Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates
Issue No. 1 - Evidence - May 3, 2016
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 3, 2016
The Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 9:04 a.m., in public, to organize the activities of the committee; and pursuant to rule 12- 7(1), for the consideration of administrative and financial matters; and in camera for the consideration of a draft agenda.
Senator David M. Wells (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I want to note that Senator Jaffer said she would be a couple minutes late. She was otherwise engaged. She will be here shortly, but I didn't want to wait until she was ready because you never know — it could be five minutes or ten minutes and I want to begin.
Good morning everyone. Welcome to the first meeting of this session of the Senate Estimates Subcommittee. In its meeting on April 21, Internal Economy adopted a motion striking this subcommittee and stating that:
That the Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates be re-established with an expanded mandate to examine the funding allocations for House Officers and Caucuses as defined in Chapter 6 of the Senate Administrative Rules (SARs), notably with respect to the additional office allowance for the Leader of the Government in Senate;
That the following six (6) senators be named as members: Senator Wells (chair), Senator Jaffer (deputy chair), Senator Tkachuk, Senator Downe, Senator Tannas and Senator Campbell;
That the subcommittee submit a report to CIBA regarding funding allocations by May 12, 2016.
I'll note that I think for the first time a subcommittee has included as part of its structure and balance three from the plurality side — the Conservative side — two from the independent Liberal side and one independent, who is Senator Campbell. I think that strikes a good balance for our subcommittee.
That is next Thursday, so we have a very tight timeline to get this done.
As you'll see, with this May 12 deadline, we have a lot to do in a short amount of time. We want to get all the witnesses in this week, so we have four meetings scheduled.
We do have some routine motions to go through to organize the subcommittee, which is common and not unfamiliar to all of us. We'll then go into camera to discuss the draft work plan for the study before going back into public to hear our first witness, who will be Senator Cowan. I think he is scheduled for 10:15.
We will now go to the routine motions to be adopted in our public session. The first regards senators' staff.
Senator Campbell: So moved.
The Chair: It is moved by the Honourable Senator Campbell:
That each subcommittee member be allowed to have one staff person present at in camera meetings;
That the subcommittee allow one staff person from each of the offices of the Leader of the Government, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Senate Liberals to be present at in camera meetings; and
That they be included in the distribution list for documents unless otherwise decided by the chair and deputy chair.
The next motion is (b), "Decisions regarding agenda, witnesses and hearings.'' It is moved by the Honourable Senator Campbell:
That the chair and deputy chair be empowered to make decisions on behalf of the subcommittee with respect to its agenda, to invite witnesses and to schedule hearings.
That said, we will always seek the input of our colleagues. This is not a one- or a two-man show. I always welcome suggestions from witnesses, and obviously the lines of questioning are yours and yours alone.
The next routine motion, (c), is the "Authorization to hold meetings and receive evidence when quorum is not present.'' It is moved by the Honourable Senator Tkachuk that:
Pursuant to rule 12-17, the chair be authorized to hold meetings, to receive and authorize the publication of the evidence when a quorum is not present.
The next motion is (d), relating to staff. It is moved by the Honourable Senator Tannas:
That the chair, on behalf of the subcommittee, direct staff in the preparation of studies, analyses, summaries, and draft reports.
The next one is on audio recording. It is moved by the Honourable Senator Downe:
That, the subcommittee allow an audio recording of its in camera meetings, that one copy be kept in the office of the clerk for consultation after authorization by the chair and deputy chair; and
That the recordings be destroyed by the clerk when authorized to do so by the subcommittee, but no later than the end of this parliamentary session.
The next one, (f), concerns the transcripts of in camera meetings. Itis moved by the Honourable Senator Tkachuk:
That the chair be authorized to request transcripts of in camera meetings and interpretation as needed; and
That one copy of the transcript of each in camera meeting be kept in the subcommittee clerk's office for consultation by members of the subcommittee only.
While we're still in the public portion of this meeting — and I meant to do this earlier — I would like to welcome the clerk of our subcommittee, Vanessa Moss-Norbury. Pascale Legault will be acting as our analyst. She'll be attending all of the meetings as well.
