THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 7, 2024
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met this day at 9:33 a.m. [ET] pursuant to rule 12-7(2)(a) in consideration of possible amendments to the Rules.
Senator Denise Batters (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Welcome, everyone, to the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. My name is Denise Batters. I’m a senator from Saskatchewan. I’m deputy chair of this committee, but today I’m acting as chair.
Before we begin, I would like to remind all senators and other meeting participants of the following important preventative measures. To prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents during our meeting that could cause injuries, we remind all in-person participants to keep their earpieces away from all microphones at all times.
As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all senators on Monday, April 29, the following measures have been taken to prevent audit feedback incidents. All earpieces have been replaced by a model that greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces are black in colour, whereas the former earpieces were grey. Please only use a black approved earpiece. By default, all unused earpieces will be unplugged at the start of the meeting. When you are not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the middle of the round sticker that you see in front of you on the table where indicated. Please consult the card on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. Please ensure that you’re seated in a manner that increases the distance between microphones. Participants should only plug in their earpieces to the microphone console located directly in front of them. These measures are in place so that we can conduct our business without interruption and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters, who do important work for us.
Thank you for your cooperation on that, and I would now invite all senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald from Nova Scotia.
Senator Wells: David Wells, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Audette: Kwe. Michèle Audette, Quebec.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Black: Rob Black, Ontario.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn, New Brunswick.
Senator Busson: Bev Busson from British Columbia. Welcome.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
Senator Yussuff: Senator Yussuff, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. This morning we will be considering Responses to Written Questions and Delayed Answers to Oral Questions. The committee undertook this study in response to a letter we received almost exactly a year ago from Senator Jim Quinn, who is here with us today, in which he encouraged us to consider amending the Rules to include similar time limits for responses, as in the House of Commons. I quote from his letter:
It is my suggestion that the Committee consider mirroring the 45-day response deadline of the House of Commons to ensure consistency in the Privy Council Office’s approach to coordinating a response to questions from Parliamentarians of both Houses.
Today in the first panel we will hear officials from the House of Commons who will help us understand their processes. Thank you very much for coming to help us with this.
I am pleased to welcome Jeffrey LeBlanc, Deputy Clerk, Procedure; and Jean-Philippe Brochu, Clerk Assistant, House Proceedings.
Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. Brochu, I now invite you to make opening remarks of no more than five minutes each, please, so we have lots of time for questions. Thank you.
[Translation]
Jeffrey LeBlanc, Deputy Clerk, Procedure, House of Commons: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to thank you and the members of the committee for inviting us to appear today to discuss the procedures regarding written questions in the House of Commons. As you mentioned, I am accompanied by Jean-Philippe Brochu, clerk assistant, House proceedings. The contribution we can make today includes some general observations on the situation regarding written questions in the House. We can also provide a bit of historical context and discuss the reforms that led to the current House Standing Orders. I hope our testimony will be helpful to members of the committee in their deliberations.
Jean-Philippe Brochu, Clerk Assistant, House Proceedings, House of Commons: I will continue, and Jeffrey will conclude the presentation.
[English]
Written questions are a useful way to get precise, detailed information from the government, especially if it is technical. They are one of the key ways in which government is held accountable by Parliament.
[Translation]
Here are some of the existing rules in the House concerning written questions. All written questions must be put on notice 48 hours before appearing on the Order Paper. Members may place questions on the Order Paper seeking information from ministers of the Crown relating to public affairs. No member shall have more than four questions on the Order Paper at any one time, as specified in the House Standing Orders. Moreover, of those four questions, no more than three shall require an oral answer. It should be noted that, in recent years, answers to questions marked for oral answer have generally not been presented orally. Instead, they have been printed in the debates, as if they had been read in the House, or passed as orders for return. A member may also ask the government to respond to a question within 45 calendar days by indicating so when tabling the question. Note that, if the 45-day period expires while the House is adjourned, answers must be tabled on the first sitting day following the deadline.
Under the Standing Orders, if a question remains unanswered at the expiration of that 45-day period, the matter of the failure to respond shall be deemed referred to the appropriate standing committee. Within five sitting days of such a referral, the chair of the committee shall convene a meeting to consider the matter of the failure to respond. It should be noted that it is rare for the government not to table responses to written questions by the deadline. The last time this happened was on March 25, 2011, just before the election was called. Thirty-three written questions were referred to the appropriate committee at that time, but no consideration was subsequently undertaken in committee because of dissolution of Parliament. The member who tabled the question that would be referred to a committee may rise in the House under Questions on the Order Paper, give notice that they intend to transfer the question and raise the subject matter thereof on the adjournment of the House.
I will come back to this in a few moments. The order referring the matter to committee is, therefore, rescinded.
[English]
Given that the purpose of a written question is to seek and receive a precise, detailed answer, it is incumbent on the member submitting a written question to ensure that it is formulated carefully enough to elicit the precise information sought. It is not unusual for members to submit very detailed questions, seeking information from a variety of departments and agencies covering long periods of time.
Since questions must be coherent and concise, the Clerk has the authority through the Standing Orders to split a question into two or more questions if it is too broad or if it contains unrelated sub-questions. This authority is rarely exercised.
[Translation]
The concept of a delayed answer does not exist in the House. Instead, the House holds adjournment debates, also known as “late shows.”
[English]
“Late shows” are 30-minute periods Mondays through Thursdays prior to the daily adjournment of the House during which members may raise matters they believe have not been dealt with satisfactorily during oral Question Period or, in the case of written questions, as I mentioned already, questions that have not been answered within 45 days. Questions are responded to by a minister or parliamentary secretary. In practice, the subjects raised during these proceedings are almost always taken from oral questions.
[Translation]
As you can see, this is an oral rather than a written process. I will yield the floor to Mr. LeBlanc.
[English]
Mr. LeBlanc: Perhaps to give a little bit of a historical context on how we arrived at these rules, since 1986, major changes have been adopted to the Rules surrounding written questions, in particular relating to the number of questions a member may submit, the amount of time afforded to the government to respond to questions and the procedure to be followed if this deadline is not respected.
Before the mid-1980s, there was no limit to the number of questions a member could submit, and it was not unusual for there to be over 2,000 questions on the Order Paper at any given moment. Members were also frequently dissatisfied with how long they had to wait to receive answers to their written questions.
