Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Issue No. 6 - Evidence - October 20, 2016
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 20, 2016.
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, pursuant to rule 12-7(1) of the Rules of the Senate, met this day at 9 a.m. for the consideration of financial and administrative matters.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning, colleagues. Let's get right down to business, because we're a few minutes behind schedule. I apologize for being a little bit late, but I was waiting for a couple of senators to come in before we started.
Item 1 on the agenda: adoption of minutes of proceedings of the October 6, 2016, meeting. It's moved by Senator Munson, seconded by Senator Ngo. If there are no questions, it is moved and passed.
Item 2: report from Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, inclusion of communications officer on travel. I know that Senator Jaffer and Senator Batters had some comments or issues. I know Senator Runciman was fine with the report. I don't know if Senator Batters has anything to add to this at this point.
Senator Batters: I don't think this is a report. It was just what was presented earlier. Apparently, Senator Runciman had another meeting, so he indicated that he would be fine with whatever Senator Jaffer and I said, but I don't see Senator Jaffer here.
I guess our feeling is that obviously it's very important to have a solid communications plan before you undertake any of these types of trips, whether it's a day trip or a more extended one. But given our experience just on a one-day Halifax trip and three- or four-day western trip, we thought that likely what had been done probably could have been done from Ottawa.
The Chair: Fair enough. I think we've had a couple of discussions and there are some benefits to having communications officers on certain trips, and on other trips they may not be that much of a necessity. Other trips, a lot of the work can be done remotely from Ottawa. I think we've instructed the subcommittee that reviews that just to make sure that when committees come before them it's not just an automatic reflex where it becomes a given that communications officers are travelling with committees when they are having trips or when they are doing reports or hearings in various places across the country. That's been addressed and will be looked at carefully, and well-noted.
Senator Jaffer is here. Senator Jaffer, we're on item 2 on the agenda, which is the report from the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on communications officers on travel. I was told you had maybe something to address on this. No, it's fine? We can move on to the in camera portion of the meeting.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Senator Tannas, we're good? That was the question?
Senator Tannas: That was my question.
The Chair: It's a good question.
Senator Smith: If I could add a point to what Pascale was saying. For our group, on page 5, the first paragraph is critical in terms of really understanding the comparable numbers. I'm not sure if anyone really had a chance to look at it closely. I know, Senator Marshall, you would have because of your auditing background.
One of the points that's important to understand is in the third line, the risk-based approach based on the average of 98 senators and utilization rate 79.5, it gave us flexibility during the period to make a determination in terms of the utilization rate of — I think that is research budgets, is it not? And that can fluctuate, which really affects the amount of your expenditure.
Of course, the number of senators is the number that you base your budget on. With the fact we were short on senators we had a lower number in previous years, and it will increase as more senators come on. It is important for us to understand we may get push-back publicly when suddenly you have another 22 people appointed and your budget will be higher because you have higher numbers.
That paragraph is critical to know the difference between our numbers. I know some people have more time than others to read the details of what we have. Just a point of information.
Senator Batters: On Senator Smith's point, if that kind of question comes up, the commonly used number people talk about when talking about the yearly expenditures of the Senate is $100 million. Now actually it looks like it will be more like $90 million. That's something to highlight, because we're being very prudent there.
As well, when Senator Mitchell was talking about that graph, it might be helpful if this graph reflected, in addition to the budgeted yearly amount, what in the previous two years the actual annual amount was. Would that be helpful? Because I agree with you; I don't think, as is, that makes a lot of sense.
The Chair: If there are no other questions, are you ready to move the motion, Senator Smith?
Senator Smith: I move the motion to adopt the report.
The Chair: Seconded by Senator Munson. Thank you, colleagues.
The second report of the Audit Subcommittee on financial statements, item 5.
Senator Smith: Can we get the members from KPMG in, please?
The Chair: The only thing with the audited statements, right now they're making a presentation. It's pending approval before we make this documentation public. I don't see anything in here that would prohibit us from doing this in public, but whatever report they're putting forward to us is going to be made public right now without us even having seen it first. If colleagues are comfortable with that, I am.
Senator Batters: What is proper governance procedure on that?
The Chair: I know it has been done in the past, but maybe we should ask that question to our auditors.
Did you hear the question, Senator Smith, from Senator Batters, whether it's proper governance procedure for us to do this portion of the presentation in public? Would it be appropriate, given the fact we have not signed off on this and there might be discrepancies and issues that need to be addressed, maybe our auditors can give us guidance of what the proper governance would be, if we can do this in public or not.
Senator Smith: Mr. Newman, maybe you could answer that for us.
Andrew Newman, Partner, KPMG: Thank you, senator. Not being familiar with Senate protocol, I will provide advice on what I would normally see in other public bodies. I think it's perfectly appropriate to discuss the financial statements in public, and then the normal protocol would be for the committee to go in camera with just the auditors. That is an important protocol.
In addition, we do meet with the Audit Subcommittee, which is a subcommittee of this committee, and that meeting is, of course, in camera, which is where the more detailed aspects of our audit are discussed.
The Chair: So it's moved by colleagues, is everyone agreed? We will proceed in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)