Welcome to you both, and thanks for your help.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public).
The Chair: We're back in the public portion of our meeting, and I'd like to welcome Senator Cowan. He is the leader of the independent Liberal group and obviously former Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
Welcome. I think you're familiar with the work that this subcommittee has been tasked to do. Essentially, we are looking at requests by Senator Harder to staff up and increase his budget from his initial allotment. We're trying to come to ground on how that fits in with how leadership offices are run, whether government or opposition, and also the structure of the Senate and how it has worked for the past almost 150 years. We would like our decisions to have some lasting impact and not change based on what might happen in another two months.
I know it's typical in committee and subcommittee meetings to have opening remarks. You're not compelled to do so. We all know why you're here and you know why we're here. But if you do have a couple of minutes to talk about maybe how you structure your office, we'll then go to questions.
Hon. James S. Cowan, Leader of the Senate Liberals, Senate of Canada: Thank you, chair, colleagues. I'm pleased to be here. I did have an opportunity to spend a few minutes with the chair yesterday to try to get some sense of how I could be helpful today. I made some suggestions. Perhaps I could make those brief comments, and then I'd be happy to provide any other help that I could.
As you said, I was Leader of the Opposition in the Senate for a period of time. I'm now Leader of the Senate Liberal Caucus. At the moment, my office consists of a chief of staff, a senior policy adviser, a legislative assistant and a special assistant.
I don't have a communications director. I did have a communications director when I was Leader of the Opposition. I don't have that. I have no plans to fill that position, although a future leader of our group might decide to do so.
I have a deputy leader who has two staff, both of whom I think are on her senator's budget. There is a small allocation, which I can describe in a minute, if you like, that I make out of the global allocation that has been provided by the Senate to our group.
The whip, Senator Munson, also has two staffers. They are paid for from his budget.
As you know, traditionally, the Senate has provided a sum of money, usually around a quarter of a million dollars, to each caucus. Traditionally we just had two caucuses. That's been used for research support.
Each caucus does it differently. Our tradition in the Liberal Party, both when we were part of the national caucus, when we were in opposition and now, is that we have a Caucus Research Committee chaired by Senator Downe. We have a committee that meets and receives requests from individual senators for support for various research projects. Those are evaluated by our Caucus Research Committee. Funds are allocated from that to individual senators for their projects. That is not controlled by the leader. The leaders have sat on the committee, but it is controlled by the Senate research budget.
We have also maintained a Senate Liberal Forum website, which we use to promote the work we're doing: questions being asked, speeches given and activities in which Senate Liberals are involved. A staffer maintains that and is paid out of the Senate Liberal research budget.
We also have — and you can take this as an invitation for those of you who don't attend — a Wednesday caucus meeting a couple of times a month when normally parliamentarians attend national caucus meetings. Because we're not part of national caucus, we have our own caucus meetings, which we open to the public. We pick a topic of interest to Canadians and invite the public, the media and other parliamentarians to come. We provide some support out of our Senate research budget for the promotion of those open caucus initiatives. I don't have the numbers. I don't think there is a room rental, but we record them. Since we're using Senate resources, we pay the incremental cost of the use of those. I think there's an application that Senator Eggleton has before the Senate or one of the subcommittees so that we can televise these proceedings. That's a work in progress.
We have had discussions that the Internal Economy Committee allocate a lump sum to the Senate Liberal Caucus because we are not recognized and our leadership does not receive additional stipends, because those are set by the Parliament of Canada Act; and the Parliament of Canada Act only deals with government and opposition. That's why Senator Harder is officially the Leader of the Government in the Senate rather than the Government Representative. We don't receive any salary supplements for our leadership, but the Senate does provide funding for our activities. We agreed when we got the funding from the Senate to set aside a sum of money, probably in the range of $300,000 to $400,000, to run the leadership offices.
