THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL ECONOMY, BUDGETS AND ADMINISTRATION
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 5, 2022
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met with videoconference this day at 11:30 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-7(1), in consideration of financial and administrative matters; and, in camera, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), in consideration of financial and administrative matters.
Senator Sabi Marwah (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, good morning. My name is Sabi Marwah, I am a senator from Ontario and I have the privilege to chair the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
I’d like to introduce the senators who are participating in this meeting: Senator Patricia Bovey, Manitoba; Senator Yvonne Boyer, Ontario; Senator Larry Campbell, British Columbia; Senator Dennis Dawson, Quebec; Senator Tony Dean, Ontario; Senator Elizabeth Marshall, Newfoundland and Labrador; Senator Lucie Moncion, Ontario; Senator Rosemary Moodie, Ontario; Senator Donald Plett, Manitoba; Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, Quebec; Senator Judith Seidman, Quebec; Senator Larry Smith, Quebec; Senator Scott Tannas, Alberta; and Senator Marc Gold, Quebec.
Welcome to all of those viewing these proceedings across the country.
Senator Forest: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear my name.
The Chair: I’m sorry. Senator Forest, Quebec. My apologies, Senator Forest, I don’t know how that got left off.
The first item is the approval of the public minutes from April 28, 2022, which are in your package. Are there any questions or changes? Can I have a mover for the following motion:
That the Minutes of Proceedings of Thursday, April 28, 2022 be adopted.
Senator Dean moves the motion. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion? Seeing no objections, I declare the motion carried.
The next item we have our CFO Pierre Lanctôt, who will now join the meeting by video conference as a witness. I see that Pierre is on the line.
Honourable senators, it is my honour to table the third report of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure concerning the proposed amendments to the Senators’ Office Management Policy regarding the seven-day policy rule. As background, colleagues, the current policy requires that at all times, the primary purpose of travel shall be related to a parliamentary function. CIBA has determined in the past that private travel of a maximum of seven days can be combined with a trip related to a parliamentary function without any issue. However, for a trip that includes private travel longer than seven days, the primary purpose for the travel will not be considered parliamentary function and therefore the cost of transportation would not be reimbursed by the Senate. These are the current rules.
We now have a request for clarification, and steering has concluded that a maximum of seven private days should not apply to trips in the parliamentary district because senators are coming back and forth to Ottawa all the time. In making our recommendation, we took into consideration the fact that the transportation costs to the Parliamentary Precinct are not increased as a result of the private stay before or after the parliamentary functions as it would happen anyway. Furthermore, senators may only claim per diems and hotel costs for days when parliamentary functions are performed.
Steering is therefore recommending that the maximum of seven private days do not apply to trips in the NCR region and the report is placed for your consideration. If there are any questions, colleagues, Pierre will help in answering them.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: Could you elaborate on the seven personal days when senators are in the Ottawa area? This is the part that isn’t very clear, because over the years, I think you could claim fees when you stayed in the region on weekends. The new policy says that this will no longer be applicable.
Could you tell us how this all relates to the recommendations of the Advisory Working Group on Environment regarding reduced travel and length of stay in the National Capital Region?
Pierre Lanctôt, Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Procurement Directorate, Senate of Canada: Senator Moncion, the seven-day rule applies when a senator spends more than seven days in a place where they are performing parliamentary duties. There is already a provision for that for Ottawa. If a senator stays in the National Capital Region between a two-week period when the Senate is sitting, the seven-day rule doesn’t apply at that point. Basically, if a senator decides to stay in the NCR, rather than return to their constituency, assuming the costs are lower, the provisions for anticipated amounts apply, and the expenses are eligible.
What will change with the new rule is that, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, some senators have been spending a little more time in Ottawa rather than going back and forth to their provinces and territories. Some senators stay in Ottawa between breaks, which are more regular, for periods that exceed seven days. What the policy is trying to clarify is that if a senator stays in Ottawa for more than seven days, then the airfare and transportation to and from Ottawa are eligible, as well as per diems and hotel accommodations on days the senator is performing parliamentary duties.
I don’t know if I have answered your question, but the weekend rule continues to apply, and the seven-day rule regulates periods beyond seven days during which senators do not perform parliamentary duties.
Senator Moncion: If a senator chose to stay during a period when the Senate was not sitting, then that would be considered a personal week? Is that what I understand from your explanation?
Mr. Lanctôt: Days when the Senate is not sitting are considered personal days. However, with the clarification provided here, transportation would still be eligible for reimbursement, as would the days, the per diems, during which the senator performed parliamentary duties. For example, if a senator spends three weeks in Ottawa, a period of 21 days, and works 11 days, then the senator is considered to have taken 10 personal days.