[Translation]
A compromise was proposed in June 1985 by the Special Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, the McGrath committee. In its report, the committee stated the following on page 46:
The Order Paper has become crowded with written questions demanding written answers from the government. As there is no time limit within which the government must respond and no limit to the number of questions a member can place on the Order Paper, this becomes a futile method of trying to elicit information from the government.
In 1986, the House agreed to limit to four the number of questions each member could have on the Order Paper at any one time. At the same time, the House of Commons codified members’ right to demand a response to a written question within 45 calendar days of it being placed on the Order Paper. In 1991, the rules were amended to allow members whose questions remained unanswered after the 45-day time frame to raise the matter during the adjournment debate. Finally, the rule that the government’s failure to respond should be referred to the relevant standing committee at the expiration of the time frame was implemented in 2001 to impose a consequence if deadlines were missed.
[English]
In conclusion, allow me to share with you some statistics to give you an appreciation of the volume of written questions submitted in the House. As of April 2, 2024, there had been 2,496 questions placed on notice since the beginning of the Forty-fourth Parliament. Of these, 2,266 had been answered by the government, 1,478 in the form of an Order for Return which was tabled and 788 in the form of an answer printed in the debates.
I can also give you a breakdown by party. Of those questions, 1,827 questions were submitted by members of the Conservative Party of Canada, 78 by members of the Bloc Québécois, 572 by members of the New Democratic Party, 9 by members of the Green Party, 3 by an independent MP and 7 by a Liberal MP, and at least 92% of opposition MPs have placed at least one question on the Order Paper.
[Translation]
I would like to end by thanking you once again for inviting us to appear before you. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much for that very helpful information that you’ve provided to us today. First of all, to start off our questioning, we will have Senator Wells.
Senator Wells: Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. Brochu, for your presentation.
In the Senate, it is different. We don’t have regular access to ministers as they have in the House. Would you have a recommendation on our Order Paper questions? Right now they go through the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Part of the circumstance in the House is you can get up and ask a question of a minister or you can submit a question. So would you have any recommendations for the Senate to address this?
Mr. LeBlanc: That’s an interesting question. As far as the preparation of answers to written questions and the presentation of those answers, it is largely coordinated by the Privy Council Office and is largely carried out by the parliamentary secretary of the government house leader, so the answers to those questions generally come through that individual, though the ministers themselves, or their parliamentary secretaries, are the ones responsible for signing off on it.
I would suspect as far as the written questions are concerned, the availability of the ministers may not be an important factor since the process of tabling and providing those responses is generally coordinated through one person in our House.
Senator Wells: Thanks for that. Regularly, I’ll write to ministers on behalf of a constituent or an association or some group. Is there a protocol for a response when I do that outside the Order Paper question procedure? I usually get responses, but not always. Are you aware of a protocol for that when parliamentarians, senators or MPs write to ministers?
Mr. LeBlanc: I’m not aware of that procedure, senator, because I could only speak to what happens in relation to the parliamentary process. I’m not sure how things happen inside of departments. I suspect that each department makes an effort to respond to questions from parliamentarians, but I couldn’t speak to how that process works.
Senator Wells: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: I have a few questions here. First of all, Mr. Brochu, in your opening remarks you were indicating — I believe with respect to written questions — that of the four questions that MPs are able to ask, a maximum of three can be asked to be answered orally I think you said. So would that happen during adjournment proceedings, would that be the process for that?
Mr. Brochu: In theory, those would be answered when the rubric is called. Throughout the day, we have different orders of business. So when we get to Routine Proceedings, that’s the moment when answers to written questions are provided and that’s when those would be provided.
That being said, maybe Jeffrey will recall better than I, but I don’t remember the last time one of those questions has been answered orally. So they’re systematically either printed in the Debates as if they had been read, or documents are tabled in response to those.
It’s kind of a remnant from old rules that stayed in our Standing Orders, but it’s not used anymore. There is still that possibility, but we never see that happening.
Mr. LeBlanc: In theory, a member could insist on an oral answer being given, but it very rarely happens.
The Deputy Chair: That’s an interesting tool. I just hadn’t seen that.
You said the last time such an unanswered question was referred to a relevant standing committee was in 2011. How is it determined which one the relevant standing committee would be? Is that something that’s asked as part of a form when they put the question in initially, determined later or how is that determined?
Mr. Brochu: I would say before 2011 and in the early 2000s, we were asking members to provide that information when they were submitting the questions, but it’s so infrequent that they are referred to committees that we don’t ask that anymore. I believe in 2011 when those questions remained unanswered, we just contacted the members for those specific questions, indicating to which committee they should be sent.
The Deputy Chair: That’s very interesting that it would be referred to the relevant standing committee.
Do you recall in 2011 which standing committee — or you said that there was that referral, and then a bunch of written answers were quickly provided?
Mr. Brochu: Actually, it was probably in the final days before the election in 2011, and they were never answered. The committees never conducted any study on those.
Mr. LeBlanc: Ever since the standing orders were changed in 2001 to add that consequence of having to appear before a committee and explain why questions remained unanswered, it has been exceedingly rare that the government hasn’t met the 45‑day deadline.
The Deputy Chair: Which is very good.
Mr. LeBlanc: It’s less than 10 times that it’s happened.
The Deputy Chair: That’s good to know. That’s quite a difference with what we’re having.
Thank you very much.
Senator Busson: Actually, I think the last sentence that was spoken answered my question, but I’ll ask it, just in case there is something that I missed.
You talked about the reforms done in 1986 and 2006, and in the system that exists in the House of Commons — if I have it right — the person whose question is unanswered after 45 days can “raise the matter.” After that, you mentioned that the committee would have the power to impose a consequence if the question remains unanswered.
I understand it’s rare, but what would be the consequence to this continuing to be ignored by the Privy Council Office?
Mr. LeBlanc: The expectation is that if a question is referred to a committee because the deadline is met, the committee has to meet within five days. The usual expectation is that the officials of the relevant department are called to come and explain how it is that the question was unanswered. That usually has been a pretty large disincentive to not meeting the deadline.
In some cases, that appearance is seen to be a sufficient consequence, that the department officials have to come and explain themselves. I think, in most cases, the explanations — either the question is answered by the time the appearance happens or shortly thereafter, or there is some explanation given, such as the question was too lengthy, and it was impossible to compile the information in time.
I can’t recall a particular sanction ever being advanced, but the appearance itself is almost seen as the sanction, I believe.
Senator Busson: Thank you very much. That makes it very clear.
Senator Quinn: Thank you for being here this morning.