We said we would continue the $250,000 for the Senate research projects under the control of the Senate Liberal research committee. That would leave another $250,000. Our intention, although we haven't actually done this, is that because we're not part of a national caucus and therefore don't have access to either the Liberal Party of Canada or the Liberal research bureau, which we had when we were part of national caucus, is to hire — and we have talked about this for some time — three or four researchers who would work for our caucus, probably under the direction of the chairs and deputy chairs of the various committees, to provide support for our senators, particularly in their committee work. That's our plan, but we haven't actually done any hiring.
That's roughly how we have operated. When we were in opposition, we had two or three other research assistants officially on the leader's budget who worked for caucus on various projects. An example would be the labour bills, C- 377 and C-525, which were controversial. We put a particular emphasis on those. We also had somebody who was working to support our senators on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee when it was dealing with a number of the previous government's criminal justice bills.
That's basically the way we operated, and the way we operate now.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Cowan.
The money you have set aside for the use of your caucus, can you tell me how much that is again?
Senator Cowan: Senator Downe can help me here. It's traditionally been $235,000 to $250,000. Traditionally it was the same for the government caucus and the opposition. I think it's in that range.
The Chair: How is the uptake on that? I assume that's based on requests from individuals within your caucus who would like to do some study.
Senator Cowan: Somebody will come in to say they want to do a study on a particular subject. Senator Watt had a number of studies on Aboriginal issues, the Rangers in the North and that sort of thing. Senator Downe can perhaps help with some of those. I would say that there were years when it was all used. In the last couple of years, perhaps because of the election and other things, there hasn't been as big an uptake.
Would that be fair to say?
Senator Downe: Yes, that's absolutely right.
Normally it's an extension of somebody's work already. For example, Senator Dallaire had applications in for expertise in a particular area he was working on, such as veterans' recovery and post-traumatic stress syndrome. It may the Senate criteria. I don't think it's ours specifically, but it has to be related to Senate work for the benefit of Canadians and so on. In almost every case, it's an extension of work already undertaken. With your personal staff, you don't have either the time or the expertise to do the detailed research. It's a one-off contract in many cases.
The Chair: Typically would that be something related to committee or legislation?
Senator Downe: Yes.
Senator Cowan: Or a study.
Senator Downe: It often leads to legislation and/or an inquiry.
The Chair: Senator Cowan, in the past there was more uptake and now there is less? Do I understand that correctly?
Senator Cowan: Over the last couple of years, Parliament has met less than it had in previous years, so there has been less uptake. I think that's fair.
The Chair: Can you talk about caucus management now or when you had a larger caucus in your position as Leader of the Opposition, and what kind of resources were there to serve the management of caucus with respect to legislation, not the studies?
Senator Cowan: I would think that the larger the caucus, the more management is required, obviously, and it varies. Some people require more support than others, but traditionally what we would try to do is identify issues. I used the example of the labour bills of the previous government: Our folks were strongly opposed to those, so we put some resources behind that, not only from a research point of view in assisting our senators with speeches and questions, but also communications and outreach to affected groups. We would provide, from the leadership, support for that kind of activity.
From a time point of view, I found, as leader, a lot of time was required to be spent with individual caucus members. Some require more tender loving care and support than others, and that's what a team is for. I was thinking about whether I could put a percentage on it. I don't know that I could, but it's a significant amount of time.
The Chair: Did it change significantly when you became independent Senate Liberals?
Senator Cowan: When we were part of the national caucus, there were regular interactions with the members of the House of Commons. I met with the leader of the party on a weekly basis. It varied from leader to leader, but there were often meetings when we would try to coordinate what was going on in the two houses. Well, that stopped in January of 2014, and because we didn't have access to those resources, we had to figure out a way to operate ourselves.
Because we've been independent and we don't whip any votes, we still get together to discuss issues, and a lot of time is consumed in that process.
The Chair: Prior to January 2014, what resources were available to you from the Liberal Party or the House of Commons Liberals?
Senator Cowan: There was the Senate Liberal research budget, which was provided solely by the House of Commons; they had a body of researchers and we had access to that. We could submit requests. They shared their research with us and we did the same with them. If we were working in particular areas, we would share the research and cooperate on research projects if we knew that a bill was going to be discussed in both places or a study was taking place. The MPs and the senators would get together, pool their resources and work on all of that. All of that stopped at that point.
