THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 7, 2023
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met with videoconference this day at 9:35 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(a), to consider possible amendments to the Rules.
Senator Diane Bellemare (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. I am Diane Bellemare, senator from Quebec and chair of this committee. Today we are continuing our study of the mandates and structure of committees. Before we begin, I will go around the table, starting on my right.
[English]
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy, I’m a senator from Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie, Rougemont, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene, Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick.
Senator Saint-Germain: Raymonde Saint-Germain, De la Vallière, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Omidvar: Ratna Omidvar, Ontario.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
Senator Busson: Bev Busson, British Columbia.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Ontario.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator Batters: Denise Batters, Saskatchewan, deputy chair of this committee.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much for being with us today. We will be hearing from the clerk assistant at the Committees Directorate. Let there be no mistake about her title: She is the head clerk for committees. She is the boss of the other clerks. Today, we will continue our discussion, but will look more specifically at the schedule for committees and will try to see how many committees can sit at the same time, considering meeting room and staff availability.
In short, I hope this analysis will help us determine the number of committees that can sit. We can of course play with the numbers, but it will give us an idea of what is possible. It might also give us an idea of how many senators can sit on each committee because, if there are a lot of committees meeting at the same time, that could affect the number of people serving on each committee. Without further delay, I will ask Shaila Anwar to make her presentation.
Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant, Committees Directorate, Senate of Canada: Thank you very much, senator.
[English]
Good morning, senators. I have to say it was actually nice to have you introduce yourselves to me. I’m so used to calling your names, it was fun. I could have done the introductions if you needed. I appreciate it. It’s morning, I haven’t had my first coffee yet, so that’s always good.
Thank you for inviting me back today. This is, I guess, a bit of an update on previous appearances, and, of course, I’ve been following your meetings on this topic with great interest, given that I am, as Senator Bellemare pointed out, in charge of the Committees Directorate. There are many interesting things that have been shared with you by current senators and former senators, and trying to put it all together into a report is the next step, and I hope to provide a little more information to you today.
[Translation]
To begin, I will talk about the documents that I just listed. The first is an update. When I last joined you, I think I provided data for committees per fiscal year. Today, I have the figures for all committees since the start of the session. We cannot compare a fiscal year with the start of the session because each session now lasts about three years, or three and a half, but at least it will give you an overview of the activities and workload of each Senate committee.
[English]
Again, this is just for your information, to give you an idea. I know you’ve talked a lot about certain committees that are busier than others, certain committees that meet longer or need extra meetings. So when you see it all together, certain patterns emerge: Some committees have longer sitting hours, some committees have more meetings, and some committees invite a lot more witnesses, just to give you that idea.
The second document is a copy of the current approved schedule. I’ve slightly altered it with my crazy colour-coding. I thought it might be helpful to explain what it is. It’s the one where at the top it says “Available blocks with the current schedule.” It’s exactly the schedule that you meet at right now, but what I’ve done here is I’ve colour-coded the different blocks. For example, on Tuesday morning, it’s a dark blue. The dark blue block also meets on Wednesday evening. The evening committees today, the green block, they also meet on Thursday mornings, just so you can see the committees that meet twice versus the committees that only meet once, which are in orange. Then you’ve got the committees in pink. That’s a shared time slot in most cases, with the exception of the Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration Committee, or CIBA. CIBA meets once every two weeks, so it’s not a time slot that is used every week. Then there’s just the regular copy of the schedule, if you’re familiar with that, just if you wanted to compare.
Finally, I’ve included a list of staffing levels for the Committees Directorate on the House side and the Committees Directorate on the Senate side. Again, it’s merely to give you an idea of resources both here and at the House. I’ll talk in a little more detail about that because the Committees Directorates are not the only directorates providing staffing support to your committees; there’s a big number of staff, and that’s part of the equation.
So in examining the summary of evidence and going back in my notes for the many hearings that you’ve had, the two recurring themes for me that I thought I would raise today have to do with schedules and with staffing. These two themes are certainly linked. Both are tied to decisions made by senators, and I thought, for today, what would be the most helpful was to provide you with a bit of background on these two items to help you in your deliberations and in the recommendations you might make in your upcoming report.
[Translation]
Two facts must be taken into consideration in order to increase the number of events per week: the total number of hours and the number of events running concurrently. These two factors have a significant impact on the staff and resources that support committees.
[English]
First, we can talk about schedules. That’s the colour-coded block document I was talking about. The meeting schedule itself is prepared in accordance with the Senate Administrative Rules, or the SARs, which direct the Clerk Assistant of Committees, that is me, to consult with all the leaders and facilitators to assign a meeting schedule and reserve a room for each Senate committee and subcommittee that meets regularly. Typically, that’s done at the start of a session. Since the pandemic, because we have had some changes, I consult usually every fall — sorry, I should say late summer, in preparation for the fall — to see if the whips and leaders have any changes. Or, for example, a couple of weeks ago, the Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, was created, and we needed to find a time slot, so from time to time, I’m also consulting with the whips and leaders about those types of things.
Additionally, the SARs direct the Clerk Assistant of Committees to consult with caucus spokespeople to assign a meeting schedule and reserve a room for each caucus that meets regularly, taking into account the size of the caucus and its status as a recognized party or group. I know that’s not part of your mandate, but the caucus schedule also has an impact on the committee schedule, so I just wanted to point that out to you.
The current approved schedule, if you look at the document with the blocks, accounts for three regular sittings of the Senate. Those are the dark pink, I guess, blocks on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but it can include more, as you know, so that’s sort of the lighter pink. Those are the areas where the Senate may sit on a sitting week but not always.
Then we have four blocks with four simultaneous committee meetings, so Tuesday morning, Wednesday afternoon and then Thursday morning back to back. There are four blocks in total with four simultaneous meetings, and then there are three blocks with three simultaneous meetings on Monday afternoon, Tuesday evening and Wednesday, the later of the two time slots.
Then there are three stand-alone meetings. I have a time slot that is shared by the Scrutiny of Regulations Committee and the Library of Parliament Committee. I have a time slot shared by the Audit Committee and the Conflict of Interest Committee, and then there’s the CIBA time slot, which is a bit of a stand-alone. Then there are four simultaneous caucus and group meetings on Tuesday mornings and one stand-alone group meeting on Wednesday around lunchtime.
That gives us a total of roughly 28 weekly committee meetings that sit for around 66 hours per week, 5 weekly caucus meetings that sit for around 20 hours per week, and 3 sittings of the Senate, which is generally 10 hours, but often more. That’s about 96 hours or more per sitting week.
[Translation]
By comparison, the Translation Bureau stated last June that, in terms of House of Commons events, it can support roughly 160 hours per sitting week, which includes House sittings, 57 committee meetings and about three caucus meetings. You also have to remember that the House is much larger than the Senate. It has more members, events and committees, more sitting hours and meetings. The services provided to the two houses are roughly proportional.
Since the Senate resumed its meetings in person, there have been very few instances in which normally scheduled meetings had to be cancelled or could not take place owing to a lack of resources. In most cases, Senate committee meetings are cancelled if the Senate sitting is extended, since the Rules prohibit committees from meeting while the Senate is in session.
[English]
Sometimes, extended sittings may lead to some limitations or a lack of flexibility for committees to extend their meetings, but what we’ve lost is the flexibility for committees that wish to sit outside of their time slot or wish to have additional meetings or overlap with other committee time slot blocks. We have a limited capacity for those extras right now.
For example, right now, the National Security and Defence Committee is meeting on Bill C-21, and they needed to schedule extra hearings. What they’re doing is using their Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs time slot and also using the time slot every other week when CIBA doesn’t meet. They are getting extra meetings, but they are using other time slots that are not being used.
