriginal Peoples Committee, whose budget application contained the proposed expenditure of $212,550 for one activity, which was fact-finding to Nunavut, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik, which would take place in April 2016. This activity is in relation to their study on housing in First Nation and Inuit communities and includes a request to sole source a charter aircraft.
The subcommittee also met with the chair and deputy chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, whose budget application contained proposed expenditures of $401,236 for two activities. Activity one is fact-finding and public hearings in Calgary, to take place before the end of June 2016; and activity two involves fact-finding in Beijing and Shanghai, China, to take place before December 2016, and includes a request for business-class travel for staff. Both activities are a part of their ongoing market access study and carried over from the previous Parliament.
The subcommittee also met with the deputy chair and the steering committee member of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, whose budget contained an application for a proposed expenditure of $218,417 for four activities for fact-finding and public hearings in Toronto, Montreal, Western Canada — which included Vancouver, Calgary and Saskatoon — as well as Halifax. All four activities are part of their study on court delays, and the committee hopes to complete all travel before the end of June 2016.
The subcommittee met with the chair and deputy chair of the National Security and Defence Committee, whose budget application contained a proposed expenditure of $190,158 for two activities, the first one being a fact-finding trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Washington, D.C., to take place before June 2016; and the second activity is fact- finding in Montreal, Quebec, and Regina, Saskatchewan, also proposed to take place before the end of June 2016. Both activities are part of their study on security threats facing Canada. Each activity also includes a request for funds to allow two senators' assistants to travel with the committee. In addition, there is a request for business-class train travel for all staff in activity two.
That committee also submitted a second budget application, with a proposed expenditure of $14,742 for hospitality meals. This request is in relation to their study on Canada's national security policy, and this request is to cover anticipated expenses for the duration of the current fiscal year.
The subcommittee then met with the deputy chair of the Transport and Communications Committee, whose budget application contained a proposal to spend $19,364 for four committee members to attend a conference in Toronto, to take place in April 2016 in relation to their study on automated vehicles.
Based on the information provided, your subcommittee recommends the following release of funds.
For the budget application from Aboriginal Peoples, we recommend the full release of funds for activity one, which is Nunavut, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik, in the amount of $212,550, which includes a request to sole source a charter plane.
For the budget application for Agriculture and Forestry, we recommend a partial release of funds, specifically for activity one, the trip to Calgary, in the amount of $100,188. Your subcommittee suggests that we could revisit the committee's request for funds for activity two, the China trip, in June, once funds from other budget applications are available via the claw-back mechanism.
For the budget application from Legal and Constitutional Affairs, we recommend the full release of funds for all four activities — Toronto, Montreal, Western Canada and Halifax — in the amount of $218,417.
For the budget application for National Security and Defence, your subcommittee would like to draw to your attention to the provision in this budget for two senators' assistants to travel to Halifax and Washington, as well as to Montreal and Regina. There is also a provision in the budget for staff to travel by business class by train to Montreal. These provisions are not in keeping with sections 2.6.5(c) and 2.13(b) of the Senators' Travel Policy, nor with the Thirty-eighth Report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration regarding staffing levels.
Your committee felt that the proposed work plan and objectives for activity two, Montreal and Regina, were not sufficiently detailed as of yet. We also want to point out that the subcommittee does not have the authority to approve the inclusion of senators' assistants for committee travel. Therefore, we recommend a reduction in the release of these funds for activity 1, Halifax and Washington, for the amount to be $91,986. We further recommend that the funds for activity two not be released at this stage. We invite the committee to provide us with a more detailed itinerary and work plan in relation to activity two for our ongoing review.
For the second budget application from National Security and Defence, with respect to hospitality meals, your subcommittee recommends that the funds not be released until further details or clear rationale on the nature of these hospitality events can be provided.
For the budget application from Transport and Communications, we recommend the full release of funds for members to attend a conference in the amount of $19,364.