The Chair: Are there any other interventions?
Senator Campbell: How do you see our way out of this mess? How do you see moving forward with two official caucuses and a group of independents? How do you see the funding for that?
Senator Cowan: Obviously, if we're to do our jobs properly, either individually or collectively, we need to be properly resourced. I don't think there is any question about that. The issue is the level of support.
I think the Senate has more people — I refer to them as more non-aligned senators — who are not part of an official caucus than we've ever had before. Unlike in the House of Commons, where there is no additional support or recognition for those folks, if you're not aligned with a caucus, you get an additional $7,800 now for your office and research budget. There is no such support in the House of Commons.
We've always had independent members of committees. The tradition — which we are looking at again in both the Senate Modernization Committee and other places in terms of how independent or non-aligned senators are put on committees — has always been agreed that the two caucuses would place the independent senators on committees. Maybe not on the committees they all wanted, but they were all placed on committees.
Now we have a larger number, and those people understandably want to have a say and make their own decisions rather than have them decided by others. That's why Senator Carignan and I wrote to all the non-aligned senators and suggested they should choose their committee assignments amongst themselves. That is a work in process.
I spoke about this last week in the Senate. The issue is that it's perfectly natural that most people will want to associate with other people who have a similar view of the world, and that's what a caucus does. Others want to be sole practitioners and operate by themselves, and that's a legitimate choice that people make.
What is not clear to me is what communities of interest the non-aligned senators have or will develop. I'm not suggesting they should, but I think — and I guess this is coming to your question, Senator Campbell — the position that you're in now is one of trying to figure out the right way to go, and to encourage people to band together is a good thing. I think that groupings are good. If we, as an institution, ended up with a large number of people who were sole practitioners, I'm not sure how this place would work.
We have business to do. We're not a debating club; we're a legislative chamber, and we have to go through the business. Traditionally that's done by people and leaders getting together and saying, "Okay, this is what I need and this is what you need,'' and we manage it.
I think this will be the challenge for Senator Harder. He can come and talk to me about what my group might or might not do and he can talk to Senator Carignan about what his group might or might not do. But he's now got 20 others — I think that's about the number — who are not part of either group, and who speaks for them? How are they going to manage their affairs?
I do think that encouraging people to get together and work together not only makes the institution more manageable but makes the work of the individual senator, and the groups of senators, more effective.
I like the way that we've done it up to now in that if you choose to be independent you get a little more money, but to say that everybody is going to be treated the same whether they're in a group or not, I'm not sure that's workable.
Senator Campbell: Thank you very much.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you, senator, for being here. I wanted to bring up one thing that you may have said, but I didn't hear it.
You did say that one of the things you provide in caucus is extra help in discussing bills at caucus, and that's very useful, especially when we no longer get briefings from the other caucus.
I have a great concern. We are looking, at the moment, at how to fund Senator Harder and his work, but another group could be formed. Although we all have goodwill and want to help Senator Harder and work with him, if another group is formed, what stops that group from saying, "You gave it to Senator Harder, so I also want it?'' We are not really following any rules. We are looking at the spirit of rules. There will be nothing to fall back on to say we're following this rule except to say that he was appointed by the Prime Minister.
My concern is that there may be other groups coming up, and then how do you deal with it? I would like to know what you think.
Senator Cowan: I would say that Senator Harder is the Leader of the Government in the Senate. That's his official title. Now, the Prime Minister has asked that he style himself as the Government Representative in the Senate, but whether you're the Government Representative or the Leader of the Government in the Senate, you are the government in the Senate. I would assume that he, like Senator Carignan before him or other leaders, would have the support of the government. I would expect that to be the case in terms of providing briefings, providing background and identifying witnesses. The government would do that in support of the government's agenda. I think that's been done in the past, and I would have expected that would be done in the future. I'm sure Senator Harder has had those discussions.