There is an area for the Senate to explore some extra meetings. Again, in the available blocks document, I’ve highlighted some areas in yellow, and the areas in grey I’ve taken from the comments and notes. I would have to say for as many comments that I saw about committees using Mondays and Fridays for meetings, there were just as many comments saying, “Please don’t use Mondays and Fridays.” That’s kind of the boat I’m in. I have some senators who want us to use those times, and I have many senators who don’t. So until there’s a consensus, I’ve blocked off that time, but within the other times that are available, there are little pockets where we might be able to add either extra hours or one or two extra committees. Those are the blocks that are marked in yellow. I realize that some of these are also probably not the most desirable time slots, but I wanted to at least give you that option for consideration.
The other thing is on Mondays right now we have three committees that have a four-hour time slot each, and for a variety of different reasons, I don’t think that all of them are using the full four hours. Most of them are three hours, so it’s not enough maybe to create a time slot, but if we take an hour from one committee, an hour from another committee and an hour from another committee, that gives us another three-hour time slot to consider. I’m saying all of this setting aside the resources question, which I will bring up next.
I know Tuesday evenings is also an issue for the evening committees. They often choose not to meet because of the uncertainty of whether or not the Senate will be sitting and to avoid having to cancel meetings at the last minute, or they make arrangements to have either local witnesses or no witnesses. They’ll hold in camera meetings, for example, to try to avoid the disruption, but that’s definitely an issue that has been raised.
That being said, all three of those committees in the olden days before the pandemic used to meet at 8 a.m. on Thursday mornings, which — don’t get me wrong — I’m not advocating for committees to start at 8 a.m., but that is an option to give them an extra hour on Thursday mornings instead of the Tuesday nights. That’s something for you to consider.
On Wednesday evenings, at 4:15 p.m. we have four committees that meet, and at 6:45 p.m. we have three committees that meet. Long ago, that fourth time slot used to belong to this committee, but it rarely ever used that time slot, and oftentimes the Legal Committee, which meets at 4:15, needed to extend, so Legal essentially took that time slot. And because the Rules Committee kind of stopped using it, it sort of gradually fell away. Could that be a time slot that is used or a bit of flex time for some of the committees? That’s again something for you to consider.
Next, I just want to touch a little bit on resources. The Senate is normally resourced to support the needs of committees and caucuses based on this long-standing schedule for in-person meetings that are in Ottawa during sitting weeks. The SARs direct the Clerk Assistant — me — to assign one clerk for each Senate committee and to provide any additional staff that might be necessary. I presume, even though the SARs don’t say it explicitly, that means Senate staff, not other staff.
Although I’m directed to assign a clerk for every committee, I’m also only allotted a certain number of clerks by CIBA. Currently, that number is 15 to support 18 committees, 6 subcommittees and 4 joint committees.
[Translation]
By comparison, the House of Commons Committees Directorate has 32 clerks to support 27 committees, two subcommittees and four joint committees.
[English]
My team is mandated to support committees in very specific ways. We provide procedural, administrative, logistical and financial management/budget support. However, that’s only one piece of the puzzle. It might surprise you to learn that for a typical televised meeting such as this, there can be up to 31 people working to support a meeting. They’re either in the room, near the room, somewhere else on the Hill, and we even have staff that support remotely, depending on what services are required.
Senate committees are supported in their work by an array of staff, not all of whom report to me and not all of whom are even Senate employees. We have our colleagues from the Library of Parliament, for example, from the House of Commons and from the Translation Bureau and Public Works. Many of those staff can support multiple meetings at the same time, but there’s a certain number of positions that can’t really be duplicated or repeated or can’t work multiple meetings at the same time.
The first group I’ll talk about is clerks. We are a specialized subject-matter resource that is difficult to duplicate and certainly difficult to put in two meetings at the same time. We need one clerk per meeting, and there’s no real way around that that I’ve figured out. I know AI and things like that are coming up, but we’re not quite at the level of robot clerks yet, and I’ll be ready to retire by the time that happens.
If committees meet outside their time slot, if they travel or if they experience one of the many upticks that happen throughout the course of the parliamentary calendar, it can be really challenging if I assign one clerk to two committees. We sometimes do that, for example, with the Monday committees because they meet only once a week. Those clerks will be assigned to another committee, but as I said, if one of those two committees travels, that means I have to find a replacement for the other committee that is not busy or not travelling.
In addition, all three managers in the Committees Directorate support one standing committee and at least one subcommittee of CIBA.
The clerks, the logistics officers and the administrative assistants are all managed by me, but I only control how those resources are assigned and distributed among our various committees.
I was saying yesterday when I was talking with some of my staff that it’s like I get a pie every year and I’m responsible for how that pie gets divided, and sometimes when people want more pie, the only thing I can do is cut a slice in half, and that means we’re rationing the resources a little bit. I like this pie analogy because it fits for a few of the other resources that we have.
Our analysts from the Library of Parliament are quite similar in that they tend to be subject-matter experts, so somebody who has experience in Fisheries and Oceans might not be able to just substitute for the analyst at Legal and Constitutional Affairs, which requires some more legal expertise. They are a different organization, they are a partner organization, and they report to management at the Library of Parliament, which is run by the Parliamentary Librarian. They also support both houses. It’s a joint service.
Then we have the resources that are a bit more general and can cover more than one committee — in some cases at one time. Interpretation can’t cover more than one committee at the same time, or an individual interpreter can’t, but they are less specialized than the clerks and the analysts are, although they do tend to become very familiar with the subject that they’re interpreting. That’s why we like to have the same interpreters on similar meetings, but they have a bit more flexibility than we do. Interpretation has indicated to us that they have limited flexibility to increase their capacity for the extras, but they’re less affected by the number of simultaneous events. So I had said at the beginning the two big factors for us are the total number of hours and the number of simultaneous events. For them, the total number of hours of service they provide is more important than the number of simultaneous events, but not unlimited.
Our current service levels for interpretation and translation are governed by a partnership agreement between the Senate and the Translation Bureau, which is approved by CIBA.
The other important support service that we have is the technical, multimedia and broadcasting support, which comes from the multimedia services, technicians and the TV crews, and that is a resource provided by the House of Commons. This is also an arrangement governed by a service-level agreement between the Senate and the House of Commons, and that is also approved by CIBA.
I should note one key change in the service levels to the Senate occurred when we moved out of Centre Block and came here and started broadcasting the chamber, and we also increased the number of simultaneous committees to four per time block. Prior to that, it used to be three, and it used to be a common occurrence that committees would have to submit their TV requests, and the whips would settle on a weekly or daily basis which of the three of four committees could be televised.
I wanted to mention that because if the overall number of meetings requiring broadcasting were to increase, we would be working within the existing service levels, so that slice of pie would again have to be cut in half. When I started in the Senate, not all meetings were televised, so it’s something that we have been fortunate to able to support for the past eight or nine years; however, it’s not that long ago in the Senate’s past where sometimes some committees could not televise. Otherwise, we would need the service-level agreement to be renegotiated, and that’s something that would be under the purview of CIBA.
Beyond that, we have support staff that come from the Senate Administration. We have our console operators, we have the pages who support our meetings, and we have our IT staff, and these are also staff who can do maybe not more than one meeting at the same time, but they can do multiple different meetings. They’re not as dedicated to a particular committee, so there’s a bit more flexibility that way. All of those things would have to be looked at if you are looking at increasing the total number of meetings and also if you’re looking at increasing the number of simultaneous meetings.
I’ll stop there, and I’m sure you have questions. I know there are a number of other issues that were raised over the course of your hearings. I didn’t address everything today, but if you do have questions, I have gone through all the material and I’m happy to help.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Anwar. I have a long list, starting with Senator Saint-Germain, then Senator Mégie, Senator Ataullahjan, Senator Batters and Senator Omidvar.