With the hopeful release of these funds recommended to date, $905,575 of the $1.882 million will have been committed. Of the budgets submitted today, your subcommittee recommends that you defer the release of $386,926 until more information is available. Further, we are aware that some committees are still in the planning stages for their activities and there may be new orders of reference or work plans to come.
Given all of this, we do not wish to commit funds too far in advance. We recognize that because committees are budgeting for full participation, which is the standard practice, and are using full fare costs planned, spending may appear high. However, it is well-established that full participation rarely occurs and that our committees will be finding every opportunity to reduce fare costs and unnecessary expenses. We expect significant funds to be clawed back upon completion of these trips as is normally the case.
Based on this, and the fact that a good portion of the travel being planned is supposed to take place before the end of June, your subcommittee feels comfortable recommending the release of these funds and promises to review with the respective committees the portions it has recommended to be delayed in a timely fashion and will do so once the full fiscal picture is better known.
Therefore, colleagues, I recommend the adoption of this report.
Senator Jaffer: I'm wearing my deputy chair hat on Legal, and I want to thank Senator Tannas, Senator Cordy and Senator Doyle for going out of their way to support us. I truly feel we are working in a different way, where issues facing a committee are looked after by the subcommittee and I want to thank them for their work.
Senator Tannas: Thank you, Senator Jaffer. We appreciate it.
Senator Marshall: Senator Tannas, I had questions on the additional requests where you're talking about the senators' staff being permitted to travel, the request that staff travel by train in business class and also the hospitality request. Is the subcommittee recommending those three or not?
Senator Tannas: We don't think it's within our purview to recommend or not. We think this is a decision — because it involves the change of a policy that needs to be dealt with at this committee and it obviously has implications for other committees and so on — that, rather than us develop a recommendation, the issue should come here and be talked about and a decision made amongst all of us.
Senator Marshall: Thank you. I wouldn't support changing the policy at this time, Mr. Chair.
Senator Munson: Senator Tannas, regarding the charter flights, once they're in Nunavut, would they be taking a commercial flight from Ottawa to there?
Senator Tannas: The plan is it's a combination of a commercial flight into the North, into Nunavut. From there, the budget is from Iqaluit out. There is potential for them to charter from another centre that may save them some money, but that hasn't been established yet.
Senator Munson: When the committees make their requests, do they give you a timetable in the sense of break weeks when they're going? Do they tell you that, yes, we're working towards these break weeks, which are our constituency weeks that are not really break weeks; they're working weeks. Do they plan that? Whips on both sides are concerned about the multiplicity of the facilitator, as Senator Downe likes to say. That is, making sure that there are not three or four committees travelling as we sit in the Senate.
Senator Tannas: We did note that there is a lot of planned travel for the next 45 days and that some of it is during break weeks. Some of it is intended to be during chamber sittings, but we felt that's what you and Senator Plett get the big bucks for, and we would leave it for you to open up. I'm being facetious.
Senator Munson: I was going to say they don't pay me any money for this.
Senator Tannas: We didn't feel that we could get into the weeds of what days they want to travel and whether others are.
Senator Munson: For information purposes, what are connected and automated vehicles?
Senator Tannas: That's driverless vehicles.
Senator Munson: What?
Senator Tannas: That's vehicles that don't have a driver.
Senator Munson: Oh, I see. That will be fascinating. Thank you.
Senator Wells: Thank you for the presentation. My question is almost identical to Senator Marshall's with respect to the request for staff to travel on this committee work. I know we've had some discussions in the past.
I'd like the process to be clarified when it comes to staff travelling with a committee. I know it's outside our normal practice, but it would be a shame for process to get in the way of effectiveness of the committee travel.
Senator Lang: I want to speak on that because it was our committee that recommended that we allow the deputy chair and the chair, if they so wished, to have their staff travel when we are going on visits for the purposes of developing our reports. This is nothing new. This was put forward to the steering committee approximately three years ago, signed by a number of chairs and deputy chairs of various committees.
I feel it's very important, at least from my point of view, from my office. I know how much my staff is involved in writing these reports. I find it ironic that they're not allowed to travel, yet people appear on these trips that I see once and I never see again. I don't know quite what they do.
