Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Issue No. 19 - Evidence - March 29, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 29, 2018
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 8:30 a.m., in camera and in public, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), for the consideration of financial and administrative matters.
Senator Larry W. Campbell (Chair) in the chair.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
[English]
The Chair: We are now back in public. A copy of the public minutes from March 22, 2018, is in your package. Are there any questions or changes? Seeing none, can I have a motion to adopt?
Senator Jaffer: I so move.
The Chair: Senator Jaffer; Senator Munson. All those in favour? Agreed? Carried.
First, there was a question regarding the amount spent on the replenishment of office furniture for the current fiscal year. I’d like to report to you that the anticipated amount for the 2017-18 fiscal year is $97,559.
Turning to Item No. 5, the next item deals with the proposed return of the Senate administration to its traditional organizational model, with the Clerk of the Senate at the head. The proposed structure would be effective after the launch of the official process for the new clerk and upon appointment.
The current model, with three senior executives as the heads of the administration, was intended as an interim measure put in place after the departure of the previous Clerk of the Senate.
Any questions or debate?
Senator Tkachuk: First a question and then I’d like to say a few things. When we did this originally, I thought this was our permanent model. How did it become our temporary model?
The Chair: Right from the start, Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, in his writings, indicated that this was a temporary act mainly to deal with the AG because the AG was rolling in. The clerk stepped down. We had no clerk and we had to have somebody who was going to step up and be in a position to answer the AG. In my reading of it, and someone may have a different interpretation, it was an interim process.
Senator Tkachuk: I’m just going to go by the evidence that I see. One, I don’t remember seeing any minutes, chair. Second, we hired two other people on the basis that we weren’t going back to the old model.
The Chair: What two people were they?
Senator Tkachuk: Jacqueline, and who is the other? That’s right, and Pascale.
The Chair: They weren’t hired on that basis. I’ve canvassed every single person that I can in the administration, including the senior staff. Not a single one of them agrees with the current structure that we have. It’s not a structure that’s recognized.
Senator Tkachuk: Well, all I’m saying is this is news to me. I don’t know what the two people that Pascale and Jacqueline have got to say about this, but this would be a very difficult situation to put them in, but I’m sure when they were hired, they were hired as all three equal people that would be reporting to the steering committee.
So the Prime Minister now appoints a Speaker, a Leader of the Government and the clerk, who is the head of the bureaucracy. I thought that’s what we were going to get at. At one time, there was discussion that we try to elect a Speaker and, second, that this model that we had allowed us to at least hire two of the three people that would report to Internal Economy so the Senate would have more of a say as to how the Senate was run.
The first two didn’t work out, so I think we’re giving this away.
The Chair: We can have a long debate on this, but I think there are really two issues here. The one issue involves how our people are hired. And I’m with you; I don’t think the House of Commons should have anything to do with this place, period, end of the conversation. The fact that they do and they’re at levels of such seniority is wrong. I agree with you.
To take care of that, that’s up to us. We should be stepping up. We should be changing it. But I don’t tie that in with the fact that we’re going to a one-entry structure.
So I don’t think there’s any disagreement in the Senate that we should not be allowing the other place to appoint our senior executives.
Senator Tkachuk: Our present clerk got appointed by the Prime Minister, even though we wanted to have a say in his appointment.
The Chair: I know.
Senator Tkachuk: I know what you’re saying.
The Chair: I know, but we keep talking about this. We talk really great stories, but we never go forward on it. We never bring it into the Senate. We never actually make that change. I get your point, senator. I understand.
Senator Marshall: I wasn’t supportive initially when we set up the three people on the top but it seemed like it was working and the staff that I spoke to over the years seemed to like it. They felt they knew who was responsible for what and it works.
I go back to the conversation we had earlier this morning. We keep changing things and we keep destabilizing the organization, and here we are now doing something else in the area of human resources. I’m reluctant to change at this point in time.
The other issue is the issue you were just talking about. I think we should be hiring our own Clerk. We should run a competition and decide for ourselves. Whether it’s one person or whether it’s three people, that should be done through competition.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: I would simply like to mention that when we made the decision to separate the three duties, I was leader of the government and I participated in making that decision. It was a permanent decision and not a temporary one. This decision was made due to the dysfunction observed, notably with regard to the audit of the Auditor General. We understood that despite a person’s great qualities, someone with a PhD in law may be great at law, but this may not necessarily be the best person when it comes to finances or human resources. Obviously someone with a PhD in law is indeed a competent person when it comes to the Senate Rules.