Senator Saint-Germain: Thank you for these very effective and informative documents. I will add to your problems and then suggest a solution. To add to your problems, on the colour-coded table, it looks like there are not really any meetings on Fridays. In reality, however, the five Internal Economy subcommittees, which actually met 51 times in the past year, very often meet on Fridays. There is also the Joint Interparliamentary Council, which increasingly — nearly once per month — meets on Monday morning or on Friday.
So those must be added to the time slots. Further, it has been noted that Mondays and Fridays are usually when senators travel to their home province. Increasingly, senators are being asked to be available five days per week. Looking at the five committees that met most often, none of them meet on Monday evening. There are no doubt various explanations, such as that they are not authorized to meet. Those five committees are the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, with an equal number of meetings as the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. Next is the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples and finally, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Those are the additional problems I have identified.
My question for you as to solutions is the following: Aside from the five committees that met the most often and that could keep two time slots per week, do you think it would be possible to let the other committees meet for a longer period, let’s say for three hours, and for some committees, including ours, to meet just once every two weeks to ensure better balance and also to allow senators to respect their commitments as committee members and to avoid schedule conflicts?
Ms. Anwar: Thank you very much for your comments and questions.
Let me begin with the subcommittees and Joint Interparliamentary Council. The Internal Economy subcommittees and the Joint Interparliamentary Council usually meet on Mondays and Fridays because that is essentially the only time available. It should be noted, however, that they can continue to meet virtually. Standing Senate committees may not do so. That is an option available to them that relieves some of the pressure since those two days are travel days and because senators may participate from home or while they are travelling and so on.
In the case of standing committees, they sometimes meet on those days when a committee needs additional meetings, but that has been extremely rare since last September because senators use those days for travel.
For the committees that meet the most often, we also have to remember that the committees you mentioned are the ones that consider the most legislation. There is interaction with the Senate: They have to report on the bills that have a deadline or that are very urgent, and the committees have to report to the Senate — on Thursday, for instance — before week’s end. It is important for them to finish their work by Thursday at the latest because their work has an impact on what the Senate does.
For the other committees that primarily conduct special studies, the deadlines are in essence determined by the committees. In some cases, there are deadlines to be met because it is June and the committees want to table their report before the summer, before an election or before a potential prorogation, but those deadlines are set by the committees themselves.
Would it be possible to give them one time slot per week that would be longer than two hours? Yes, adjustments would have to be made, but that means cutting one thing in order to increase something else. That is something we could consider, but I really need a decision from senators. They have to tell me whether those four committees will stay as they are and which other committees I can make changes for or propose a different schedule. I need a clear and specific decision from senators.
Senator Mégie: You partially answered the question I had for you and that Senator Saint-Germain asked, but I will ask it anyway because that would create a precedent for us. The Official Languages Committee meets Monday afternoons; we were always told that was because senators often travel on Monday afternoons. By comparison, looking at the very informative tables that you proposed, we can also see that the joint committees and House committees continue to hold hybrid sessions. This might be a slippery slope, but yesterday afternoon we needed a motion to authorize the committee to continue to hear from witnesses if members left during the meeting and we lost quorum.
So to avoid that, for committees discussing topics that are not too contentious but which are less likely to have quorum, would it be possible for them to hold virtual meetings, even though they are Senate committees?
Ms. Anwar: Once again, it is really up to senators to decide whether they want to open the door to hybrid meetings. I can tell you that is one of the reasons that fewer members attend meetings on Mondays. I think there are nine members at the Official Languages Committee and nine at the Human Rights Committee. The National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs Committee has nine members according to the Rules, but a sessional order increased that to 12 members.
That partly explains why the numbers are lower, because those committees were added 25 years ago, so they are no longer new committees. That is really one of the reasons for this. The other factor I want to mention is that the decision to return to in-person meetings was also related to interpretation staff. If the Senate continued to hold committee meetings and hybrid meetings, there would be fewer interpreters available. So that decision was made to increase our access to interpretation services.
Senator Mégie: Thank you. I know we are talking about numbers, the number of meetings and so forth. My question pertains instead to quality and the clerks’ work in choosing witnesses to appear before committees. Do they ever compile data about the number of diversity witnesses who are invited or the number of witnesses who are Black as compared to other ethnic origins? How many francophones and how many anglophones? How can we tell if there is enough diversity in the witnesses chosen since the individuals who appear can impact the committee’s work? Do the clerks do that or do senators chose them?
Ms. Anwar: Witness selection is really the senators’ prerogative, whether the decision is made by the steering committee or the committee as a whole. Of course, analysts at the Library of Parliament assist committees by preparing witness lists for senators’ consideration, but the final choice to invite this or that witness remains with the senators.
As for statistics on the diversity front, currently, no, we don’t keep data. Maybe that’s something we could do, because sometimes the types of diversity aren’t visible, so we need the collaboration of witnesses who can self-identify.
It’s a system where the witnesses themselves declare that they’re a member of one group or another, because I might have a bit of a fear if the clerk were responsible for identifying characteristics of a witness, like whether they’re English-speaking or French-speaking. Sometimes they’re bilingual, but we don’t always know their mother tongue. So, we’ve never thought about that, but maybe it’s something we could do in the future.
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you. My question is similar to Senator Saint-Germain’s and Senator Mégie’s. The Human Rights Committee is supposed to meet for four hours on Monday. We have a lot of problems sometimes having quorum. Yesterday, one of my senators told me that to come to a 4:30 meeting, she has to leave on Sunday, which she felt wasn’t fair. We used to meet on Wednesdays between 11:30 and 1:30. Is there any possibility of getting that time slot in the near future?
Also, you said that most committees do not use the four hours. Truthfully, if you travel on Monday, you are very tired, and to sit until eight o’clock without any food is very difficult. I’m constantly asked, “Why don’t you try to get back the Wednesday slot?” So I’m asking you.
Ms. Anwar: It is the pie analogy again. If the Human Rights Committee were to take a Wednesday time slot, we would have to take it away from someone else, whether it is Audit, Conflict of Interest or the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. Certainly, that is something that can be put forward as a proposal to the whips. That would be the appropriate way to go.
The one issue is that Audit and Conflict of Interest both have permission to sit while the Senate is sitting. They actually don’t sit at noon; they sit at 1:30 p.m. Really it is the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee that meets at that time.
Certainly, a committee would typically get priority over a subcommittee, but that would be something to raise with the whips. Yes, it could be done. But we would need to have the whips make a decision on which committee would be moved from that time slot.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
Senator Batters: Thank you for being here today, Ms. Anwar.
There were a couple of things that I wanted to raise given the points you made in your presentation. You pointed out that CIBA now meets only once every two weeks. I wonder when that started. I was on CIBA for a number of years. I was deputy chair for the last three years, ending very soon after the COVID pandemic started. Certainly, at that point we were meeting regularly once a week and with a very full agenda of, for sure, two hours every time we met. I imagine maybe this started with COVID, but I’m surprised that it has continued to go on once every two weeks. I’m surprised that they can get all of their work done in that time frame.
Ms. Anwar: Right now, the steering committee meets on alternate weeks. CIBA itself is not using the full time slot, which means that gives us a room that is available, a broadcast crew and stenographers who are available because they are already here for that time slot anyways. That is the change.
I’m not totally sure why they went to one week or alternating weeks, but it is something that has evolved. Probably the pandemic is part of it. But even just moving to this building, it has just evolved that way over time. Now, it is still their time slot. If something urgent came up and they had to meet, they would get priority over other committees, but it is probably worth looking at whether that particular time slot can be assigned to somebody else on a more regular basis. Again, it would be an alternating time slot.