I have a few questions, if I may. First, I want to clarify what you said about when there is a dissolution of Parliament, regardless of whether a member of Parliament has been there for four years or eight years — no matter how long — that question, like legislation, disappears; is that correct?
Mr. Brochu: Yes.
Senator Quinn: That would be the same with “late show” referrals, right? That would come to an end?
Mr. Brochu: Yes.
Senator Quinn: When we do get an answer back for written questions, it’s not the Speaker of the House of Commons who judges the quality of that answer, is it?
Who judges the quality or the appropriateness of the answer? What triggers the 45 days, and how does it get referred?
Mr. LeBlanc: You have hit on a frequent complaint of members of Parliament, because there are frequently questions that are answered within the 45 days, but the members will find the answers to be insufficient or incomplete or, perhaps, even contradicted by other information they might have, and that is regularly raised in our House either as a point of order or as a question of privilege by members complaining about the quality of answers.
Our Speaker’s rulings have been fairly consistent in that our Speaker is not empowered to judge the quality, the completeness or the accuracy of an answer.
If the member is dissatisfied with the answer they have received, they can submit the question again, or they can submit a more detailed question, but our Speaker does not get into whether or not the answer was correct, sufficient or complete.
The practice has been that if there is an answer tabled, if a question receives an answer — any kind of answer — that is sufficient to meet the deadline.
In some cases, I will say, the government will subsequently provide either a supplemental answer or a revised answer providing more information that they may have come across after the 45-day deadline, and that’s not that unusual. But there is no check done to ensure that the response is accurate or complete.
Senator Quinn: The content of an answer can be a non-responsive answer, and then it goes —
Mr. LeBlanc: It is even possible for the government to provide an answer saying, “We cannot provide an answer,” and for the purposes, that is an answer.
Senator Quinn: Does it then get referred to a committee to further examine that question, or is that it?
Mr. LeBlanc: No. If the answer is, “We can’t answer,” that’s deemed to meet the deadline.
Senator Quinn: In the Senate, I have an amendment that would try and avoid that situation by having the same 45-day response time, and if the answer is not responsive, then it would be referred to this committee for further examination.
In your opinion, with your years of experience, is that a good process?
Mr. LeBlanc: It’s an interesting challenge, and I know many of our Speakers have wrestled with what to do, because members so regularly complain about their dissatisfaction with answers.
The challenge is, of course, how does one objectively judge the quality of an answer? In a political arena, there are going to be disagreements about what is a complete answer, what is a sufficient answer and what is an accurate answer. Our Speakers are reluctant to get involved in that debate.
In some cases, though, you will see a very detailed question seeking very detailed information be given a relatively generic response that doesn’t at all address the specific questions that were asked, or it doesn’t even attempt to explain why it’s not addressed. I know that is a regular source of frustration to members.
I would be reluctant to try and involve the Speaker in evaluating the quality of a response. I think that’s a dangerous path to go down, because it would drag the Speaker into a debate.
Senator Quinn: Thank you.
Senator Yussuff: Thank you for being here.
If I could follow up on my friend, I guess you don’t get to judge the quality of the question either? A member could ask whatever. Is the sky blue or green? It’s for the individual member to decide what is important for them or their constituency, for that matter.
Given the difference in our two chambers, we don’t have access to ministers or, in that case, to the government, so we’re dependent on the Leader of the Government in the Senate to get us responses to questions.
Are you aware of our tradition over here of how questions are answered when senators do pose a written question to the government?
Mr. LeBlanc: I have read a bit in preparation for this appearance.
You have something that we don’t have, which is called “Delayed Answers,” and that is when an oral question is asked, and the government representative can’t respond. We don’t have that practice, and that is a difference.
As I understand it, your current practices for written questions are a bit like ours, where, prior to 1986, there is an unlimited number of questions but no time frame in which to answer them. I suspect you’re coming to the same conclusions as to the problems that kind of system can create.
Senator Yussuff: Are you aware how the Privy Council Office might deal with senators’ questions that might get sent over from the Senate to coordinate a response to it?
Mr. LeBlanc: I cannot speak to that. I believe you have officials from the Privy Council Office who will be appearing next who could probably speak to that in more detail.
Senator Yussuff: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Yes, we do.
Mr. Brochu, you wanted to respond?
Mr. Brochu: If I could add, there are boundaries surrounding written questions. I don’t want to give the impression that anything can be asked. They still have to be technical in nature and cannot be argumentative or contain opinions or statements of fact. They should be seeking information.
Mr. LeBlanc: Seeking information that is within the responsibility of the Government of Canada.
Senator Yussuff: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: You were just speaking about what we have in the Senate, the delayed answers, and you were indicating you don’t have a similar proceeding for that.
Really, what you have is that is that the members of Parliament have access to the adjournment proceedings. You’ve explained it in a bit of detail. I wonder if you can explain it a little bit more, since this is something that we are dealing with right now, and I think it would be helpful.
My recollection is that once in a while, if I tune into CPAC — if I am home early enough from our proceedings — this is the sort of thing that we see at about 6:30 or something like that in the evening, shortly before the regular proceedings of the House of Commons end. You were saying that the questions could be answered by either a minister or a parliamentary secretary. Perhaps you could just provide us a little more detail about that.
Mr. LeBlanc: The idea behind the adjournment proceedings is if members are dissatisfied with the response they get during Question Period — and you can imagine that is a relatively rare thing for members to be dissatisfied with answers in Question Period — they can give notice of their intention to raise that question again at the time of adjournment. In practice, we receive multiple notices per day, and there’s only a possibility for three members to raise questions at the adjournment proceedings.
We set up a schedule, and very often the questions that are raised at adjournment are questions from weeks ago. The idea, though, is that there could be a longer discussion. Our questions are very tightly time limited to 35 seconds for a question and 35 seconds for an answer. In a “late show” debate, the member is afforded four minutes to ask their question and to elaborate on it, and it’s generally a parliamentary secretary — ministers can, but it’s almost always a parliamentary secretary — who is provided four minutes for a response, and then there’s another sort of one‑minute exchange between each of them.
As Jean-Philippe said, it is possible, if you are unhappy with an Order Paper question, to raise it during the “late show,” but I don’t think that has ever happened. If it’s happened, it’s less than five times. It’s almost exclusively for oral questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, and with respect to the written questions that MPs provide, you said it’s not unusual to see complex, lengthy questions, and in fact, there is even the possibility that you said the clerk could split the questions if they were that complex and lengthy, but that’s rare to happen, so that’s good information to have.