Because they're political staff, it seems like they're set aside like they're not as capable, perhaps, or are viewed in a totally different manner. When the chairman and deputy chair of the committees travel, if these individuals in their particular offices are doing as much work as they do in my office, then I think they should have that latitude.
We increased substantially the amount of money for the pay range for policy advisers to strengthen our offices so that we can do the work we are being asked to do and raise the status of the Senate. It seems to me that is a reasonable request. I don't see why anyone would abuse it. When a senator puts forward a proposal for a change in things of this nature that you experience, it takes forever to get it considered. Then try to get a decision made. It takes years, not months, to have that happen.
If you don't want it to happen, that's fine; I'm fine. All I try to do — and I'm sure other chairs try to do their work — is my work. You do it with the support you have and the support starts in your office.
The Chair: Thank you. Colleagues, can we not allow this thing to sort of deviate into discussion? I think this is an issue regarding changing the rules. The rules are clear. All senators have two points on their travel points per year where they can take staff with them at events within Canada that they deem necessary where they need their staff. So chairs and deputy chairs can exercise those two points in the course of their work. If we want to revisit that, there will be another opportunity. I don't think this is the forum to do that right now.
I have on the list Senator Cordy and Senator Munson next. Is it in regard to the report? Let's try to focus on the report.
Senator Cordy: That is my point. As a subcommittee, our job is not to change the rules of the Senate unless we were given the mandate by Internal Economy to look at it. We were not given the mandate to consider it, so we are following the rules. The rule is that political staff cannot travel on committees.
If the chair of the committee wishes to put that proposal forward for discussion at the next meeting, we can remove the budget for Defence out of the report today and consider the proposal in the Defence Committee budget at the next meeting. However, we're only meeting until nine o'clock this morning so I think it's unfair to veer off onto something else.
The Chair: Agreed.
Senator Munson: Just one other point. With our new communications team, we've had some incredible communications tools being used for our new website and other issues, for example, the obesity report that was done by Social Affairs. We're on the page now with the good work the Senate and committees do.
Is there room in these budgets to allow for a communications person on this? Particularly in the North, that's a Pandora's Box of news there, which is extremely important, and also on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Is there a budget for a communications person to be on that team within this money? For example, you said —
The Chair: Maybe I can answer that. The Subcommittee on Communications is looking at all the best options we have to support the committees when they leave Ottawa, from the coms perspective. The communications team is now working closely with the chairs when they have travel proposals, to make sure there is a communications plan. As we go forward with Mélisa's team, we're trying to evaluate and see if they can give the guidance and support to the committees through the clerks from a distance and what other possible resources might be needed.
But at this point, we're working with each committee and the communications directorate to devise a communications plan. It is a requirement. We haven't decided yet and we're not quite sure that kind of additional support and expense is required at this point.
Senator Munson: Well, you can't cover a news story in Ottawa when the story is in Nunavut or somewhere across the country. Seriously, I think serious consideration has to be given to this sort of thing in the future.
The Chair: And all I'm saying is the subcommittee is looking at that. We are taking that into consideration.
Senator Munson: All right.
Senator Tannas: Chair, on that point, I think we had one committee that had completed and presented their communications plan with us, and it was impressive. It was the Aboriginal Peoples Committee, and it included what media outlets in the North they intended to hook up with, but it didn't involve people actually travelling with them. It was clear that there was going to be a lot of advanced work that would allow them to engage senators and to engage with media through the arrangements that were in the plan.
That's the only one we saw. We made a note to the clerk to strongly suggest to all committees coming before us in the future that they actually have the plan with them to present to us, because it was very helpful.
Senator Munson: Well, when we move into the fall season, then perhaps you will have that plan and still have a person there. We have in the past had that in terms of our committees travelling across the country. In the Defence Committee way back when — it seems so long ago — we actually made the front pages of newspapers because we were there, we were senators on the road listening and doing what we should be doing. I think it's important to put on the record that a communications person should be on the road with these committees in the future.