Senator Batters: The steering committee used to meet weekly for a lengthy meeting. That is also biweekly now?
Ms. Anwar: As far as I know. They may meet more frequently or on an as-needed basis, but, generally speaking, that has been the pattern now for a couple of years at least.
Senator Batters: I have a few other things. I am looking at the comparison with the House of Commons. We have talked about this as a part of one of the early drafts of a report that we have been talking about. People have been saying that maybe we could have more committee sittings when the chamber is sitting.
In a recent discussion, I was talking about how the House of Commons really has longer sitting hours than the Senate Chamber. You pointed out with your chart here, as far as the Senate general sitting is concerned, normal Senate sitting hours were about 10 hours a week, and normal House of Commons sitting hours would be more like 35 hours a week. There has historically, generally been the perspective that the House of Commons obviously has three or more times as many members as the Senate. And in the Senate, there has been a general desire to have committee meetings sitting outside of Senate hours because of the smaller number in the Senate Chamber. Is that your historical perspective on that issue?
Ms. Anwar: Definitely. The cultures are different, and the rules are different. On the House side, their committees are allowed to meet when their chamber meets. Although we see Question Period on TV in the House where it is full of members, if you go at other times, there is not a whole lot of MPs. Certainly, the seats are not filled because, most of the time, members are at committee meetings that are meeting at those times. It is an institutional choice.
On the Senate side, certainly, the work of committees is something that senators take very seriously. It is something that the Senate is known for. There is an attempt, also, not to interfere with that.
I can give you examples. Every year there is always a budget implementation bill that comes in. Typically, there is a pre-study and it is split between multiple committees. The Senate always gives permission to all of those committees to meet when the Senate is sitting, and I go crazy because if four committees meet while the Senate is sitting, that is basically pulling 50 senators out of the chamber for a committee meeting. My sense is that senators do not want the image of an empty chamber and only the people participating in a particular debate. Our culture is very much geared towards that when the Senate is sitting, senators should be in the Senate, and when committees are meeting, senators should be in committee.
There are probably some adjustments that could be made if that is something that senators want to do. I would just be mindful of the fact that one committee is 12 senators, two is 24 senators, and so on and so forth. That leaves a different impression of who is left in the chamber and what is going on. I don’t know if that answers your question fully.
Senator Batters: It does, yes. Also, there is much important work that is being done in the chamber too. It is not only in Senate committees that there is important work being done.
Ms. Anwar: I am biased towards the work done in Senate committees, as you know. But I take your point. I’m also a table officer, so I would not discount that.
It would also change the resources that we have available if both events were going on at the same time. We have the luxury that when the Senate is sitting and if it is going to sit late, we can throw all our resources at supporting the chamber.
That is our belief system here in the Senate that the chamber is the pre-eminent entity, which then is followed by committees. That is how all of our structures work, how our Rules work and how our resources are distributed.
The only thing is that because the Senate sits from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. or from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., that is the chunk of the day that the committees cannot meet.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you, Ms. Anwar. I appreciate your testimony and, in particular, the visualization tools you have provided to us.
Outside of the issue of resources, when I look at this chart of available blocks, am I wrong in assuming that there is space on Wednesday mornings from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.?
Ms. Anwar: That is traditionally the national caucus time, so we have not had committees that met on Wednesday mornings, not until 11:30 a.m. or 12 p.m. at the earliest. That is the reason.
Again, because there are caucus meetings going on, there is a concentration of resources that particular day. Senate caucus was always on Tuesday mornings, and House or national caucus was always on Wednesdays.
I should mention that is one of the evolving changes of the Senate. We used to have to support two caucus meetings. Now we have greater needs. We didn’t get four times the resources to support four caucuses, so we have to be more flexible in how those resources are divided.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you. That answers my question.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, Ms. Anwar. I want to make a comment before the question to congratulate you. This is probably the most colourful presentation that I have seen in any Senate committee that I have ever been on. It is delightful.
Ms. Anwar: You can tell that I’m left-handed. I need visuals. Colours drive some people crazy, but it makes it easier for me to picture what I am talking about.
Senator Kutcher: Not being a Gen-Xer myself, I find that this really beautiful in how it is laid out, so thank you very much.
Ms. Anwar: Thank you for thinking I’m a Gen-Xer. I really appreciate it, senator. You have made my day.
Senator Kutcher: I want to ask about special committees. We had some discussion about potential use of these. I see that there are potential time slots, but what about resources? If we struck some special committees on topics of the day, what additional resources would be necessary for special committees? Are those resources available?
For example, on a Monday evening from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., there is a slot there. Does that mean that resources are already available to be used for that? Could you help to sort that out? Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: At this time, no, just to answer your question in the absolute simplest way. It does not mean that it is impossible. We would have to do a reorganization and then examination of resources. In some cases, we would have to take resources from somewhere else. In other cases, we would have to go to CIBA and ask for additional resources. That might involve going to some of our partner and support organizations and ask them for more resources.
If I take the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, that was a negotiation with the House of Commons, which has greater access to resources, certainly, than the Senate does. We asked them to administratively support the committee, so the meetings are happening on the House side with House resources. I still have to provide a clerk, administrative support, et cetera. There are things that we split 70-30. That special committee has an end date, which is something I can work with.
When I speak about the pie, I don’t have an extra clerk for that committee, so I have taken a clerk from another committee and have given him an extra assignment. He will be working on two committees. But if the committee sticks to the end-of-January deadline, we can manage that. If it extends beyond that, I will need extra resources.
To answer your question, if the Senate created a special committee with an end-of-the-session end date or until they prepare their final report, which is at an undetermined time, I would need to get extra clerk resources. I would have to speak to our partners at the Library of Parliament, at interpretation and at the House of Commons to see what resources they have.
There is always a little bit. It is just that if it is a one-off or a short-term thing, those are all things that we can absorb with existing resources. If it is intended to be a longer-term thing, that is when we have to start looking at what additional resources can be acquired.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you for that. To nuance that a little bit, for special committees just within the Senate, would the same issues apply?
Ms. Anwar: Yes.
Senator Kutcher: What I am hearing you say is that it might be possible, but two at the same time would be really a far stretch.
Ms. Anwar: Without additional resources, it would be difficult. If you told me that we needed a special committee for six months — and I have been told that before, and it has not worked out to being only six months, so I am wary of that. Other things get in the way. Senators are also busy. If you create a special committee, you are not getting 10 extra senators assigned to that committee. Someone is getting an extra committee. That means extra work for you as well. Things get in the way. Sittings get in the way. Meetings have to be cancelled. That tends to extend the life of a special committee.
We have had less resources to work with before. We are doing okay. We can support the Medical Assistance in Dying Committee for the duration it is expected to meet. If it were a longer-term special committee, I would need additional clerk resources for sure, and we would have to renegotiate to see what is available for others.
Senator Kutcher: Also if we just have a special committee in the Senate for the Senate, yes?
Ms. Anwar: Correct.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you for that.
Senator Cordy: This was an excellent presentation, and I also like the colours. Maybe we’re the same age, Senator Kutcher. I like that. It clarifies it so you can see where the resources are.
I would like to talk about resources for translation. I know the priority is the Senate and committees. My staff of all our group and leadership staff like to have a meeting once a week for an hour or whatever. There just aren’t the resources. They are having the meetings in one language, which totally goes against everything we believe in for the Government of Canada.
Ms. Anwar: I am aware of that issue. We are looking at different ways that we can try to augment our capacity. One of those is through the use of remote interpretation, which is being tested on a pilot-project basis at the House of Commons. We did some testing with remote interpretation; that’s where the interpreters are in Toronto, Vancouver, and they are doing their work through Zoom. It has worked very well. We have not live-tested it on actual parliamentary events. That is probably the next step that we are looking at.