As well, you were also speaking about the significant disincentive that it would be for departmental officials to have to appear at a relevant standing committee to be able to provide those answers that haven’t previously been provided. It reminds me a little bit of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations — I used to be the co-chair of that committee — and if things would get to a certain process where the departments were not responding, there was the threat looming out there that they could be called as a witness. Is it almost similar to that, that you’d better make sure you get your answers in because that could be the next step?
Mr. LeBlanc: In 2001, when that requirement was put in, it was because even after we adopted that 45-day limit, there wasn’t a consequence for it being missed. It happened on occasion that the government did miss that, and there was no recourse for the members. So the idea of putting up this consequence was with the express purpose of it almost never being used. If the threat exists of having to be called before committee, you would make every effort to provide an answer within the 45-day limit, and given the relatively few number of deadlines missed, I would say that has worked fairly well.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Ringuette: I know the process in the House of Commons, and I want to thank you.
How many resources do you have to dedicate to coordinate all of this? Do you have an idea of that? I mean coordinating up to the point of having a department come before the committee for an unanswered question. You can’t determine the committee process, depending on the different contexts and situations. What are the human resources required to coordinate all this?
Mr. LeBlanc: Given how rarely those committee appearances happen, it would be part of the normal work of a committee clerk. It wouldn’t require any extra resources. In terms of preparing Order Paper questions, I think the bulk of the work is in reviewing and coordinating the back and forth with members’ offices on the form of the question; and from the staff in our journals branch, there’s one clerk responsible for preparing the Notice Paper every week. I would say that clerk spends the bulk of their time on Order Paper questions. Realistically, it’s the longest part of the job.
Senator Ringuette: Okay, so roughly we can entertain —
Mr. LeBlanc: I suspect the workload would be probably — I don’t think it would impose. By limiting the number of questions you may actually find that you’re getting fewer questions, but one of the consequences of limiting the number of questions is the questions got longer, and so a question may have 54 sub‑questions, for example.
Senator Ringuette: Which is not kosher, and we know that, and that’s why there’s a need for vetting the process.
Mr. LeBlanc: We found that process has not increased human resources needs.
Senator Ringuette: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. You have been very efficient today and have provided us with a lot of answers, including answering our questions, so thank you very much to Mr. Brochu and Mr. LeBlanc for being here.
Honourable senators, in the second panel we will hear from the Privy Council Office of the federal government that will help us understand their processes in preparing responses to both our questions and questions for the House of Commons.
I’m pleased to welcome, to answer these questions, Jean Cintrat, Director of Operations, Parliamentary Affairs for the Privy Council Office. Mr. Cintrat, I would now invite you to make opening remarks of approximately five minutes, after which we will have some questions from senators.
[Translation]
Jean Cintrat, Director of Operations, Parliamentary Affairs, Privy Council Office: Thank you very much. Madam Chair, honourable senators, thank you for the invitation to appear before you as part of your study on Senate written questions and delayed answers, and in particular the role of the Privy Council Office in the response process.
The Office for the Coordination of Parliamentary Returns, as its name suggests, is responsible for the coordination of government responses to Senate written questions and delayed answers. That office comes under my responsibility.
The same applies to written questions, petitions and notices of motion for the production of House of Commons documents.
The office basically applies the same steps and carries out the same work, for both questions from the Senate and those from the House of Commons. The office ensures that questions are sent to the appropriate departments and organizations, depending on the subject of the questions. The office also prepares the documentation required for the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the Government Representative in the Senate to table the responses in each chamber.
[English]
With respect to Senate written questions, the process begins on the day that a question appears on the Order Paper and Notice Paper. The Office for the Coordination of Parliamentary Returns retrieves the question directly from the Order Paper and Notice Paper and begins the assignment process.
Delayed answers to oral questions are identified by the Government Representative Office in the Senate and are sent to Privy Council Office, or PCO, where the office determines which department is best suited to respond. Typically within 24 hours, an assignment is sent to the appropriate department or to multiple organizations, depending on the question. This can take a little longer if consultations are required to determine which departments would be better positioned to provide an answer.
The assignment paperwork sets out the question, templates if required, any clarifying instructions if necessary and a due date to the office. Upon receiving the assignment, departments are required to prepare a proposed response and to provide it to their respective minister’s office for review and approval. Departments are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the proposed responses submitted to ministers’ offices. Once the proposed response is reviewed and approved, the minister or the minister’s parliamentary secretary signs the appropriate form containing the response. The department then sends the signed response to the office.
Since the Rules of the Senate do not set a deadline for responding to Written Questions and Delayed Answers, the assignment form indicates that organizations should be responding within a reasonable time. Throughout the process, the office tracks the assignments and prepares weekly reports on the status of questions. The reports are shared with the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons’ office, the Government Representative Office in the Senate and the Prime Minister’s Office. For each question, once all signed individual responses have been received, the office performs a review to ensure consistency of English and French versions and that all formatting requirements have been met.
The office also collates individual responses for a single question when multiple organizations are tasked. The role of the office does not include approving the content of responses, which is the responsibility of the originating organization. If technical errors are found, the office sends the response back to the department for correction.
[Translation]
The final step in the process consists in tabling the response — in other words, in preparing the documentation that is used for this purpose.
For tabling in the House of Commons, the office prepares speaking notes for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House, which include the list of questions whose answers are ready to be tabled.
Sometime before that, the office electronically sends to the Journals of the House the answers to be tabled that day.
With respect to the tabling of responses to Senate written questions and delayed answers, the office sends a letter to the Office of the Government Representative in the Senate and a copy to the Office of the Clerk of the Senate, to which are attached the answers ready for tabling.
Madam Chair, that in a nutshell describes the process and role of the Privy Council Office.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Cintrat. Now we will have questions.
Senator Quinn: Thank you for being here this morning.
I have just a few questions around the process and some of the history. So six-and-a-half years ago there was an audit done by the PCO Audit and Evaluation Division on the parliamentary returns process. At that time, they said the quality of the work was good but that there was frustration with some of the slowness of the system and that IT at the time would be looking to help improve that process. Has that been completed? Has the process been improved?
Mr. Cintrat: The answer is yes. We have seen a significant level of improvement in the way we coordinate this parliamentary business. Ever since the initial audit in the early 2000s, there were subsequent internal audits at PCO that gave us an opportunity to enhance our systems even more — anything from better tracking to setting up a database and a management system that enables us to transact with departments directly, electronically, both our instructions and the responses coming back.