The Chair: Senator Tkachuk, do I have a motion?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes. I move the adoption of the report.
The Chair: Seconded by Senator Batters. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you. Item three, corporate systems. We have with us Pascale Legault and Hélène Bouchard. I turn it over to you.
[Translation]
Pascale Legault, Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Procurement Directorate, Senate of Canada: It is with great pleasure I present to you our recommendations on the next steps in the replacement of corporate systems.
Honourable senators, you will recall that, on December 10, 2015, your committee approved funding of $1.392 million for 2016-17, to replace systems reaching the end of their useful life. The Senate Administration committed to review the procurement process used by the House of Commons to replace its own corporate system in order to identify and evaluate potential opportunities for the Senate.
[English]
Following a number of meetings with the house and review of numerous documents, we have been able to draw two conclusions. The first one is that Senate needs with respect to corporate systems are clearly aligned with the business needs of the house. With respect to procurement, budgeting, financial coding, reporting functions, HR and asset management requirements, to name a few, the security requirements, the remote access needs, the interfaces and other functionalities are almost identical.
The second conclusion is that the competitive process followed by the house to identify the supplier for this ERP solution was fair, transparent, comprehensive and rigorous, definitely meeting our own procurement policy requirements.
In early February, we invited the supplier chosen by the house for a detailed presentation of their solution to the corporate directorate and services. The demo was well-received by senior management and also by the users themselves. The feedback was very positive, especially about the integration of the tool and user-friendliness of it.
The Senate Administration has therefore determined that it would be highly efficient and cost-effective to leverage the competitive process followed by the House of Commons and implement the same solution. This would allow us to benefit not only from their experience and expertise but concretely from their large investment in planning, documentation and configuration. The key benefits would include: reduce the costs required for planning, design, implementation and building the interfaces; reduce implementation time by up to one year; and create a cluster of knowledge within the parliamentary precinct with harmonized technology.
In a nutshell, your committee had already approved the "why" and the "what" in December 2015. At this point, we are ready to recommend the "who."
Our recommendation is to leverage the competitive procurement process completed by the house and enter into a contract with Unit4 to complete the ERP project with a maximum number cost of $465,000 for software acquisition and to include a professional service fees provision as a per diem resource for a maximum of $650,000.
Our recommendation would also be to reallocate a portion of the current surplus of approximately $3.8 million to make this purchase in the current fiscal year, 2015-16. A detailed project plan will be completed by June 2016, but rest assured that the above recommendations are all within the original budget approved.
This completes my presentation, Mr. Chair.
Senator Marshall: Pascale, could you just go through the dollar amounts in the chart by year? Who is going to receive this money? The $465,000 that is in the recommendation will go to Unit4, won't it?
Ms. Legault: Yes. The $465,000 is for the various modules, so like finance, procurement and all the modules required. That's the software.
For the consulting fees, the $650,000 we have provided, a portion of that would be for Unit4, but it's not a defined amount. We would enter into a contract on a per diem basis. They provided us with the fee per hour for various specialists like architects, software and project managers, and it will be built as required.
Senator Marshall: So who would receive the rest of the funding? When I look at the chart, I see O&M for just over $1 million. Who would receive that?
Ms. Legault: So there could be some consultant that would also be hired as temp help to help with ISD. That would be a portion of it. There's also a maintenance fee on an annual basis that we —
Senator Marshall: To Unit4?
Ms. Legault: Yes. And there is also a contingency that we have built in.
Senator Marshall: The problem that I have with this proposal is that we're piggybacking on a procurement process that was carried out by the House of Commons. We didn't carry out our own procurement, our own request for proposals. There is a significant amount of money involved. Really, what we've done is gone to the House of Commons and said, "We like what you've done, so we're going to hand-pick that supplier."
I do have a problem with doing that. I think that the House of Commons appears to have done it the right way; they put out a call for public proposals. We're not doing it that way, so I would even question whether it complies with our own procurement policy.