That is what you are talking about; it is one of the extras. We just have not had the capacity. We have been so focused on getting the regular parliamentary business back up and running. If I use last week as an example, there were a number of special events. The Teachers Institute, Take Our Kids to Work Day — they are big institutional events. Typically, simultaneous interpretation is provided. This was the first year when it wasn’t 100% interpreted. We did bilingual presentations, things like that.
It is a new reality. We are trying to find different ways. That is where, though, I have to do a lot of schedule management every week, which I did not have to do before, because as soon as a clerk tells me that their committee is only going to do an hour this week, I take that hour and I try to find somebody else who needs to use it and, invariably, there is somebody who needs to use that hour for an extra whatever that they are doing.
That is something we — Maxime, our representative for the Senate with the Translation Bureau, and I — have talked to them about. When we have Monday committees, for example, if they are not using the full hour, we want to be able to use that resource somewhere else. As to how we decide, we don’t have a solid proposal to give to you yet as senators. The next step will be to try to incorporate those extras and the redundancies that we have to see if we can be more efficient in the use. We are trying to be as efficient as we can.
Even with the Senate, sometimes at the start of the day we’re told that the Senate will sit until 10:00 p.m., and we reorganize things to make sure that the chamber is going to be supported, and then the chamber adjourns at 6 p.m. or 5 p.m. or whatever. Then all of those resources had been rearranged and deployed for the longer sitting, and we end up not needing them. It ends up being a bit of a wasted resource, but, at the same time, we have to allow the Senate to do what it needs to do, and some of that is organic and not predetermined.
Senator Cordy: Is there a shortage of translators in the Ottawa region, or is it a financial issue?
Ms. Anwar: It is a shortage of interpreters. They have had many retirements and injuries over the course of the pandemic, but it is also from a demographic standpoint. It is attrition; they have not replaced at the same levels that they have lost.
Senator Cordy: We have had people appear before the committees talking about potential changes. Some suggested having, rather than two committee meetings a week, having one that would be three or four hours a week. That is particularly true when you look at the Tuesday evenings. You brought it up earlier that they are often cancelled. For example, the Fisheries and Oceans Committee is often cancelled because the Senate is sitting longer on Tuesday night. Would that even out, meaning it’s not going to help with resources, or would it make a difference?
Ms. Anwar: Right now, I proactively work with the clerks to find out who is meeting. Tonight, for example, I know that Agriculture and Energy both want to meet. We don’t know if the Senate will extend, so I have dedicated resources for both those committees. We’ll find out when we find out whether or not those committees can meet. If we had more certainty, could we use those resources elsewhere? Probably. Right now, I don’t have the ability to reassign, let’s say, those resources until we know for sure that they’re not needed.
[Translation]
The Chair: Before I yield the floor to Senator Busson, can you tell us how long it takes to train a new clerk?
Ms. Anwar: It depends. The legislative clerk position is an entry-level position for someone who wants to be a procedural clerk. If you hire a legislative clerk who’s already been working for two or three years in that role, it probably takes less time before they become a self-sufficient clerk.
On the other hand, if you hire someone from the outside who has never worked on Parliament Hill, there’s bound to be a learning period. When we hire someone from outside, for the first two or three months, he or she will work with a more experienced clerk, who will act as a mentor and help with training. We have benchmarks, things we monitor to see if the person is able to do the job increasingly independently.
So I would say that if it’s someone from in-house, it will probably take three to six months; if it’s someone from the outside, it may take a little longer. I can’t say a year, because we’ll be doing the exercise after a parliamentary cycle — in fact, if we hire someone in June, they won’t really be working over the summer. So we’re trying to hire people to start in September, and by January, people should be trained enough to become self-sufficient. On the other hand, it’s an art; it’s not an exact science.
The Chair: I understand; thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Busson: A number of the questions I wanted to ask are already covered, but I’m going to get into a few of the details, if you don’t mind.
First, I hope I’m not the only person in this room who is absolutely amazed at the level of complexity to keep all these things in the air and well serviced. It looks so smooth from our side of the fence that I needed to comment on that.
Ms. Anwar: Thank you, senator.
Senator Busson: I always say that if it looks easy, it usually takes a lot of work.
The other thing I wanted to talk about — and I think our chair covered it to a point — is we have 15 clerks, and the other place has 32. Are the 15 clerks a function purely of our budget? If we had a bigger budget, could we have more clerks? I understand the training. A clerk school is obviously non-existent; it takes resources to train people as well. Could you comment on that for me?
Ms. Anwar: It’s really done in function of what the operational needs are. One thing that is very different between the House and the Senate is the House has a rotating committee schedule. They have committees in Blocks A, B, C, D, and there are seven committees in each block. In September, Block A’s time slot is, say, 8:30 to 11:30; Block B will be 3:30 to 5:30; Block C will be at a different time slot. In January, everybody rotates and, because of that, you have to assign only one clerk per committee because there’s too much crossover. It also affects membership, but they have 330-odd MPs to fill their committees. We don’t have that many senators and, correspondingly, we don’t have as many clerks.
Regarding where we’ve had increases, definitely the CIBA subcommittees have increased our workload, but to address that, we’ve assigned those to management. We’ve had a demographic shift. I don’t want to leave the impression that clerks have left. It’s not that clerks have left, but every time somebody retires or leaves for a promotion, everybody sort of moves up a rung, and we have to backfill those positions. The cohort of clerks we have right now is quite inexperienced.
When I started in the Senate as a committee clerk, I was the first hire that the Committees Directorate had had in probably four or five years. The next clerk to be hired wasn’t until three years later. We’re certainly “going through” people a lot faster now. The demographics have shifted. The pandemic was a huge disrupter to the workforce, and we’ve had a lot of promotions internally. Of our current cohort of clerks, I think I have one or two who have five years’ experience or more. That means I have an inexperienced group, which means they need more of our attention, guidance and support. They need mentorship, and that pulls us away from some of the other things that senators would like us to do.
Do I think we need 32 clerks? No, I don’t. However, I have no flex right now, and I know senators want to create two more committees. I want to be able to support you with qualified, experienced, ready-to-go and hit-the-ground-running clerks, but I don’t have that right now. I don’t have any extra resources to give you, which means I have to hire somebody new. That means I would be adding more new people to my already new group. I’m thinking ahead to what might be asked of us. If some of those committees that are being considered are created, I would need time to staff those up.
Senator Busson: For my own clarification, certainly, one or two or three more clerks would add flexibility not just to your planning but to the needs of the Senate, am I right?
Ms. Anwar: Yes, it would. It would also reduce overtime, which is another concern I have as a manager. We have a lot of clerks incurring a lot of overtime.
Senator Busson: I have that circled on my page. I’m not on CIBA and I didn’t want to get into the weeds, but I’m wondering if there are efficiencies to be gained in being able to address these concerns. I’m sure, with seeing the clock and all of that, overtime just ticks like crazy.
Ms. Anwar: It can. Certainly, that’s a factor. Certainty in the schedule and having a bit of identified flex time for when committees have to sit those extra times would be helpful.
We used to typically expect December and June to be busy months. When committees travel, that takes up a lot of time in terms of planning, but also the trips themselves are long days. We don’t go for social activities. You’ve been on committee trips. You’re running from breakfast to dinner to after dinner, right? Those things happen. It’s the pattern at which they happen.