Before this clarification was made, the entire trip could have been considered personal. So there would have been no reimbursement for transportation costs. By specifying that a senator may remain in Ottawa for a period of more than seven days in a personal capacity, at that time, transportation costs are eligible. What is important to realize here is that many senators already have an apartment or residence in Ottawa. So there is no additional cost for the residence. So it is financially advantageous for a senator to stay in the NCR, rather than return to their home province or territory if they decide to take this type of trip.
Senator Moncion: If I understand correctly, the days when the Senate is sitting are days that would be considered in the daily allowance, and weekends would not be taken into account? Is that correct?
[English]
Mr. Lanctôt: That is correct. You are correct.
Senator Plett: I’m sorry, Pierre, I’m going to repeat a question you’ve already answered, but the longer you talk, the more confused I get. I’m sure that’s not a reflection on the way you explained it but a reflection on my poor understanding of things.
Let me use an illustration, please. In June, if the leader of the government decides he can’t get his agenda passed on time, so he keeps us here on a Friday, and he may even keep us here on Saturday and we’re sitting again on Monday. Clearly, we’re not sitting on Sunday, and maybe even Saturday, but certainly for those of us who have a long way to fly, we may say that it makes more sense for me to spend the weekend here. So now I’ve travelled here on a Sunday so that we can sit on Monday, and I stay here all week long, and instead of flying home Friday night and coming back Sunday morning to be here for Monday, I decide to stay here straight through until Monday.
Obviously, I’m not doing Senate work on Saturday and Sunday, but I’m here because of Senate work. Do I get to claim nine days of per diems, expenses and travel, or do I not?
Mr. Lanctôt: Thank you, senator, for your question. If you have a break during parliamentary work for two days, in your example, these would qualify as long as it’s cheaper to remain in Ottawa than flying back.
Senator Plett: Well, what about if it’s just more convenient for me to stay in Ottawa than to spend time — the way we’re going right now — on a flight to Toronto, my sitting in the Toronto airport for three hours, catching another flight, flying home and turning around and coming back, never mind the cost of it? The absolute horrible inconvenience of my spending the entire weekend on an airplane — would I not just qualify to just charge that?
Mr. Lanctôt: The change that is proposed today does not affect the rules for the weekend.
Senator Plett: I’m getting impatient; I’m sorry. Please just say yes or no. Can I charge per diems for those days, yes or no? Don’t tell me what the policy does or doesn’t do or that it doesn’t affect change. Can I claim per diems for Saturday and Sunday?
Mr. Lanctôt: Yes, you can in your example.
Senator Plett: Thank you.
The Chair: I will clarify, Senator Plett, that the rule change in this one has no bearing on your question. It’s an entirely different set of circumstances.
Senator Plett: Fair enough, chair, but I still want to know whether it qualifies because if it doesn’t, then I also want to make another rule change. Thank you.
Senator Marshall: Pierre, do you do any analysis or comparison of the cost of the flights? For example, in Newfoundland, if you take the 5 a.m. flight, it’s cheaper than if you take the 1:30 p.m. flight. Do you make any comparison on the cost of flights and question whether a senator uses a more expensive flight? In the context of when a senator is going to stay more than the seven days, would there be any review of the cost of the flight that you’re reimbursing?
Mr. Lanctôt: For comparative purposes, to be consistent, we use full fare to compare to the cost of the weekend.
Senator Marshall: Then anything less is fine.
Mr. Lanctôt: It would be too hard to figure out the different combinations of flight fares, so it’s full fare.
Senator Marshall: Because some of the prices vary quite significantly, in the thousands of dollars.
Mr. Lanctôt: We are consistent in the application.
The Chair: Can I have a mover for the following motion:
That the Third Report of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be adopted.
Senator Marshall moves the motion.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion? Seeing no objections, I declare the motion carried.
The next item concerns increasing capacity for additional committee meetings. This is a decision that is within the purview of CIBA.
As you are aware, colleagues, and as I discussed at our April 7 CIBA meeting, capacity for meetings continues to be an issue. In order to allow for greater capacity, administration has provided us with some options to mitigate some of these issues, in particular regarding the availability of Senate committee rooms and resources for senator-sponsored events or other ad hoc meetings by non-recognized caucuses or groups between now and the summer adjournment. So we’re only talking about between now and when we rise at the end of June, hopefully.
Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant, Committees Directorate, will join the meeting as a witness, and Shaila is in the room. As usual, we’ll have time for questions. Shaila, please go ahead.
Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant, Committees Directorate, Senate of Canada: Thank you for having me here today. I won’t take up too much of your time; this is a very short presentation.
Essentially, I’m here because we were asked at the Committees Directorate to find ways to increase the capacity for committee meetings. Senators are well aware of issues that we’ve had with interpretation in terms of the reduced capacity, so I won’t repeat them today. I’m here specifically about senator-sponsored events, so that can include individual senators who are reserving rooms for their own events or meetings that are being held by — I don’t want to call them non-official — but non-recognized caucuses and groups.
This is normally not something under the purview of the Committees Directorate. However, I’ve been advised by our partners at interpretation and multimedia services that their service to these events does impact their capacity to support the Senate in a few different ways. One is that it cuts into the available amount of time that they have to give, and, more importantly, it does increase the risk of health and safety issues because these events are, generally speaking, not necessarily with participants that all have the equipment we provide to senators and provide to our committee witnesses and can include large amounts of people at different abilities and languages.
Again, let me be clear. I don’t want in any way to imply that I’m trying to limit access to these services for senators. I know these activities are very important. However, when I’m being told they are resulting in cuts to committee meetings or further reducing the pool of available interpreters, then I feel it is important to bring this to your attention and raise it with you today.
[Translation]
Since access to resources such as committee rooms — and this includes access to interpretation and multimedia services — is within the purview of CIBA, I’m here essentially to ask you to limit the use of these resources for the next few weeks. Specifically, I am asking that interpretation and multimedia services be reserved for activities in the following order of precedence: Senate sittings, Senate committees and subcommittees, and recognized caucus and group meetings, until the Senate adjourns for the summer.
[English]
I would note that the recommendation in the briefing note would still allow senators to reserve rooms according to the priority list that is in our Senate Room Allocation Policy. Senators can obtain services such as interpretation and MMS from external service providers and charge it to their office budgets.
Again, I’m very sorry to have to come to you and ask for a further reduction in important activities for senators, but I’m asking for your understanding, and our motivation is to ensure that these services are allocated on a priority basis for the next few months until the Senate is adjourned.
With that, I’m happy to take your questions.
The Chair: With that, colleagues, we will now have time for questions.
Senator Seidman: Thank you, Shaila, for your presentation. Frankly, I don’t think you’re going to be able to answer my question. I think it should be rightly directed to CIBA to consider. I think the last line in the recommendation is a very important one to try to understand.
It says:
That Committee rooms may be reserved for senator-sponsored events or other ad hoc meetings by non-recognized caucuses or groups, subject to the list of priorities in the Room Allocation Policy; and
That senators may procure support services from external suppliers, as required, and charge them to their office budgets.
I understand the huge challenges around competition for resources, and I would not be questioning that because I know how you have to juggle a huge amount of demands; that is not what I’m questioning here. What I’m questioning is the concept of charging external suppliers to senators’ office budgets.
There is a lot of fuzziness around what is considered official Senate business, and senators cannot charge things to their office budgets that aren’t part of their official senatorial duties.
Let me give you an example. For many years, I was the Senate representative on the Parliamentary Health Research Caucus, which had three or four events in the Senate building or in another building annually for parliamentarians. As you know, there are a lot of organizations that would like to speak to parliamentarians, and they ask senators to book rooms for them so they can be here. But there are also other things that happen — in this case, maybe translation services, refreshments and things of that nature.
What exactly does a senator charge to their office budget? I have never, ever charged those things to my office budget because it’s outside the Senate activity. It isn’t part of my senator job. I just want to be clear.
The Chair: In fact, it’s an error here. It really should say for external suppliers for interpretation services only. Everything else remains the same. If a parliamentary service can’t provide interpretation services, you can get outside interpretation services that don’t meet the standards of Parliament but can handle the function. It is only in relation to interpretation. It should have said that, Senator Seidman. Nothing else changes. My apologies. We will correct it to say “for interpretation services only.”
Senator Seidman: Okay. That cleared it up in a hurry, didn’t it?
The Chair: My apologies. I should have clarified that.
Senator Marshall: Thank you, Shaila, for your presentation. The order of priority that you listed sounds logical. Is there ever a situation where a decision has to be made whether one committee meets and another one doesn’t? How is that decision made? I’m asking because the National Finance Committee has a lot of time-sensitive bills coming forward. How was the decision made as to which committees get priority?
Ms. Anwar: Thank you for your question, senator. There are a few layers to that. The first one is that we have a schedule that has been approved by the Senate through the Selection Committee report. The first priority is committees meeting in their own time slot. As long as they’re meeting in their own time slot, they do get priority over that time slot.