Senator Quinn: For clarity, Written Questions and Delayed Answers from the Senate are subject to that 45-day process. Is that correct?
Mr. Cintrat: The responses from the Senate — when we assign the questions, we indicate in our assignment form that they should be responded to within a reasonable time. We interpret that as being as close as possible to what we use in the House of Commons.
Senator Quinn: The directives that were attached to that audit and the directives that I understand are in place today talk about 45 days. That’s accurate, I believe. Yes or no?
Mr. Cintrat: So the 45 days is a period that is set for responses to House of Commons questions, and that’s the basis on which we try to sort of push the system in getting responses for Senate questions as well.
Senator Quinn: So we have rule changes being proposed in the Senate, and I think there’s wide agreement that a lot of those rule changes are very good and timely, and I proposed an amendment to, rather than having a 60-day response time, have 45. Could PCO accommodate a 45-day response time for the Senate for Delayed Answers and Written Questions given that you farm them out to departments and whatnot? Could you accommodate 45 days?
Mr. Cintrat: I think whatever the wish of the Senate is in changing their rules, we will adapt and abide to. There is a tremendous volume of questions across the board. I can talk a little bit about what that actually means. We are looking at a 400% increase over the last 15 to 20 years. Any additional volume will have an impact on our ability to do the work, but I think the record shows and the previous witnesses here have indicated that we have not tabled any late responses over a number of years. I believe if the Senate were to have a rule in place, whether it’s 60 days or 45 days, we will work with departments all across to make that happen.
Senator Quinn: Maybe I can summarize that. Regardless of what source questions come from, whether it be the Senate or the lower chamber, we all should be treated as parliamentarians. Is that a fair comment?
Mr. Cintrat: It’s a fair comment, yes.
Senator Quinn: Okay. Do you use limitation language as part of an answer if there is an inability to answer a question? Is that something you do?
Mr. Cintrat: It is sometimes not possible, for a variety of reasons, for a department to provide a complete response. Some responses require manual searches, for instance, that are just simply not doable in the prescribed period. We have seen responses coming back to us indicating that there is just no time to provide a response. I would say that they are not frequent. They are used, but looking at the total of responses that have been tabled in this Parliament alone, I think it’s only a fraction where departments are simply not able to do the work.
Senator Quinn: Currently, you mentioned that there’s no defined time for issues coming from the Senate. You try and do it in as a timely fashion as you can, but there is no defined timeline.
Mr. Cintrat: There is no deadline hard-wired in the Rules of the Senate like in the House of Commons.
Senator Quinn: I’m talking about the PCO rules. There is nothing in the Senate, I know —
Mr. Cintrat: That’s right.
Senator Quinn: — but then you take that as literal and it gets answered when it gets answered?
Mr. Cintrat: Yes, though we do monitor the whereabouts of the questions and where they are in the process and put pressure where we can on departments to expedite that. They are tracked. We indicate that for us, a reasonable time should be closer to the 45 days that we use in the House than anything else, but I think there is — sorry. Go ahead.
Senator Quinn: Thanks for that part of it. If I may — I am sorry, because I am on a timeline.
Mr. Cintrat: Of course.
Senator Quinn: Since there was an Access to Information and Privacy, or ATIP, request done in 2023 that involved a series of emails amongst PCO folks, and one of the answers to an email was the questions from the Senate, there is no timeline, so take your time, there’s flexibility, unless there’s something of high priority — if there’s something of any higher priority, deal with that first before the Senate.
So my question then comes back to, if we’re to be treated equally as parliamentarians, shouldn’t we be subject to the same rules as other parliamentarians?
Mr. Cintrat: I think I should leave that question for the Senate, generally speaking.
Senator Quinn: Okay. Fair enough.
Mr. Cintrat: You decide on your rules, and we will adapt —
Senator Quinn: But you do agree we are parliamentarians and should be treated equally?
Mr. Cintrat: I believe that’s a fair comment, as I said earlier.
Senator Quinn: Great, thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Certainly, 45 days is a far cry from two and a half years.
Senator Busson: I too am interested in following up. Thank you very much for the hard work and the pressures that you deal with in getting these important questions answered. I appreciate you coming here today.
It is an interesting difference in that the time period is unlimited vis-à-vis the Senate at this point. Although you try, as you say, to get as close as possible to a reasonable time and use the 45 days as a guideline.
Would you agree that perhaps the defining difference or the defining issue for you in dealing with these strict deadlines is the fact that we, as senators, have no limitation on the number of questions that we can put forward? Would that affect your ability to make the answers more or less timely?
Mr. Cintrat: I think volume is definitely a factor. Previous witnesses here have indicated how many questions are put forward in the House of Commons at any given time, and that has also increased by 400% over the last few years.
What we are interested in seeing, if ever this rule is put in place, is the impact on the number of questions senators would put forward, whether there’s a limit of four or no limit at all. With the number of questions that we’ve seen in this Parliament, if that trend were to continue, I think that’s very well manageable. If that were to go up twofold or threefold, we would have to do some serious internal recalibration of our systems to process that, but it’s doable. I think it’s doable, but there could be an impact on volume, absolutely.
I’ve noticed, looking at where questions come from, that there’s quite a discrepancy. Some senators put a few in, others many more. How would that trend be affected by a rule and a four-question limit? That’s to be seen.
Senator Busson: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Thank you, Mr. Cintrat, for being with us; it’s very nice to have your operational perspectives.
Since any senator can ask any question that goes on the agenda, we still have no verification process in the Senate to determine whether the question is appropriate, like in the House of Commons. I believe that we will eventually have to put in place what I call a “verification process.” If I’m not mistaken, last week the Deputy Leader tabled an answer to a question, and the document was 2 inches thick. There must be a framework.
Since we still don’t have a framework, I feel that a 60-day time frame to begin the first step of answering questions, especially written ones, is the desirable time frame. Here is my question. In the questions you receive from senators, how do you manage to target the real question, since we don’t have this process? I’m talking about targeting the real question so that the senator gets the real answer.
Mr. Cintrat: That’s a good question. I would say that, generally speaking, we avoid interpreting the intentions of a senator who asks a question. We will give instructions to the department — when I say instructions, I don’t mean directives that have to be applied. It’s more like: “Here’s the period covered by the question, for example.” If it’s a question on financial matters, sometimes the details of the question can lead to confusion about the period covered. We can work with the department to try to calibrate all that.
If we have to interpret what is asked in the question, we will provide instructions that will be included in the answer tabled. This gives the member or senator, in this case, an idea of how the question has been interpreted, so that the answer can be read in light of that interpretation, if applicable.