Some of it is the uptick of activity since the pandemic, when activity levels were much, much lower. People are getting used to it. A less experienced clerk, in my experience, doesn’t have the same capacity to handle multiple activities and multiple committees at the same time. That comes over time. We have a really solid group, and they’re gaining great experience, especially over the last year, with a lot of interesting procedural challenges, logistical challenges and budget challenges. They will be stronger as a result, but every time I have to cut that pie, it’s weakening the strength of my team. I don’t want to see that happen either.
Senator Busson: Do you have any figures on the overtime?
Ms. Anwar: I meant to bring that with me. I don’t have it at the ready.
Senator Busson: Could you supply it to the committee?
Ms. Anwar: Absolutely. I have it; I just didn’t bring it with me today.
Senator Ringuette: Notwithstanding the fact that we have, from my perspective, too many committees and too many members on committees, which reduces the overall efficiency, you have confirmed to us this morning that the committees that meet on Monday night have a slot of four hours, but most of the time they achieve their work in a three-hour time frame.
That is a strong indication that committee work with a three-hour slot would be as efficient as two committees of two hours. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. It is efficiency for senators, efficiency for Senate staff, et cetera.
The two problems we heard constantly from our witnesses is the fact that Monday meetings are a problem and Tuesday meetings are a problem because, more often than not, the Senate sits on Tuesday night. I’m looking at the very nice chart you gave us today. If we moved to three-hour meetings on Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., that would free up Wednesday evening for the committees that are currently meeting on Monday night. This would be so efficient from my perspective, never mind the issue of food. On the issue of food, I remember Senator Lowell Murray said, “I will not sit on the committee if I don’t have decent food.” That was an indication of respect for the work that senators are doing.
If it was a decision by CIBA, they have to revise that decision, because we’re here to work, and if we have to eat while we work, so be it, in order to be efficient and do the job that we need to do.
Given all the premises that I’ve stated, could you provide us with a block of three-hour committee meetings that would remove Monday night and Tuesday night meetings, and the Monday could be easily moved to Wednesday?
Legal and Constitutional Affairs and National Finance, in particular, have a heavier workload. It would provide some flexibility for them, if needed, to also meet on Wednesday evening. I’m ready and willing to work with you on rearranging the schedule. I honestly believe, colleagues, that this is the next thing we have to consider, even if it is a pilot project for a period of time. We could start this when we come back in 2024 until the end of September and evaluate, poll the senators and see how this new schedule is better for providing their input into committee work.
I don’t know if I have a question in there.
Ms. Anwar: I sense one.
Senator Ringuette: Maybe the question would be how soon you could provide this committee, for its review, a rearranging of committee blocks as I’ve just mentioned to you. How soon could you provide that to us?
Ms. Anwar: If I didn’t have table duty, I could probably do it later today, but certainly I could have it prepared in time for your next meeting. Providing you with options and visuals is not that complicated to do. It’s more needing your direction on what you would like to see in terms of options, so you’ve given me some things to work with.
The one element I would mention — you mentioned Legal and Finance; I would probably add Social Affairs to that too — is these committees do a lot of bills. For the study of bills, the two meetings are probably more in line with the type of work that they do and the pattern and frequency they need to meet.
Senator Ringuette: They could have that additional time slot on Wednesday evening.
Ms. Anwar: Right. From time to time, other committees get big government bills and they will also need that extra time. If I look at Defence right now, that’s something they need, so there would need to be some flexibility in the system for that.
The most important thing is a decision of senators, a clear decision of the Senate, of CIBA, of Rules, of the whips to say, “Shaila, put this schedule together for us.” Then I would need to do one important step, which is an examination of the revised schedule with of all our various support services to see how they can make it work.
What you’re proposing is more a rearranging of the schedule.
Senator Ringuette: I am proposing efficiencies.
Ms. Anwar: Yes, so we need to see if that works with the availability of some of our support services, and we would need time to reorganize that.
In terms of providing you with options, something to look at, a different concept, I can do that with the caveat that it still would not be something that has been examined by our support services.
Senator Ringuette: From my perspective, it’s evident that the current arrangement is inefficient, and I say this particularly for the meetings on Mondays and Tuesday nights. It would facilitate all of our meetings occurring on the three sitting days and leaving flexibility on Wednesday nights for additional meetings.
Anyway, I believe we need to move. We have to think outside the box, and we’re capable of that. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: I think we’ve got it, and the tables will be provided very shortly.
[English]
Senator Yussuff: Thank you for your work. Looking at the House of Commons and the Senate, the obvious thing that stands out is if this place were fully appointed, we would have 105 senators. We’re not 105, so you’re asking a smaller number of people to carry out the responsibility of what would be a larger group, so the pressure is even bigger because people are doing triple or whatever duties are required.
When you look at the number of committees, it actually makes no sense with less than one third of the members, if it’s fully appointed, filling 18 committee time slots. That makes absolutely no sense. You can slice it and dice it 50 million ways, but you will still come up with the same problem. There are just too many committees, and people are trying to function, recognizing they have specialties and what have you. That is something we should think about. Do we need 18 committees to make the Senate function in an efficient way and do all the things we’re required to do?
When you look at the make-up of the Senate, some groups don’t have a significant number of senators. Some are larger and some are smaller, so the smaller groups are disadvantaged. How do you staff 18 committees with senators when you have a smaller caucus to contend with?
Ms. Anwar: Yes.
Senator Yussuff: That presents another problem: What is the balance of the debate happening at the committee level at the same time? Those are obvious challenges, and, of course, the bigger challenge is translation resources to help staff these committees on a regular basis. The more committees you have, the more challenges you have in terms of staffing to meet that.
As much as you’re trying to tell us this in a clear way, I think the bigger question is whether we should be looking at the number of committees and whether there is a way to pair them differently than they currently are. I know there’s a history, and that’s always a challenge. Committees didn’t just happen; they happened throughout the history of the organization and they have a clear role to play.
I’ll go back to National Security and Defence. We meet on Monday. From my perspective, I like Monday. At least I know I’m clear for that committee, and my work is pretty well done. We don’t meet twice a week, except now, because we have a bill that requires more time. If you were to move it to Wednesday, it would present a conflict for me because I have another committee I have to go to. I understand, but I’m saying that not everything is easily reorganized to create efficiency of the work. I’m saying you would have to give up something to do something differently, and it might be efficient.
I thank you for the work, but I think this still requires us to digest the fact that we have 18 committees. The other place has 338 members to function, and we have, at the best of times, maybe 80-something if we’re really doing our duties, and sometimes even fewer than that to begin with. It does become a challenge to do the required work of the Senate to a large extent. Thank you for this. This is tons of help for a more internal discussion among groups as to how to look at this in a way that might make it more efficient.
Ms. Anwar: With respect to the number of vacancies, you’ll have to call somebody far more powerful than I to address that issue.
The committee structure has been what it is for — I’ve been in the Senate for almost 18 years, and it’s been largely the same. When there were two caucuses, the important thing was that the majority was reflected on the committee membership, so that’s how it was negotiated now with multiple caucuses and very small groups. We have, I think, three that are in the 15-to-17 range, and if we have 18 committees, that means everybody is on a committee, and probably people are on more than one, even three or four committees. There’s a lot of movement around. If senators want to look at different ways to assign senators to committees or change the number of committees, these are all questions for you to answer.
As a member of the Administration, my job is to support whatever the decisions of senators are. If you decide you want 15 or 20 committees, we’ll adapt and adjust according to your decision. If you decide you want 25 committees, we’ll adapt and adjust. I’ll probably be coming to CIBA to say I need more staff, but our job is to respond to whatever it is that senators have decided.
If I go through the summary of evidence again, there are some senators saying to increase the number of committees, and there are some senators saying to reduce the number of committees. We have to settle somewhere on whether we are increasing or decreasing. In the meantime, I’m just going with what we have today and making adjustments as I go.