The second recommendation in that report was to prioritize government business. So if a committee is studying government business and it comes into conflict with a committee that’s doing a special study, the committee doing government business would get priority. What we will face in the next few weeks is two committees doing government business. So whenever there is a conflict, as the representative from the Committees Directorate, I go to the whips, and the whips will look at which two committees are meeting, what they’re meeting on and make a decision based on that.
Senator Marshall: Thank you very much, and thank you for answering my second question before I asked it.
Senator Boyer: Shaila, I’m co-chair of the Indigenous senators group, and it comes as a very sad day to see this because we do require translation services. So what you’re saying is we are cut completely and we have to take this out of our office budget if we want to have all of our members understand what’s going on?
Ms. Anwar: Right now, if we go according to the priority list, it would be chamber, then committees and then recognized caucus and recognized group meetings. If after that there are resources available, then there may be a possibility, but really we’re asking for the next two months, and it’s based on the fact that we have a significant amount of government business already in the Senate. I think we have 14 committees doing pre‑studies on two government bills; plus we have other government bills coming. So it’s just for this period of time until the Senate rises.
Senator Boyer: Okay. I find it very sad that Indigenous people are now shuffled again to the bottom. Thank you.
Senator Moodie: Shaila, thank you for your presentation. My question is around procuring support services from external providers. I assume it’s through you.
Ms. Anwar: It’s not through me, but we use external service providers when committees travel, for example. I am happy to provide names. Our room allocation service also has the names of some local external suppliers that can provide those services.
Senator Moodie: The second part of the question is around controlling the use of Senate equipment with external providers. Is there any concern there and how do you manage it?
Ms. Anwar: Do you mean external service providers coming into the Senate? Usually these are external providers we’ve worked with before on other functions. It could be that there are outsiders. In terms of bringing in contractors, corporate security, et cetera, would be involved, but that would be something that would be sorted out between procurement and the senator’s office.
Senator Moodie: So there is risk associated with this and that is considered.
Ms. Anwar: It’s outside of my area of responsibility. I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question, senator.
The Chair: Colleagues, this is really a tough call. The fact is that a finite amount of resources exist. It’s a finite amount and in the short term — we’re talking about the short term, which is the next two months — it is very difficult to increase that finite capacity.
As I mentioned to Senator Plett in the chamber yesterday, if the House of Commons increases their sitting times and the Senate increases their sitting times, the pool left for everybody else goes down. It’s a finite amount. So when that pool goes down, the first priority will be to Senate committees, then Senate-recognized groups, and there’s no other way to do this. On the other hand, we can say it’s first come first serve, but Senate committees must meet. We have a tough call to make for the next two months.
This is not a permanent situation, and we can use external suppliers because their standards for private events generally can be met, but they’re much more difficult to do when you have simultaneous translation for committees.
Now, that’s something we are pursuing with the Translation Bureau asking why can’t we have two levels of standards, one up here and one down here; and maybe the lower standard, for less important meetings, we can use the other one. We are pursuing those to try and resolve some of those issues, but we do have constraints in the short term. We are trying to resolve those constraints.
Senator Plett: Chair, thank you for what you said, and I agree with everything except when you said this is a tough call to make. This isn’t a tough call to make. This is a very easy call to make. We are here to do government business. That’s our sole purpose, and obviously the Senate needs to sit and committees need to sit, and so there is no tough call to make here. If there are different caucuses that form, they are not being shuffled to the bottom. This is simply until we come back in the fall. This happens at the end of every session. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in spring, winter or summer, and it’s happening now, and it’s worse now than it ever has been before. That’s not any of our doing here, and so if you’re looking for a motion for your recommendation, I will move that and let’s move on.
It’s a very easy call to make.
Senator Saint-Germain: Senator Plett made my point. We are simply fulfilling our duties.
The Chair: Senator Plett has moved:
That, with respect to the use of committee rooms, access to meeting support resources from the Translation Bureau and House of Commons Multimedia Services be reserved for Senate committees, subcommittees and recognized caucus and group meetings only, until the Senate adjourns for the summer;
That Committee rooms may be reserved for senator‑sponsored events or other ad hoc meetings by non‑recognized caucuses or groups, subject to the list of priorities in the Room Allocation Policy; and
That senators may procure support services from external suppliers for interpretation services only, as required, and charge them to their office budgets.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion? Seeing no objections, I declare the motion carried.
Is there any other public business, colleagues? If not, we’ll suspend briefly so the clerk can show that we are in camera.
Again, I would like to remind everyone that CIBA meetings are mostly held in public, but at times we may go in camera on matters related to wages, contracts, labour relations and personnel matters or security, and these are considered in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)