There are some very simple questions that fit on one line. There’s nothing to worry about there. It’s mostly when the questions start to contain multiple parts, with subsections and “sub-subsections,” that it can get a bit more complex.
Senator Ringuette: To date, we have no mechanism in the Senate to ensure optimization of the question and optimization of the answer.
Thank you very much, Mr. Cintrat.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Cintrat, I have a couple of questions. With the Senate Rules, as you indicated, not specifying any time limit, your assignment form states, “reasonable time.” I understand that you are interpreting that as close as possible to the House of Commons’ 45 days. Unfortunately, it seems like some departments that are providing answers are routinely giving answers to us that are two-and-a-half years old.
I absolutely take your point that Privy Council Office determines which department is best to answer and you don’t approve the questions, it goes to the ministerial offices and they are the ones who prepare the questions and go through whatever approval process they have. But with these weekly reports that are prepared that show the number of questions that are ongoing at any given time — and that are sent to all three of the House of Commons house leader, the Government Representative Office in the Senate, and the PMO — does that weekly report show what departments are routinely the slowest in responding to these written answers and getting these written answers? What is the follow-up on that after a weekly report shows time and again that there are a couple of departments that are very slow in getting these answers?
Mr. Cintrat: Our reports for House questions, which are based on a hard deadline, do track where the question is with respect to either in the department in development or in the minister’s office for approval. With respect to Senate questions, our reports indicate when the question was put, who was tasked and the question itself. After a certain period of time — which, again, we consider to be about 45 days — we start going back to departments to remind them that they have X number of questions from the Senate, and we ask that they do something about it.
I can’t control what gets done at the other end. I certainly cannot have any influence over a response that is awaiting approval in a minister’s office, for instance, but given that these reports are provided to the political offices that run this process and we are a support to them, there can be — and I have no reason to believe that there isn’t — conversations at the political level concerning the progress of work on these questions. These reports are essentially there to highlight the fact that some questions may be at various stages in the approvals or development process, and political deciders can do something about it if they so wish. We do the same kind of work at the officials level when departments are still developing questions, where the minister’s office doesn’t have the opportunity to review and approve because they don’t have it.
This is where we can push, and we do, on a weekly basis, on a bilateral basis. The person behind me, who is the manager of the group, has conversations on a daily basis with departments and organizations in that regard.
The Deputy Chair: Soon after the 45-day level, the phone calls start going out in a certain manner. What do those phone calls get like when you hit the two-year mark and answers still have not been provided to the Senate? Just last week, we saw several answers provided that were two and a half years old. Does that get escalated to a more senior person for Privy Council to contact those departments? What additional steps are taken?
Mr. Cintrat: To be very frank, for these questions, those that are perhaps very late in the process — again, to what I was saying earlier — we take that up to the political level. There can be conversations if there is a desire to do so. I don’t have a line of sight about what happens there, but my job is to alert, underscore where things are at, and I let my political masters tell me what I should be doing.
The Deputy Chair: Absolutely. Also, the House of Commons has a very fixed time limit. Does the tracking on those forms have a certain suggested time? Like, you have 45 days, so, at this point, this stage should be complete, and at this point, this stage — how does that work for the House of Commons which does have a time limit? Perhaps, therefore, when the Senate gets a time limit, whether it be 45 days or 60 days, we could expect a similar sort of process for that?
Mr. Cintrat: The time limit we set in our assignment forms is actually not the tabling due date. We try to avoid having departments work from that date. We want them to work from the date where we need the response in order to process the responses at our end. There is a significant amount of work to do to review the response, to compile the responses under multiple organizations. We have questions that can have up to hundreds of different individual responses that have to be put together and formatted.
We typically ask departments to send us their signed responses at least five days before the 45-day deadline for individual responses where one organization is tasked. We ask for 10 days if there are multiple organizations because there’s more work to do. That’s what they’re supposed to be working under.
I must admit, given the volume, we rarely receive our signed responses by those due dates. We get them later. Sometimes that means working evenings and weekends to finish the work and get them to the House leader for a final check and then being able to table the responses.
The Deputy Chair: Okay, great. I just want to clarify — your process for the Senate is essentially the same for the Senate questions as compared to the House of Commons ones?
Mr. Cintrat: The process is the same, correct.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for taking the time to come and speak with us about this. It is frustrating. Last week, I got a response that was from 2022, and then I had to try and recollect what I had actually asked to get the response. Anyway, thank you very much for being here.
My question is similar to what others have asked about the limit. Should we have a limited number of questions on the Order Paper as the House of Commons does? We did hear from our previous witnesses from the House that they limit it to four questions, but they found that the questions just became longer and longer and longer. They found that the points being made in the question were not even related. There could be one question on transportation, one question on official languages and one question on social affairs. They were basically using the system to ask five questions instead of one.
If we were to go to three or four or whatever number we were to choose, should we have criteria in place to ensure that the kind of thing that is happening in the House does not or would not happen in the Senate?
Mr. Cintrat: My first response would be that we will process any questions that come our way. Obviously, the more concise the question, the more direct the question, the easier it is to process, to interpret. Multiple, multi-layered questions can be no issue if they all relate to the same subject matter, as a first instance, but it is really up to the senator or to the members to decide what they put forward. We do our best to provide responses.
It may mean sometimes that our responses are limited. There may be some limitations given the complexity and the multi‑layered structure of these questions, but the best we can do, as a public service anyway, is to provide our best advice and best proposed responses for consideration by ministers’ offices.
Senator Cordy: You don’t have to wade into how the Senate would do that. I understand that totally.
Mr. Cintrat: I leave that to you.
Senator Cordy: We have heard that the volume is a factor and that the volume has increased by over 400%. There’s going to come a time that it’s just impossible unless we hire 100 new people for your department, and their job would only be answering written or oral questions.
Mr. Cintrat: It could be an issue; it can be. The work that is going on in putting these responses together takes time, obviously, and resources. These are the same people who run programs or do policy work in departments. There is no dedicated team of public servants in any given department who strictly work on parliamentary questions.
Again, the work we do needs to be done, and if resources are an issue, that’s something for the public service to look into.
I mentioned the 400% increase in volume. That’s 400% increase in the number of questions. These are statistics that we figured out based on a sitting day. It’s hard to measure the number of questions over a Parliament because the duration of a Parliament differs, but it’s over particular sitting days.