Senator Yussuff: I’d like to respond with some context. There may be issues that require attention that are not properly served on particular committees right now. It’s a debate to figure out how to deal with that in a way that will give proper opportunity for those issues to be dealt with.
Creating a committee doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being truly efficient or politically practical, because after the issue gets dealt with, what do you do with the committee unless there’s a constant desire for that issue to be dealt with on an ongoing basis in the Senate? Medical Assistance in Dying is a good example. We don’t need a permanent committee on assisted dying. We do need people to meet, especially when there’s something very evident for them to meet, but when they don’t have a bill or something that’s being amended, do we need an assisted dying committee? The answer, I would argue, is no.
There are some committees that are created within the context of issues in front of them, but there are times when the issue is no longer as burning. Do you still need a committee to be functioning to deal with that challenge? This is a way to think about something in a different way than it’s currently thought of.
[Translation]
The Chair: I have a question that is somewhat related to what we just talked about.
Do committees with two time slots use them all the time, only 20% of the time, or half the time?
With regard to the number of committee members, is there maximum attendance all the time or is the average attendance below normal figures?
Ms. Anwar: If you look at the table, you can see that the vast majority of committees have two time slots. I can certainly identify committees that only have one time slot per week or committees that sit ad hoc or once every two weeks.
If I separate the committees that have two slots from those that have only one, it will be easy to see which committees sit twice a week at most and sometimes more than twice a week.
On the other hand, I would say that you also have to take into account the fact that the committees that have the Tuesday evening slot, since they’re not able to sit... It’s not these committees that have made the decision not to sit, it’s because they’re not able to sit. So I don’t want to presume why some committees have fewer slots than others, but I can certainly identify trends.
[English]
Senator Batters: First, I’m sorry, but I had to step out when Senator Ringuette was talking about the Wednesday option. Was the suggestion that we move the committees that are currently Mondays and Tuesdays, and instead have all of these different committees on Wednesday? Am I understanding that correctly? When would that happen? Because right now, we have the chamber until 4:00 p.m., and then the first committees, of which Legal is one, from 4:15 p.m. until 6:15 p.m., and then another slot of committees from 6:45 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. Would this be after that or in addition to that?
Ms. Anwar: Senator Ringuette can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think she meant that the 4:15 committees would stay as is. On Tuesday mornings we have some extra time to give to those committees, the ones in dark blue, and on Thursday mornings, we have some extra time to give those committees that are in green. So the dark blues in the second time slot on Wednesday would be able to have a three-hour time slot on Tuesday morning, which would allow the Monday committees to move. Am I correct?
Senator Ringuette: I can clarify. I’ve had copies made of my very unskilled draft of how it could be moved. Madam Chair, if you would authorize it, I would ask that a copy be given to every member so that they have a somewhat clearer picture of what I’m saying. Is that okay?
The Chair: Is it okay with you? No problem.
Senator Batters: Great, so I can have a look at that. Thank you. I’m sorry to interrupt with that.
I have just a couple other things about the schedule. Ms. Anwar, you were saying that what you’ve provided here as for available blocks with additional yellow highlighting doesn’t necessarily indicate an ideal scenario, because some of those would be very early mornings. Am I correct, then, that the available time frame would also be extending Wednesday nights until 10 p.m.? Is that right?
Ms. Anwar: I don’t think that’s a very practical solution, but I can’t say it’s not available. I know that the Senate is not sitting and there are no other committees meeting. Would that result in overtime, with extremely long days for everybody, and then going back again at 8:00 a.m. the next morning? Of course, but it is there.
Senator Batters: Right. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding this.
Ms. Anwar: What it could mean, though, is that maybe a committee needs to extend their meeting by an extra 45 minutes to an hour. We might have that kind of flexibility on Wednesday. I think I’d have to find a new job if I proposed that for senators and for staff. I don’t think that would make anybody happy —
Senator Batters: I know my first meeting on Wednesday —
Ms. Anwar: — but we do have the flex.
Senator Batters: — is at 8 a.m., and I go straight through until I’m done at Legal at 6:30 p.m.
Ms. Anwar: It might give us a bit of extra time is what I am more looking at that for.
Senator Batters: Also, I thought the Emergency Declaration Committee and MAID previously met on Thursday night, but now I see on this approved sitting schedule those are listed as Tuesday night. Did it used to be Thursday nights, and now it is Tuesdays?
Ms. Anwar: I’m trying to think back. It has changed a lot. It is more a function of the House schedule because they are the ones providing the rooms and service support. I believe, in fact, at different times the MAID Committee was also meeting on Tuesday nights and Friday mornings. It has changed a lot over the course of the past couple of years.
The Emergency Declaration Committee was three hours on Tuesday. It was the Medical Assistance in Dying Committee that has been moved around.
From time to time, I think the Emergency Committee did meet occasionally on Thursdays, but they did not use it every week and so that slot was taken away this fall.
Senator Batters: Are all of the 18 Senate committees televised now? I don’t think so. I believe that there are a few that aren’t — obviously Conflict of Interest and Ethics, because they are largely in camera, also Audit and Oversight. There may be others; I’m not sure. I am wondering about Library of Parliament and Scrutiny of Regulations; are those not televised either? Okay. CIBA subcommittees, I believe, would pretty much always not be televised. There might be a very rare occasion where they are, but usually not.
A lot of this is to do with clerks, broadcast — not television but translation, things like that. Those resources need to be taken into account, but it is not only television.
One last thing I wanted to get your take on is when the Senate was both the chamber and the committees sitting in hybrid form, especially when, for a time, committees could only sit in a hybrid form, not in person at all — even if you were in Ottawa — that dramatically impacted the number of committees that were able to meet and also the length of the committee meetings. I know, for example, the Legal Committee would generally meet in two-hour slots twice a week all the time. Then, during COVID, when we were able to meet, it was just once a week for two hours, and that was it. It cut hours in half. I am sure that was the case for a lot of committees.
Then it was largely, if I’m correct — there were major restrictions with the broadcasting and with translation agreements with the House of Commons. The House of Commons was taking priority. They continued to have both their chamber and all their committees meeting in hybrid format. I don’t believe that they have had similar restrictions, but the Senate had restrictions.
Ms. Anwar: It has evolved. It is not a straight line because we had our ups and downs with the pandemic, lockdowns, no lockdowns; travel allowed, not allowed.
Initially, we didn’t have any capacity issues in terms of the support services. The biggest issue in the beginning of the pandemic was that we learned collectively as an institution how to use Zoom about two weeks before senators did. We needed to get laptops to everyone. We needed people to be trained. Our staff needed to be trained on how it interacts with our broadcasting, et cetera. In the initial phases of the pandemic, there was a desire not to have a lot of people in the building, period. That was restricted for that reason.
When we came back in the fall, we also didn’t have the Zoom capability in all of our committee rooms initially. One room was done pretty much right away. These two rooms down here on the main level were not converted until the fall of 2020. We only had three committee rooms to work with.
We also had the hybrid chamber at that point. Again, all of the resources went to making sure that was set up and running. Committees were brought on. Initially, the leaders had said it was just Social Affairs and one other committee — I can’t remember — Finance, I think. Then we added two more. Gradually, we added all of them. That is when the resource issue came up in terms of interpretation and multimedia.
In the olden days when we had just four televised meetings, we would have a couple of techs who would circulate. They would come in if we had a video conference. Once we had Zoom, we needed dedicated technicians on site to operate Zoom. We needed IT people, et cetera. Bringing the institution up to the capacity that was required took some time. Committees were gradually introduced.
Yes, like you said, we were also initially virtual and then went to hybrid. I always tell people that — I have been on the Hill for a long time — introducing those types of technology changes, if we look at broadcasting in the chamber, that was a project that took 10 years before we were broadcasting. Instead, we did the virtual meetings in about three weeks and then hybrid meetings in about two months.