It's my understanding that he's going to appoint a whip and a deputy leader this week, and I don't know what resources are available for them. I guess it's the question of: What is the job? If you're the Government Whip in the Senate, you're the whip of what? I don't know the answer to that. I think it's not the job of the whip in our group, in Senator Munson's case, to whip votes in terms of telling people, "Well, this is the line on this,'' but it is making sure that people are there when the votes take place, making sure that we've got appropriate representation on committees, and making sure that when somebody can't be there that there's a substitute.
The government does not have a caucus at the moment, and I don't know that Senator Harder is looking to be the one who places the non-aligned senators on committee or, perhaps more appropriately, the non-aligned senators are looking to him to place them. I don't think that's the case. I think they're having conversations amongst themselves as to which committee spots they'll fill and how they'll manage things like, "What happens when I can't be there? Who gets a replacement for me?''
I wouldn't see that as the government's job because there's no government caucus. When Senator Carignan was Leader of the Government in the Senate, this was a big part of his responsibility and the responsibility of his office.
Senator Tkachuk: We now have a system of funding caucuses through an act of Parliament. If you form a caucus of over five members — you need five — and then identify yourself with a political party, you fall into some kind of funding formula that we've established. We've kind of thrown it out the window.
As I pointed out earlier, we had a discussion before you got here. To me, it's very bizarre, because I see you and members of your caucus as the representatives of the government because you belong to the Liberal Party. It seems obvious to me that if legislation is passed in the House of Commons, the Liberal Party would be initiating the legislation.
I don't know how you feel about it. To me, if a member of the House of Commons is a member of a political party and he or she leaves and becomes an independent, then they have to face the electorate in the next election and deal with the consequences of their actions. Here, no one has to deal with any consequences.
We have people leaving. I got appointed as a Conservative senator. There's an obligation. If I left the Conservative Party, I would resign from the Senate. Your case is different. You got removed.
Senator Cowan: Yes. We "got'' independent.
Senator Tkachuk: We have a formula. The way to deal with this is we have two political parties in here. I think we tell the independents, "Get your act together, fall under the Elections Act and you'll get funding. Otherwise, why are you coming to us? You're independents.'' Unless we force the issue, then we're just allowing chaos to take place here.
I think that's what we should do. We should tell them, "You want money? Here's the formula. Form a five-member caucus. Get yourself named and you'll get money. Otherwise, there's no money available. I'm sorry, but those are the rules of the Senate.'' Unless those rules are changed, I don't see how we operate other than that. What we're trying to do is get around the rules.
Senator Cowan: I don't know whether the non-aligned senators are looking for funding over and above the extra funding that they already get, because they get $7,800 each?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes. I don't agree with that. I don't know why they get it and I don't. I'm less of a senator because I'm a member of caucus.
Senator Cowan: I think the answer, senator, probably is that as a member of the Conservative caucus, you have access to that $250,000 caucus research budget that is awarded to your caucus, the same as members of my caucus have access to that. Because the non-aligned senators don't, they get an additional amount. Now whether that's the right amount, I don't know, but I'm sure that's the explanation for it.
I don't know whether they're looking for additional funding. I think if you look at the House of Lords, there is some funding provided to a convenor of the cross-benchers, but it's not at the same level as would be provided to the party caucuses because it's the party caucuses that make the place work.
Some of you may have been at the Modernization Committee meeting a few weeks ago. The convenor of the cross- benchers spoke to them. One of the issues is the cross-benchers are there for the issues that are of concern to them. So they may vote 12 per cent of the time, but they don't have any obligation to say, "Well, I'm not interested in defence matters, so I'm not going to be there for defence debates or defence votes.''
Senator Tkachuk: You get paid per day.
Senator Cowan: Yes, so I'll show up when it's suitable.
There may be bad things about caucus organization or structure, but one of the advantages is that it does give some structure to the place. You and I wouldn't disagree on this. This is a good thing to happen.
Now, there have been extremes. While it's a transitional time, we have an opportunity now where the government says they want the Senate to be independent. They want senators to be more independent. They are going to appoint more people who are independent. We are independent. So I think there is an opportunity for the institution to become more independent as an institution.