In order to render the three duties more professional, we decided to separate them so as to have the best people in finances, in legal matters and in human resources. That is what led to the different reforms. We saw this in communications and we see it in human resources. There were major problems. The objective was to improve the Senate and its administration by finding the best people for the three different positions. These qualities could not be found in one individual person but rather in three. That’s precisely why we made this permanent decision.
Senator Saint-Germain: A flow chart can never be set up for life. Contexts and expertise evolve. The decision may have been a permanent one, but it did not take into account public governance issues.
However, I completely agree with Senator Tkachuk when he says that it is an anomaly for the Prime Minister’s Office to choose the Clerk of the Senate. Indeed, Mr. Chair, you suggested we take concrete strategic action as soon as possible in order to change this. In the meantime, at the very least, I hope that senators, especially those from the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure of the Board of Internal Economy will participate in selecting the clerk.
I support the principle whereby a senior executive would be accountable to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. The three solitudes present a certain number of disadvantages. We must take into account that the Senate administrative managers currently agree with this change.
We often talk about how important staff is. Earlier on we talked about how important it was to support our staff. Our managers support this proposal which in my opinion aligns with the best management practices. This is seen in many parliaments. Currently, there is a form of dysfunction. It is more difficult to foresee that one person alone would be responsible and also assure the implementation of internal economy decisions. I believe that we need to support this structure.
I will not go any further. Yes, we could do better. The clerk could assume a larger responsibility. It is not my role to develop the flow chart but I respect the principle whereby one clerk oversees clerk assistants, and the clerk would be accountable to the Senate board, which this committee represents. It is a very important principle, and it is based on this principle that I support the new flow chart.
[English]
The Chair: If I can have the permission of the committee, I’d like to read something from a report that we submitted. This was in the sixth report of the steering committee, January 21, 2015. It’s titled, “Reorganization of the Senate Administration.” Underneath it it says that, “The subcommittee approved a revised temporary organizational structure for the Senate administration as follows.” And then it lists “Clerk, Parliamentary Precinct and Corporate Services.”
So that was temporary.
Senator Housakos: I have a fair amount to say on this issue, as you can appreciate, for obvious reasons, because, first of all, I’m probably one of the few people around this table who has the unique context of the changes, when they occurred, why they occurred and who actually implemented them at the time.
As much as I hate to speak on behalf of somebody who is no longer with us, and somebody for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, I happen to have had the privilege of being the Speaker pro tempore at the time when Pierre Claude Nolin was the Speaker and chair of Internal Economy and I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity of having him bring me into his thought process at the time and creating la relève as, unfortunately, he was planning with such maturity and leadership for the Senate.
I will share with the committee what I clearly understood his vision at the time, as it was shared at the time with steering, which was made up of Senator Smith and Senator Furey. At that time Speaker Nolin had the fundamental belief that this place had to be independent, had to exercise its privilege, and that senators had to not abdicate their responsibility. He felt at the time we had collectively abrogated our administrative responsibility vis-à-vis Internal Economy and had basically allowed the administration to run shotgun. He felt that senators had an obligation to take it back and to empower ourselves.
The Senate, as Pierre Claude always pointed out to me, said, “Leo, we’re not a typical corporation like any other; we’re not a body like any other, because the governing body, the board of directors of this particular organization, also happens to be senators. The clients that we serve are senators and the people we work for are the public.” So it’s a very unique structure and it’s not easy for us to say we’re like IBM, so you have to hire a CEO. There are 105 shareholders in that chamber. If you look at any organogram anybody proposes, all roads lead to the chamber of the whole, to the 105 senators. We’ve seen, especially those who are new here, that one senator can hold up the train at any time. It’s designed like that. That’s how it is.
Because of that principle, I disagree with the idea that we innately have to have one CEO, one president. Furthermore, I find it difficult to understand why we’re dragging the administration into a political issue, chair, at the end of the day, to come here and say that you have canvassed these individuals and they think that going back to the old model they would be more comfortable.
I also want to inform this committee that when we hired the new CCSO, which was just a few months ago, and we hired the new Law Clerk, the selection committee, as you can appreciate — which was made up of myself, Senator Cordy, Senator Wells and Senator Campbell at the time — asked each and every one of them, you specifically will remember, chair, their comfort zone vis-à-vis the model because both of these individuals had worked within that model for a period of time. I do not recall, as you recall, them expressing concern or difficulty with the model.