There is a significant amount of money involved here, but my understanding is that our procurement policy recommends that we go for public proposal calls, so I wouldn't be able to support this proposal.
The Chair: Any other questions? Do I have a motion?
Senator Tannas: So moved.
The Chair: Senator Tannas, seconded by Senator Cordy. All in favour?
Senator Marshall: No.
The Chair: Anyone else opposed? There is one opposition, Senator Marshall. Any abstentions? Is that sufficient or do you want a roll call? Sufficient.
Accordingly, the motion passes.
Item four is the Multimedia Technical Support Agreement. You have the floor, Ms. Bouchard.
Hélène Bouchard, Director, Information Services Directorate, Senate of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable senators. This is basically more or less a technical requirement. The purpose of the briefing note is to seek your authorization to renew the existing Service Level Agreement in excess of $100,000 between the Senate and the House of Commons for the support and maintenance of all Senate-owned multi-media equipment; and to renew the SLA automatically at the beginning of each fiscal year, as long as it can be established that the arrangement continues to be beneficial to the Senate. We have been dealing with the House of Commons for support since 2000. It is beneficial. The contract is $250,000, which was the cost of the last SLA. It will be renewed at the same cost. This is basically what I'm asking for.
I have been coming here for the last 10 years for renewal of that contract, but now I'm asking to renew it automatically, so I don't have to come back each year.
Senator Munson: Thank you for the presentation. Does this have anything to do with the broadcasting of committees?
Ms. Bouchard: There are two contracts with the House of Commons. One is for technical support, which is the one I'm presenting now, and the other is for operations or production, which is another SLA that has been renewed automatically.
Senator Munson: The other one has been renewed automatically. Are all committees in 2016 going to be broadcast? I'm sick and tired of picking winners and losers. For example, this week we've had cranky senators, and justifiably, because there are a lot of great witnesses and we have to pick winners and losers — three of four committees each and every week. We have modern communications so why can we not have a television camera in every committee when they're sitting?
Ms. Bouchard: I totally understand, senator. We do provide you with our plans. I have been responsible for broadcasting only since October. I have been working with the House of Commons to come up with a plan for September. At this time, there is an issue with our capacity. In discussions with the House of Commons, we want to be able to automate our control room. Right now, when we need to televise a committee, we need three people. With automation, we will be able to reduce from three to two; so we will be able to provide a fourth crew to do that simultaneously. We also have some technical work to do in order to televise four committees at the same time and we've been working on this. It's going to be completed at the end of April. As I mentioned, we will be able to do four committees simultaneously in September.
Senator Munson: You're confident of that?
Ms. Bouchard: I am confident, absolutely. I'm working hard on this.
Senator Munson: We appreciate that very much because it's important.
Senator Tkachuk: I'm not sure whether you can consider this or not but there is a problem with capacity for television as there is only so much that CPAC can handle at any particular time. Have we examined the issue of some kind of streaming service, either via computer or another network, like Netflix? We have a number of them. You is should be able to choose from a list. Say at three o'clock there could be a list of different committees meeting at that time and the viewer can choose which one to watch.
The Chair: I can answer that question. Senator Tkachuk, when members of the Subcommittee on Communications were doing a review, they received a presentation from CPAC. They have set up a system on their website where they are planning to do that. They want to sign an agreement with us; so it's something we're looking at. I'm very impressed with how cutting-edge you are on this.
Thank you, Hélène. Do we have a motion? Senator Munson seconded by Senator Downe.
All in favour in? Thank you, colleagues.
Item five is declaration on compliance. Ms. Legault will brief us on this issue.
First, Senator Batters had a question earlier regarding the two points that senators have at their discretion with their staff to travel across the country. Those two points can be utilized by chairs and deputy chairs of committees, not regular employees. The rule of not bringing staff on committee travel applies to regular members, but the chairs and deputy chairs can use those two available points.
Senator Downe: For this item, is it possible to go in camera and come out when we approve what we approve?
The Chair: We can go in camera whenever you wish. I assume there is no objection.
(The committee continued in camera.)