But as I tried to say last week, I don't think that means that we have to be independent from one another. We do, quite properly and logically, associate with other people and work together because we think that's the way we can be more effective. That's good. That's to be encouraged.
Senator Tkachuk: We're now less independent than we were before. Look at us. Think about it.
The Chair: I think it's interesting, because right now we have five defined — and we can define them in our own way — caucuses in the Senate. We have Senator Carignan's Loyal Opposition, and we know what that is. We have the independent Liberals led by Senator Cowan, and we know what that is. Senator Harder has a team that he's developing. We're not sure the composition of that, but I have an idea. We have a defined working group led by Senator McCoy, and then we have the other independents, who I will call truly independents, who are perhaps not led by anyone.
Now that I hear our discussion, even though having a government and opposition is very clean and workable and has been around for almost 150 years, the more that we encourage by funding independents, the more we're supporting a structure that may not be good for the Senate, may not be good for our governance structure in Canada and may not be good for the country itself. I think that's something we have to come to terms with, because our job is government and opposition. That's how we come to conclusions. That's how we debate. That's how we come to compromise. That's how we assert the will of the majority that might be there. It's how we come to decisions.
Senator Cowan: It's a legislative body, not a debating body.
Senator Tannas: That's an interesting observation. If we believe that forming caucuses, like-minded groups that are committed around the same principles or values or however you want to describe it, and through that process one plus one equals three, then a funding mechanism that really identifies that seems appropriate to me.
If the idea is that in groups we are more effective, regardless of how many groups there are, and we're more reliable and more committed than just being independents, then a level of funding per senator or per head, if you will, for those groups should be more than somebody who just says, "No, I'm a team of one, and I don't want that extra discipline and the commitment that goes with being part of a group.'' If you're going to be a member of something, there is always a commitment to be a member of it.
Right now we sort of have that. We have independent senators that get $7,800. But we have members of the Liberal Party caucus that on a per-head basis get $40,000, and we have members of the Conservative caucus at the moment that get $7,500 if you take out the function of the opposition leader. So we're all over the place with funding of senators on a per-head basis.
We have to deal with the realities of this year. This year you've made commitments as leader of the Liberal caucus to staff and do things, and we're into the year now. I know that Conservatives have done the same, and CIBA has already kind of authorized an amount. I don't know if it has to go to the full Senate. Maybe we've agreed to propose it to the Senate. We kind of already have some funding under way.
In the long run, would it make sense to you that there be an amount similar to the $7,800, the recognition that there is a research component or an extra component that could go to an individual senator, and then also a funding formula more than that if that senator chose to join a group or to stay with a group? Does that make sense to you?
Senator Cowan: It makes sense to me, senator. I do believe that if we are to function effectively, we need to have people working collectively.
Senator Tannas: Coming to common decisions.
Senator Cowan: We can't have 105 sole practitioners. It won't work, in my judgment. You can have a few who are independent, but if you have too many, it becomes dysfunctional.
I think one of the ways you encourage them is to say that if they make a choice to be an independent, sole practitioner — and they're going to work at it. If they're just going to fill a seat and not do anything, that's another problem. Assuming that's not what they want to do and they have a goal, such as wanting to represent a region, a minority or a public policy interest of some kind, and will devote their efforts to that, and they don't want to be distracted by the activities of others and want to focus on that, then that's perfectly legitimate and I think should be resourced appropriately.
Because I believe that we're more effective when we work with others, I think there should be encouragement for people to join a group and for that group to be funded so there is an advantage and incentive to do so.
Senator Tannas: Even the six independent senators who have been here already realize that. They're sitting together. They're going around together. We all have that instinct in us.
Senator Cowan: What will be interesting is when we actually get some legislation where people will have to vote.
Senator Tannas: Declare their intentions.
Senator Cowan: There may be different groupings then.
Senator Tannas: Thank you.
Senator Campbell: This wouldn't be the first time, but I think Senator Tkachuk has actually crystallized this thing.