I’ve learned from my experience that we have the best administrators in this town and they follow instructions. We are the ones that determine the model; we determine strategy; we determine mode of operation, and they do their best to fulfill that strategy to make sure it fits what Internal Economy wants, what steering wants, what the Senate of the whole wants.
A little bit of context: Back in 2014 — those of us who were here remember those dark days — we fell into a situation where a number of public scandals occurred and we needed senators to take responsibility. I invoke again the former chair of Internal Economy and the Speaker, who said to me and to many people in this committee, that it would be very easy for us to lay the blame on the administration and say they took the decision. But we were ultimately responsible as senators to the public, as we are today.
So we put into place a model, led at the time by Pierre Claude and Internal Economy. At that time, he put into place a process of consultation. He also was a firm believer that the chair of Internal Economy, steering of Internal Economy, was nothing more than a barometer for consensus of the chamber. So before he made these changes, before steering and Internal Economy made those changes, he consulted with the then Leader of the Government. He consulted with the then Leader of the Opposition. They had thorough discussion over this. When there was full sign off by the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Government, and unanimously at steering, this was implemented as a pilot project. It was implemented in 2014 as a pilot project. Colleagues, it’s been in place for three and a half years. There were some checkpoints along the way.
I want to recall around the table to all of you that it was only last summer that we had KPMG before this committee, in camera, and they were asked how the model was working in their opinion and did they consult the members of the executive. I think we all remember the answers from KPMG. We had also Boyden come before this committee last summer. Boyden was engaged by steering and was given a mandate to do a full 360 on the three senior members of the executive, which we thought was proper practice.
One of the components of that mandate was to ask about how the model was working. Boyden reported back to steering, made up of myself, Senator Cordy, Senator Wells and Senator Campbell. Boyden came before this committee in the fall of 2017 and they articulated again their findings on the members of the executive and their view on this model. Colleagues, at the end of the day, this model was put into place as a pilot project with an objective to create transparency, accountability, independence and empower senators. We saw how it’s worked.
When we started reforming the Communications Directorate, the first message we got from the then Director of Communications is: “Senator, we can’t talk to senators because the organogram is top-heavy. We have to report to the clerk, who decides what goes to steering of Internal Economy.” It was the same message we heard from HR directors and from the various 13 or 14 directors of the Senate.
So we created this decentralized system to empower subcommittees. That’s why we’re reforming HR. That’s why we changed our communications directorate. I know I’m talking a lot of time, but this is important context for members —
The Chair: We have a full process behind you, too, that also have things that they believe are important.
Senator Housakos: I will wrap up by simply saying, colleagues, we’ve come a long way in reforming the culture, various directorates. We’re at the tail end of doing HR. There’s still work to be done, I think if we go backwards and back to the old system, we will go back to a system where we will not be able, as empowered senators, to drive the administration; the administration will drive us. Ultimately, if you look at this brief and you read the lines clearly, we’re simply abrogating our responsibility and turning it over to PCO, which I think would be a fundamental mistake.
Senator Mitchell: I support the proposal. I actually spoke to Senator Nolin in those dark days because I had a fundamental concern, which I think was part of the reason — I’m not laying blame on anybody — that we ended up where we did. That is because when previous clerks were appointed by both governments over time, from both sides, we ended up getting parliamentary rules experts running the whole organization. So we weren’t hiring people, I felt — in my experience with two or three of them, they were excellent people — who had experience or ability to run a business or a $100 million operation. So I talked to Senator Nolin about finding a way, and I would have hired a business manager over all of them at that time.
The solution that emerged from that was to split the one into three so that you didn’t have a brilliant parliamentary clerk running a $100 million operation, and that’s where we are now. But it isn’t a coincidence, in my mind, that the three people who took those three positions initially are no longer here. That, I would expect, is a reflection, from what I understand, of some of the frustration of having three people without an actual lead. It would be like having three assistant deputy ministers report to a minister, except it would be worse because they’re not reporting to a minister; they’re reporting to a committee.
So we have the worst of all possible worlds in some senses. We have three expert, fine people in three pillars, with nobody coordinating all of that effort and all of the things that they have to deal with, no single head, managerial leader of the organization. So these three people report directly to a committee.
So what I want to do is draw the distinction between concern with how we structure versus concern with how we appoint because I think that’s what’s getting conflated here.
