Moved the adoption of the report.

He said: Honourable senators, this report deals with the Senate’s budget for 2022-23. In summary, the anticipated budget is $121.8 million, which is $6.2 million or 5.4% over the 2021‑22 budget. However, this includes $2.6 million related to retroactive salary economic increases and $800,000 for the reinstatement of committee budgets to pre-pandemic levels. Without these two large items, the year-over-year increase is much lower at 2.5%.

As background on the process of arriving at the budget, it is based on the recommendations of the Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates. The subcommittee is comprised of Senator Moncion, chair; Senator Marshall, deputy chair; and Senators Bovey, Saint-Germain and Tannas. I thank them for the substantial time and effort they have spent on reviewing the budget.

The members of the subcommittee met with the Senate Administration, the executive committee and the majority of directors on many occasions. Detailed presentations were made by the directorates to the subcommittee. The members had the opportunity to discuss and question funding requirements throughout the process.

Throughout its consideration of the Main Estimates, the committee took into consideration not only changes in the Senate but also the effects of the pandemic on the Senate’s operations. The committee was also very mindful of the Canadian economic environment and the importance of balancing operational needs with proper stewardship of public funds.

As a result, the Main Estimates have been prepared with prudence to ensure that the level of Senate spending remains stable without compromising service to senators.

Moving to the details of expenditures, I would remind senators that there are two parts to the budget. One is statutory funding, and the other is the voted funding.

The statutory portion deals with money allocated by legislation. This includes senators’ basic and additional allowances and pensions, senators’ travel and living expenses, telecommunications and employee benefit plans. Any shortfalls in these categories at the end of the year are covered by the Treasury Board. Conversely, surpluses are automatically returned to the Treasury Board as they cannot be reassigned.

The second part of the budget is a voted budget which is for the workings of the Senate. They cover senators’ office budgets and Senate administration. Moving briefly to the numbers, the total amount of the statutory budget is $37.3 million, an increase of $0.8 million or 2.2% from last year.

The main reason for the small increase is the senators’ basic and additional allowances and pensions, which are increasing by around $568,000 to reflect the increases that have been in place since April 1, 2021, and approved by legislation.

The other major increases are the living expenses budget, increased by $101,000, and the contribution of the employee benefit plan, which rose by $165,000. These were partly offset by the telecommunications budget, which was reduced by $32,000 thanks to a collective effort to reduce the number of land lines.

Moving to the second part of the voted budget, this portion is $84.5 million, an increase of $5.5 million, or 6.9% over the previous year. As mentioned earlier, while this looks large, it includes retroactive salary increases from 2019 to 2021 of $2.6 million and the reinstatement of the committee budgets to pre‑pandemic levels.

Excluding these two large items, the year-over-year increase is much lower at $2 million, or 2.6%.

The major components of the voted budget are: the overall senators’ offices budget, which increased by $484,000, or 2%; the Senate committees budget, which rose by $810,000 to the funding levels that existed before the pandemic; the International and Inter-Parliamentary Affairs Directorate, which increased by $329,000 to cover the cost of the fourth annual session of the Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie; and an increase of $176,000 for the Indigenous Youth Internship Program, which is expected to begin for the first time in the upcoming year.

Finally, the administration rose by $3.6 million primarily due to four major items: $2.6 million for retroactive economic increases from prior years; $360,000 for nonrecurring savings that were achieved in 2021-22; new funding requests of $521,000 mainly for additional software licences and operational expenses including in IT; and $145,000 mainly to cover position reclassifications.

From a staffing standpoint, the budget includes a net increase of 6.5 positions. This is from 3.3 additional full-time equivalents for the International Aboriginal Youth Internships initiative and 3.2 positions for administration.

To conclude, I would once again like to thank the committee for their extensive work. They deserve a lot of credit.

A lot of credit also goes to Senate Administration and the executive committee, they approached the budget in a very thoughtful and prudent manner. I recommend that we adopt the report.

Thank you, colleagues.

I have a question for Senator Marwah. I would like to hear your thoughts on some of the figures. I was a bit surprised when I looked at the tables.

Before that, however, I would like to hear your thoughts on the size of the International and Interparliamentary Affairs budget compared to the Senate committees budget. I thought the Senate Committees Directorate budget was larger than the International and Interparliamentary Affairs budget.

Can you briefly explain the substance of those differences? That is my first question.