Are we getting ahead of ourselves? By us deciding where money goes, are we in fact breaking the Senate Rules? As the Rules stand right now, can we even do this? Are we, in fact, breaking the Rules? If we are breaking the Rules, then we need to either change the Rules before we go forward on a funding proposal, or we don't do anything. Are we going against the Rules that we have set up? If we are, then clearly we're in trouble.
The light finally went on in my head. I'm just wondering. God knows we get criticized enough by different parties. Are we now going to find ourselves saying, "We didn't create this situation or make this situation''? As Senator Wells says, it's been running relatively well for about 150 years, but are we breaking the Rules? Is that what we're doing?
I don't know the answer to that, but if we are, then we may need to rethink this whole thing.
The Chair: I think that in our effort to be accommodating, we have been accommodating incrementally to the point where those increments are now something big, and I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do.
Senator Tannas: We've got a committee that's already meeting on this subject, the Senate Modernization Committee. But I think you're right. The Parliament of Canada Act talks about caucuses and what it means to be a caucus. If a recommendation comes from the Modernization Committee, it's going to involve a change in the Parliament of Canada Act, I guess.
In the meantime, we have the issue of the Government Leader in the Senate, and the caucus budgets are all in one pot. We have to figure out how to sort it out, and there's nothing in the Rules against that.
The Chair: Senator Cowan, did you have a final comment?
Senator Cowan: Just to separate this out, the Parliament of Canada Act defines the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the leadership team and the Leader of the Opposition. There is no mention of other groupings or caucuses.
In the Rules of the Senate, there is recognition of groups other than the opposition and the government, and I would think that the issue about how the Senate allocates the funding provided to it to manage its resources would be within the Senate. Clearly, you couldn't say that they're not going to change the Parliament of Canada Act, but we're going to start paying people to do certain jobs. That's something that would be required under the Parliament of Canada Act. But in terms of how the money is resourced or used within the budget allocation of the Senate, that's within the purview of Internal Economy, I would think.
Senator Tannas: On that, within the Rules of the Senate, which we could change, we could redefine the definition of "caucuses'' and widen it.
Senator Cowan: Yes. As it is now, a caucus is at least five members who belong to the same political party. The implication is that you have to use the name of a political party, so you couldn't say you were the "Canada First'' caucus.
Not every member of the caucus would have to belong to the political party, but at least five do. That could be changed. For instance, we are the Liberal caucus because if we said we were the "Canada First'' caucus, that wouldn't be recognized as a caucus under the Rules of the Senate. That could be changed.
The funding for the offices of the third party or the other caucuses is provided for by the Senate, but the Parliament of Canada Act is the one that provides for salary supplements for officers.
I got paid an additional stipend as Leader of the Opposition until November 4. After that point, my salary is what I get as a senator.
Senator Tannas: Is that fair?
Senator Cowan: I think that's appropriate. As they do in the House of Commons, it's appropriate that political officers of recognized caucuses get funding, but that requires an amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act.
Senator Downe: Given the discussion this morning, I'm wondering, as somebody mentioned already, if we're working at cross-purposes here with the Senate Modernization Committee and that this should really be referred to them for their recommendation.
Senator Harder has $400,000, as I understand; is that correct?
An Hon. Member: Yes.
Senator Downe: I'm sure that will get him through to the end of June. Then hopefully that committee could consider it.
The recent comments go right to the heart of the matter: How do you form yourself as a caucus or an independent? And that's what we base our funding on. Until we get that straightened out, we really have the cart before the horse, if you will, trying to get the funding done now. I think we should give it to them as a term of reference and have them come back with a recommendation.
The Chair: Thank you.
I'll note that Senator Harder also has his regular office budget. Whatever other senators have joined him, they also have the $7,000 that each of those get.
We are tasked by CIBA to do this. Senator, if you and I were at the meeting of CIBA where we were assigned these jobs, we could have brought those points up. They're excellent points.
Senator Cowan, thank you very much for your knowledge, wisdom and comments. I appreciate you coming here.
(The committee adjourned.)