I think the concern that this is going to be a GIC appointment by the Prime Minister, which has always been the case — it was done for previous 10 years too — is kind of washing over to, “Well, let’s leave it the way it is because we control that.”
So we can’t change the GIC process, at this moment, on a dime, but I think there’s a general consensus that we should. But, in the interim, we can have an open process to hire this person, and in fact, the four leaders have discussed that process and so on. I think there’s good faith and goodwill in that, and why we would anticipate that, somehow, somebody that we don’t want is going to be selected, I don’t exactly know. I think we could hire this person, have an open process, at least make the recommendation, and have a very good chance of our selection and our choice being appointed.
Longer term? Yes, we have to look at how we select the Speaker and how we select this position. But this position, in my mind, no matter how it’s appointed, is extremely important to make this place work. So I see somebody who is perhaps an ex-deputy minister, who has very senior-level administrative and managerial and leadership experience, maybe a deputy minister appointed under your government, previously. It would be great. But we need somebody who can manage a big organization and bring it all together.
Senator Munson: This is an order-in-council appointment. The Clerk of the Privy Council is the Clerk of the Privy Council. There are not three clerks of the Privy Council. In the private sector, you have a CEO. You have a CFO, and you have somebody in charge of Human Resources. The buck stops with the CEO, not the CFO, not the head of Human Resources. In this case here, we do have a situation where the clerk would be reporting to the chair and the two deputy chairs and reports to the board of directors, so to speak, who we are. So we have a lot of these measures in place whereby we run the Senate through one person who is in charge of the Senate, and I think it makes eminent sense that what happens in the private sector can happen here in the public sector.
Senator Batters: Very recently, in the last several months, this committee hired two out of the three permanent positions in this current three-person triumvirate structure, and that was our Chief Corporate Services Officer and our Law Clerk.
What the Trudeau government wants to do with this manoeuvre is to make those two senior executives in Senate administration, who are currently peers, in a three-person structure, with the clerk, subordinate to that clerk position. I will point out that these two recently hired senior executives of the Senate are women. I find it surprising that the Trudeau government, which likes to pride itself on gender equity, would seek to make two recently hired senior executives, hired as peers to a Privy Council-appointed position, seek to make those women, subordinate to somebody appointed by the Prime Minister. Given that both of those women were hired as peers in a three-person structure, implementing this change would leave the Senate, I believe, at risk for constructive dismissal lawsuits.
Contrary to what is in the briefing note, this is not currently a flat structure. Prior to this three-person structure being implemented, we did have a flat structure, where we had 14 directors who reported to a clerk. Now, it’s not flat in the least. In fact, there’s only one tier being added, a very top tier.
So the major change would leave, I think, the undeniable impression that, instead of an independent Senate, we would have a Senate dependent on the Prime Minister’s Office. Also, with this change, the Senate Administrative Rules need to be changed. We put so much work into that document over the last couple of years. So the need to change SARs, to me, shows that this three-person structure was not meant to be temporary. Please recall that changes to SARs have to be approved by this committee and by the Senate as a whole.
In response to Senator Mitchell’s comment, consultation on this particular position was already requested by Senate leadership groups last summer and refused. I think what’s happening here really is that the government is seeking, instead of having the buck stop with one position or one position, to have the buck stop with the PMO.
Senator McCoy: Just a little bit of history. I was an independent senator when the initial change happened to the executive structure of our staff, Senate administration. The Speaker, Pierre Claude Nolin, who deservedly had the respect of all of us and was very keen on modernizing the Senate, I can tell you, actually reached out not just to the political caucuses. He also reached out to me as an independent senator. He discussed this proposed change with me, and he discussed the reasons for it and persuaded me. The reasons were, much as has been identified, that we need strong leaders for our modern staff administration, and it’s difficult to get the combination of skills and talents and experience that we need in one individual. Almost impossible.
So we moved to the triumvirate, the three-person executive. It’s an example of a modern organizational structure and a service-delivery model that actually suits a legislative body like the Senate of Canada, which does have something in the order of 105 bosses. I do want to reinforce the concept that we are not trying to draw an analogy with a department of the government, a piece of the executive branch of the governing structures of Canada. It just doesn’t work. Analogies with corporate, private or NGOs very rarely work as well. We are just what we are.