In this Parliament alone, we’re at about 20,000 individual responses that have been put forward. This is the total of both Senate and House questions and responses to petitions, which we also do on the House side. It’s a significant amount of work, about 20,000, just in this Parliament. It’s a lot of work; there’s no question. It mobilizes a great number of people across government.
Senator Cordy: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: It is an important part, as you say, though, of democracy because sometimes certain questions that are much more able to be asked in a written form, both because they’re a complex thing to describe and may not be conducive to a Question Period question but also anticipating that it will take a considerable period of time. It will not be an answer that a government leader or someone else would have on the top of their fingers, but they want precise answers. All of those things are important. Sometimes they end up making news stories because the information they seek is very important to the public as well.
Senator Yussuff: Mr. Cintrat, thank you for being here. I have a couple of questions. Obviously, whatever your time constraint that you monitor right now is not working very well for us in the Senate. On some questions, yes, we do get timely answers, but two years, according to my colleagues and the other evidence, would suggest that whoever is responding to the question is either asleep or taking a vacation or forgot there was a question. It can’t be reasonable to suggest that, for two and a half years, you don’t get an answer to the question.
No, we don’t have the rules, as the House does, where we would drag you before a committee and the minister would have to provide an answer.
It would seem to me it’s quite appropriate for us to figure out a way to get better responses to senators when they raise their questions. It would be a reasonable thing to set. If it’s a 45-day rule or a 60-day rule, we should get an answer. I’m not speaking to the quality of the answer — or the quality of the question either, for that matter — but the reality is that it would be reasonable to suggest we should be able to get an answer.
We are less than one third of the House complement in regard to the number of senators. It would be reasonable for us to put some rules in place to say we need to get some reasonable answers in a reasonable time from you and your officials who are asking the department to respond.
Mr. Cintrat: I think this is, again, a fair comment. Again, we will abide by whatever rule changes the Senate wants to put forward, whether it’s a limitation on the number of questions or setting a deadline.
Previous witnesses have given a little bit of a history as to why the rules in the House changed over time. It seems like you’re having a similar debate now about that in order to address similar challenges.
Senator Yussuff: Let me try to understand. You don’t have the easiest job, because you’re in the middle trying to mediate what is considered to be reasonable.
How is it possible that a department can’t provide an answer after two and a half years? How would that be reasonable? What could possibly be going on in a department that it would take that long to get an answer to a question?
Mr. Cintrat: I have to respond to that question by repeating what I said at the outset in my opening remarks. This is like a twofold process. There is the administrative, preparatory side of the work that is undertaken by departments, and then you have the other facet of the process, which is the review and the sign‑off at the political level.
I’m not suggesting that there are questions that are stuck in ministers’ offices versus departmental offices, but there is a time where departments do provide their proposed responses and they have to be considered at the political level. Delays could happen at both levels.
I will be candid in saying that, yes, sometimes questions or responses take time to be produced at the departmental level. There is also a certain amount of time that is taken once the proposed response is provided. The combination of both make it so that, in some cases, yes, questions have been unanswered for a certain amount of time, yes.
Senator Yussuff: My last point is in regard to some of the challenges we’ve faced. Because you have a consequence on the House side if you don’t respond within a timely manner, would it be fair to suggest that there is a degree of seriousness that is applied to getting a response in a timely manner versus for the Senate that does not have any consequences if that question is not answered within a reasonable time, whatever the time limit is that you may be following right now?
Mr. Cintrat: As far as I’m concerned, in my team, the level of seriousness we put in working through these questions is the same whether it’s the Senate or the House. We have processes in place that make no difference in terms of how they’re assigned, the quality that they should be when they come back signed. That’s all the same.
We do work under two different regimes, one where there is a very pointed set of rules in the House of Commons with a deadline. There isn’t one in the Senate. I suspect that means occasionally, at any given time, if a department has to process 100 House questions under 45 days, and there are also Senate questions, there may be a priority put on those that have to be produced by a deadline.
The consequence is one thing. I wouldn’t be putting it so much on the consequences if the deadline is not met. I think there is a deadline and it is met. We treat it as law, whether there is a consequence or not. It’s 45 days, it has got to be done.
Senator Yussuff: Given you’ve looked at your examination of data, both on how the department is doing and how questions are responded to, is there any evidence that questions on the House side that are not answered take two and a half years to get a response? Do we have any evidence where it takes that long to get an answer on the House side?
Mr. Cintrat: On the House side?
Senator Yussuff: Yes.
Mr. Cintrat: All responses are tabled on time, and they have been for a long time, ever since the rules were put in place.
Senator Yussuff: It would be good for us to have some clear rules to help you do your job in a more efficient manner.
Mr. Cintrat: My assignments would clearly indicate a deadline.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Cintrat, if there is a question about Senate appointment process, does that go to your department, to someone in the Privy Council Office to answer that question, or would that go to the Minister of Democratic Institutions?
Mr. Cintrat: That kind of question in particular, yes, would be tasked to PCO. My office treats PCO the same as any other department, although we are within PCO ourselves. There is a wall between us coordinating the process writ large and the department producing the response.
The Deputy Chair: So it would be within PCO, but a different section of PCO than you.
Mr. Cintrat: That’s correct.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for being here.
In response to Senator Yussuff’s question, you said that you have the administrative side, then you have the political side. When you send the question, is there any follow-up when it has been 45 days, 60 days, 70 days? Is there any follow-up between the two departments to say we sent you this question; we haven’t received a response, or the answer, coordinate the answer maybe?
Mr. Cintrat: We do follow up with departments at every stage of the way on all questions, House and Senate, at least on a weekly basis, sometimes more than that.
It’s always up to the department to eventually produce a response. I don’t have authority over any colleagues in another department. I cannot impose a deadline. I can suggest one and I can certainly relay one, when there is one such as in the House of Commons. How they manage their files internally is up to each department, working with their respective minister’s office.
Senator Ataullahjan: In 2015, 30 seats were added to the House. Did that have any impact on the amount of work that was coming? Shouldn’t that have been looked at in maybe increasing staff?
Mr. Cintrat: I don’t think we have statistics that would show an increase based on the augmentation of seats in the House of Commons. The upward trend that we’re looking at is over the last 20 years, but not specific to that. We would have to look into that to see if there was actually an impact with the number of seats.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
Senator Quinn: Back to the questions and to what Senator Yussuff was coming to, if we were to have a rule in the Senate of 60 days versus the 45, how does that affect you? Would there need to be a separate process within your area of PCO, a tracking system to ensure the 60-day limit was being implemented? Would that cause additional workload in terms of the 60 days versus the 45 days?