It was after the fall of 2020 that the challenges with interpretation, multimedia came about. We were in constant communication with CIBA over increasing resources here, decreasing resources there, et cetera.
It was a conscious decision of the leaders last summer, summer of 2022. We had received the information from interpretation that if the Senate came back to sitting in person, they could meet our pre-pandemic capacity, and if we came back in hybrid format, they would not be able to meet that. The decision was taken at that time to come back in person. It was definitely linked to the availability of services, yes.
Senator Batters: Thank you.
Ms. Anwar: For the House now, I know they are continuing in hybrid format. In terms of attendance, most MPs are appearing in person. Usually every meeting there will be one or two MPs — I don’t have the hard numbers, but the trend has been towards coming in person, same thing with witnesses.
Senator Batters: They continue to experience translation issues because they have continued hybrid as well.
Ms. Anwar: Yes.
Senator Batters: Thank you.
Senator Kutcher: This is an observation as opposed to a question.
I was thinking about Senator Ringuette’s suggestion of decreasing the amount of time from four hours to three hours for the sake of efficiency, and it reminded me of a Pogo statement: “We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us!” It, of course, is a variation of Commander Oliver Perry’s statement on the point of U.S. Navy at the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813.
Be that as it may, one of the issues that an observer might make is that we often have — this is maybe for steering committees to consider — numerous witnesses all saying exactly the same thing. I can see the political appeal of that. But we may be more efficient if we had fewer witnesses saying the same thing and having people provide briefs, which could then be posted on the website so that people would know they are being heard.
There seems to be an overreliance on wanting particular witnesses over and over again saying the same thing, as opposed to having a fewer number of witnesses, which would decrease the amount of time that the committee sits, and having many people submit briefs.
Some people think that submitting a brief is “second cousin” to airing, but I think that maybe we should reconsider that and use briefs more often than witnesses who say the same thing over and over again. Sitting in some of the committees, you can actually predict what the witness is going to say because you just heard it 12 times.
Ms. Anwar: To respond to that, as I said earlier, some things are art; some things are science.
One piece of feedback I can give you, we do send a survey to every witness after they have appeared before a Senate committee to ask them a variety of questions, usually about services but also about the experience or if they have any comments. One of the most frequent comments that we do get back from witnesses is that they wish they were given more time to prepare and that they had a better idea of what senators would want from them.
Sometimes, in the rush to get meetings organized, clerks are giving — in a good week — one week of notice, and sometimes it’s less. The amount of time that people have to prepare is less. The amount of guidance they have or time to watch previous hearings is less. That is something to take into consideration: Committees could prepare lists of questions that they specifically want witnesses to address. Again, that requires a bit of work on the part of committees and then allowing witnesses adequate time to prepare.
Senator Yussuff: On this point, it’s extremely relevant in the context of the work of committees.
Shaila, if you have that survey in a form that could be shared with committee chairs and members, that would be extremely helpful because, more often than not, we see what we see. We do not know what happens after and what people are communicating about their experience. It would be good to understand that a bit. It might help us to think about how we can do our work differently but also recognizing that people are coming. Should we be allowed to guess what their expectations are? Most often, I guess, it depends on who is asking them to come. There is guidance from that person, but the committee in general wants to hear a more robust discussion or debate on the issue.
Ms. Anwar: When I started as a clerk, senator, my committee then required witnesses to submit a one-pager on what they intended to present when they came. Then decisions on who to invite were based on that. But you need a sufficient amount of time to be able to do that, and that’s not a luxury that committees always have. I understand that. We get bills when we get bills, and we have to report them back when we have to report them back.
It’s something that has been done in the past, and it’s something certainly for special studies, that committees could think about. Witnesses would appreciate getting a lot of guidelines.
In some cases, though, I think committees want witnesses to come in without a lot of that; they just want to hear them. That is the role of the witnesses, to come in and give their expertise and their background or their position on a particular bill or subject matter. It depends, but really a committee has a lot of scope to decide who they want to invite, what information they want to provide in advance and what they want from that witness when they appear.
Senator Busson: I wasn’t going to ask for a second-round question, but just for my own clarification, and I am looking again at this artwork of a chart, did you get the redo that someone made? This is in the weeds, but I am still seeing that Wednesdays from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. seem fairly empty, even with the feedback that we have all put forward.
Would it not make sense for the Monday meetings to move to that 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. slot? That is three full-on hours. It’s a selfish question for me because I would love to be on the Defence Committee. I already put in 10-hour days on Mondays, and I can’t get here on Monday for a Monday meeting. I would have to leave on Sunday. If I felt that strongly, I guess I could stay, but I wanted to get that on the record. If you are going to do something, would you consider that as one of the options?
Ms. Anwar: That is where the total number of hours in a day becomes a factor. I mentioned there are two factors — the total number of hours and the number of simultaneous meetings. You are right that on Wednesdays at noon it looks like the number of simultaneous meetings could be increased, but we also have four committees and three committees later on in the evening, plus the Senate sitting.
That starts to become an issue for our services. It’s something that I can certainly check and see. I would be careful about compressing the week too much. It’s already quite compressed, and that’s why we bleed into evenings and early mornings. Again, it’s a question that we can certainly ask. I don’t know; that might be exceeding some of our capacities. That is the issue.
I wanted to also let you know that Maxime was kind enough to provide me with the overtime stats that you had asked for before. For the 2022-23 fiscal year, our 15 clerks worked 2,413 hours of overtime, and then the three managers worked 1,623 hours of extra time, just for your information.
[Translation]
The Chair: Is it paid by the hour?
Ms. Anwar: The clerks have a collective agreement. They have compensatory leave, or they can be paid time-and-a-half after a certain point in the year. As for managers, we only have a smaller piece of the pie.
The Chair: That doesn’t leave that much money to hire people?
Ms. Anwar: We take hours into account, because I think it’s important for senators. It’s just as important for us to say to senators, when we ask for resources... Senators have the impression that we can support these additional requests, but we’re doing it using employees who may not be paid for the time worked. So there’s a cost to that.
[English]
Senator Batters: I have a very quick point on this matter of Wednesdays. Right now, the Veterans Affairs subcommittee, which is a subcommittee of the National Defence Committee, sits for a part of that Wednesday afternoon time slot. As well, it’s not really doable for those of us in the national Conservative caucus to start at 11 a.m. because our caucus meeting generally goes for sure until noon. Those are a couple of things to keep in mind.
Ms. Anwar: I have an inkling that the Modernization Committee used to always meet at noon, back when we had that. Oftentimes, it caused a lot of conflict by having it at that time. It was not desirable, but it was a special committee, so that was really the only time that was available.
I feel like there was another committee that used to sit at noon. I think, in that session, the Human Rights Committee was also meeting. Again, everyone was rushing.
I think Senator Yussuff mentioned Mondays, when there isn’t Senate and there are fewer committees. Sometimes there are times available.
Senator Batters, you will remember all the studies at the Legal Committee. We would often do a big bill study during a break week when senators didn’t have other events and other meetings, and they could focus on a bill from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We did a lot of work that way also.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much. So it remains for me to thank you very much, Ms. Anwar. It was really very thoughtful, very thorough and very artistic at the same time, with the choice of colours. We’ll be using your services again, and you’ll surely have a lot to contribute when we have decisions to make.
[English]
Senator Yussuff: There was no translation for a minute.
The Chair: I was saying thank you to Ms. Anwar for her talent, her artistic talent but also her knowledge and expertise. Those will be a great help for us in the future.
[Translation]
Thank you very much. We won’t see each other next week, but the week after. Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)