So I’m going to say one or two other things. I think one of the things that we have to be ever conscious about in the Senate of Canada is a tendency, from time to time, for us to consolidate power. Every time we consolidate power, we get ourselves into trouble. So often, we run into an abuse of power when we consolidate power. So the great saving grace is to have the fact that 105 senators have a say in things and that we talk to one another on a constant basis.
The Chair: Senator, we’re going to have to move on.
Senator McCoy: We need our administration to be the same way.
Finally, on the point in terms of having PMO interference in the selection process, which is a separate issue, I agree with what has been said.
The Chair: I’ll be calling the question in three minutes.
Senator Tannas: I have concerns about this. We are reverting back to an old model, and we are supposed to be a modern, transparent and independent Senate.
It’s been said by Senator Mitchell that the Clerk of the Senate has a very narrow expertise and is a difficult person to find. Finding that person that will also possess executive leadership skills, I think, is virtually impossible.
We’re talking about hiring the CEO, appointing a CEO, that will look after administration, and it must, for some reason, be attached to this legislative expertise. This person will not be hired by us and cannot be fired by us and is, therefore, unaccountable to us.
This is exactly the situation that we were in when I arrived here in the middle of the dark days, and it failed us. We had a legislative expert who was short on executive leadership skills, and that’s what got us into trouble. Why we would go back to the old way, I don’t understand.
Chair, we need to take a step back. I agree that if we want to bestow someone with executive leadership because we think that’s the right thing to do, we should do it, but we should separate that from the idea of a narrow subject matter expert that needs to do their job.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: I agree with your comments that one person cannot master all of the operational aspects and policies of a company. However, this person could resort to subordinates that have an expertise in every one of these fields. When the person at the top of the structure has the talent to surround himself or herself with good people, this makes the leadership stronger and better supported.
I will not make any comments on what is happening now or what has happened. I am not aware of the dysfunction that occurred in the past. Nor can I comment on the current operations, because I do not know enough about them. I can, however, talk about the importance of separating the political side and the operational side.
Based on my understanding, senators should focus on the political side, and meanwhile the staff should work on the operational side. When both sides are blended, we find ourselves in a grey zone, and this leads to a host of other issues that may have caused past problems.
I recognize the fact that there are currently three solitudes. I also understand that these people have mentioned that it is difficult to work in such an environment. At some point, they need a concerted operation and they want to know that the person in charge is somebody who has power. This person would have as much power as we would give them.
We should try to strike a balance between this person’s role and the Senate’s power with respect to this person. Those are the comments that I wanted to make.
[English]
The Chair: Could I have a mover for the following motion: That the Senate Administration be restructured as per the organization chart with the Clerk of the Senate as the head effective upon the appointment of the new clerk and that the proposed organization chart be appended to the public minutes of proceedings?
Could I have a mover, please? Senator Saint-Germain, seconded by Senator Jaffer.
Colleagues, before I proceed on the roll call, I’d like to remind senators that the Rules indicate that ex officio members enjoy the same status as other members of the committee, including the right to vote. There is currently a convention that ex officio members do not vote in committee by mutual agreement. I ask that any ex officio committee members who wish not to vote to please indicate now.
Thank you very much, Senator Mitchell.
The ex officio member Senator Mitchell’s name will not be called, and he will not be recorded in the minutes as having voted or abstained. I will ask the clerk to proceed to the vote.
Pascale Legault, Chief Corporate Service Officer and Clerk of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, Senate of Canada: Honourable senators, I will call the members’ names beginning with the chair and then going in alphabetical order. Senators should verbally indicate whether they vote for, against or abstain.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Campbell?
Senator Campbell: Yes.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Batters?
Senator Batters: No.
[Translation]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Carignan?
Senator Carignan: No.
[English]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Housakos?
Senator Housakos: No.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Jaffer?
Senator Jaffer: Yes.
[Translation]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Joyal?
Senator Joyal: No.
[English]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Marshall?
Senator Marshall: No.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator McCoy?
Senator McCoy: No.
[Translation]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Moncion?
Senator Moncion: Yes.
[English]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Munson?
Senator Munson: Yes.
[Translation]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Pratte?
Senator Pratte: Yes.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Saint-Germain?
Senator Saint-Germain: Yes.
[English]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Tannas?
Senator Tannas: No.
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Tkachuk?
Senator Tkachuk: No.
[Translation]
Ms. Legault: The Honourable Senator Verner?
Senator Verner: No.
[English]
The Chair: Yes, 6; no, 9. The motion is defeated.
(The committee adjourned.)