I’ll stop there; I’ve got a couple of other questions.
Mr. Cintrat: As far as our process is concerned, I don’t think it would make a difference. We would track the same way we have. Our systems are sophisticated enough that we could set up two different regimes, if you will.
Where the difference would be is the amount of time left for organizations to put a response together, if it’s 45, that’s 15 fewer days to do the work; that is what it would mean. In terms of the coordination process that we run, I don’t see an impact, no.
Senator Quinn: No impact at the departmental level or from the department. I can say I’ve got an extra 15 days. I don’t have to worry about that.
Mr. Cintrat: That’s right.
Senator Quinn: Coming back to Senator Yussuff’s question in terms of what causes a Senate question to not be prioritized, you remember I read that quote from the audit where folks who work within the process said it’s from the Senate; it’s not a priority. We’ll get to it when we get to it basically is what it said. What would cause a prioritization of a Senate question?
I’m worried if we go the 60 days, different than other parliamentarians, it’s still that culture that may exist in some areas. Some departments, I would expect, are better at getting responses to questions than others. I would also surmise that probably has a lot to do with the culture within the department, not necessarily within your office. How does all that relate?
Mr. Cintrat: Returning to what I was saying earlier, the moment there is — if the Senate so chooses — a hard deadline in your rules, we and the departments will have no choice but to implement that change and it will change the way we track things. Without a deadline, there is always a risk that where there is one in the House of Commons, these questions might be prioritized, given the volume. Again, if a single department has two questions to deal with at once — one from the Senate and one from the House — I don’t think that prioritization really matters. But we have organizations that deal with dozens — and sometimes hundreds — of questions at the same time, and that happens on many occasions. So, that could be an issue.
Certainly, in the way we task and follow up with departments, other than the difference of the deadline, we treat all questions with the same level of seriousness. The hard deadline — if you choose to have one — will have an impact on how expedited the work will have to be.
Senator Quinn: The effect would be that the departments would say, “Hey, those Senate questions now have a rule of 45 or 60 days.” You have to pay attention.
Mr. Cintrat: That’s right.
Senator Quinn: The reason I’m pursuing this is because I think the Senate is very much a part of the parliamentary system, and when we bring in divisions or differences, it starts to feed into that belief, which then grows, that we’re not full partners in the parliamentary system. That’s why I’m pursuing this.
Mr. Cintrat: I appreciate that.
Senator Quinn: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Yes, when the previous panel was giving us those statistics about questions from the House of Commons, and the vast of majority of them — as I wrote them down, 1,827 of the total number that they referenced — were from Conservative members from the House of Commons. And I note that there are about 120 Conservative MPs in contrast to a very small number of Conservative senators. I am imagining that, currently, a number of the written questions on the Senate Order Paper right now are probably mostly from Conservative senators. So, if we were limited to 4 — obviously, we have a very small caucus right now — that would be substantially less than 1,827.
[Translation]
Senator Audette: [Innu-Aimun spoken]
Thank you very much for your presentation and thank you to my colleagues for the quality of their questions and comments. Many of my questions have already been answered.
I’m new as an observer on this committee, and I believe we can always do better and do more. As I am a visual person, I think the 2017 audit will be very useful in understanding the process of questions asked in both chambers, whether written or oral.
I am also aware that in the Senate we are appointed in contrast to the other House, and the reality of Canadians who will ask us questions is based on the power, politics or issues within the current Parliament. It’s important to find a way to deal with questions fairly so that we’re able to respond to Canadians — or First Nations, in my case.
I also understand that it is difficult for you to make recommendations, since you are going to accept what the Senate decides, but who else could make recommendations to us? Perhaps the 60 or 45-day time frame is no longer appropriate in the other chamber? Can you give us more visuals in relation to the current situation?
You gave us the 400% figure and said there were more questions and more agencies and departments being approached. I can’t find this information in the documents I have. Could you provide us with this information within a reasonable time frame for you?
Who could make recommendations to unclog the process? Since I will be working for a long time with successive governments, I would like to know how to support my colleagues who will have to manage all these requests that come from both Houses.
Mr. Cintrat: I think this is a burden that falls on us as public servants and on the public service. If the changes you’re potentially going to make to your Rules require our processes to be restored or more resources to do the job, that’s of course something we’ll look at.
As I said at the outset, regardless of what rules you choose, what is not clear is the impact on the number of questions you will potentially be asked. Would having a time limit rule of 45 or 60 days encourage more senators to ask questions? It could. At that point, yes, there would be a direct and indirect impact on the public service as a whole.
However, from my point of view, at first glance I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to respond to these changes, if there were any.
Senator Audette: What about the visual?
Mr. Cintrat: The visual?
Senator Audette: In the audit, there are tables that illustrate who received requests, the number of requests, the processes and where all these questions go for approval. Do you have anything up to date that would enable us to see who receives requests and which organizations and departments are involved?
Mr. Cintrat: I see.
Senator Audette: I do not have those tables. Perhaps my colleagues received them at other meetings of this committee.
Mr. Cintrat: We can provide them for you.
Senator Audette: Thank you very much.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Is that weekly report that you referred to something that might have information that we could see, or is it something that we would not be able to see? Could you make an inquiry about that?
Mr. Cintrat: I can make an inquiry.
The Deputy Chair: I would be very curious to see one of those weekly reports.
Mr. Cintrat: I can certainly make an inquiry, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Mr. Cintrat, thank you for being with us. What do you do if parliamentarians from both chambers ask the same question or questions on a similar subject? Is there a way to recognize that the same question is being asked or that the same subject is being addressed? Does your office have any way to recognize this?
Mr. Cintrat: Yes, absolutely. We look at each question. We can compare them to see if there is any repetition or if a question on the same subject has already been asked. We point this out to departments that provide the answers so that they can remember that they may have already done the work in the past on a similar question. We do this to make their work easier. Not only do we encourage departments to find out which questions have been asked, at the same time or on the same subject, but we also do that in other ways.
If there is a request from a parliamentary committee on the same subject, we ask the department to pay attention to that so that, at the end of the day, the information given is not incongruous and there is a common approach. This is one of the things we do to support departments that have to answer all these questions.
Senator Mégie: Thank you very much.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Cintrat, for being here and providing us with very good information. We look forward to receiving any follow-up information you can provide us. And thank you to my colleagues for asking such good questions today.
(The committee adjourned.)