Thank you for the question, Senator Bellemare. On the Senate committee budgets, they are exactly at the level they were pre-pandemic and that’s $2.3 million. Those are the numbers and the increases because, as I mentioned, we are taking back the committee budgets to pre-pandemic levels, assuming that committees will be able to operate fully and be functional for the balance of the year.

On the international and parliamentary affairs, keep in mind that those numbers are not just conferences, they include a whole bunch of other items, such as our share of the Senate of the IIA activities. As you know, we take 30% and the total cost is around $1.4 million.

Then we have ongoing employees, around 10 employees, for a total cost of $1.2 million, the contributions to parliamentary associations of around half a million. And then, of course, we have the additional conference this year of the Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie of $328,000 which is going to take place, approved by Internal Economy Committee, in October of last year.

Those are the major items in comparison of the two categories, senator.

May I ask you another question?

Absolutely.

My second question is about the estimated impact of hybrid meetings on the Senate and committees. If I understand correctly, our hybrid meetings and the investment in these telecommunication procedures may have led to a reduction in expenses? Does this mean it is actually costing less, not more? I would like to hear your comments on that.

Thank you for the question. I would remind the senator that the numbers that you see are from budget to budget. There are no actuals in it. The savings take place in the actuals. And there are substantial savings both last year, the year before and we expect in the coming year.

That’s why you see the numbers the way they are. The actuals are substantially lower than these numbers.

So there is a delineation of expenditures going hybrid?

Absolutely.

Yes.

Absolutely, senator.

I will remind you again that this is really budget to budget. Really, the savings come in much lower from an actual expense. From a budget to budget, as I mentioned, there are three categories. First is the Senate had to absorb the retroactive salary increases that we had at the beginning of last year. Second, there’s a nonrecurring saving that occurred last year but is not occurring this year because we expect we will be back to full functioning for the balance of the year.

There are some additional expenses this year, mainly for IT, and one existing position in legal affairs and one other position. Those are the three major reasons why it’s gone up year over year from a budget standpoint.

Thank you, senator, for that question. I think last year there was an increase of six FTEs and this year there another six, of which three were for the Indigenous youth program and another three for staffing, one for communications officer that was brought back hoping that we will be full in service. There is a parliamentary. There is one staff in legal and one other staff that I don’t recall exactly what it was; 6.6 last year and 3 for administration this year.

I don’t have the total. I’ll gladly get that for you.

Thank you to Senator Marwah for that report.

One of the things that we know is a real challenge right now, even if we do come back to more regular in-person sittings, is to handle the committee work to allow for a continuation of people participating virtually online.

There are a few different issues. We are short on committee clerks, and we face a shortage of both space and resource allocation, the technical ability and translators back up to full committee sittings twice a week.

I’m very concerned about this. There’s work that we can’t get to in terms of Senate studies because, of course, our first priority is government legislation and then private legislation and then studies.

This is what I was going to call you and talk to you about. I’ll just put it to you now. Could you tell us how the Internal Economy Committee is looking at this issue and what your plans are to progress, by allowing us to return to a full suite of the work opportunities, including some of that being done virtually? Thank you.

Thank you, senator, for that question.

The historical choke pattern has been because of lack of translation capacity and translators to do that work. Hence why that’s been really the biggest constraint so far. On the committee clerks, the issue has always been how temporary or permanent is the situation we are in.

If we assume that it’s going to be this way for the next couple of years, perhaps it’s worthwhile investing in additional staff. If we assume we’re going to go back to normal sometime later this year, which seems kind of overkill. That’s a dilemma that we’re always in — how permanent is the situation we’re in? If we find out the situation is going to be hybrid and this way for the balance of this year, then perhaps Internal Economy will have to look at it.

Thank you again for that answer.

As I move forward at what things might look like — and that’s what you are hedging bets on because we don’t know — there’s been a lot of talk among senators in various settings including potentially in the Rules Committee. We look at committee structures and mandates and things like that, that there may be a virtual opportunity that is with us forever or maybe only for committee hearings. There’s a lot of talk. It would seem to me to be a desire. Maybe we need the conversation to look at what our work will look like even if we are able to come back to full sittings. I would ask you to turn your mind to that.

With respect to the shortage of translators, this is a very significant and somewhat out-of-our-control problem. However, it’s not my original idea. Another senator in discussion has raised the possibility of looking at the potential of funding an interpreters program to train and graduate interpreters to come up into the Senate? This is a budget we’re talking about and not actuals. There may be some savings through the pandemic time that could be put into that for a period of time to try to increase the supply that is available to us here in the Senate.

Is that something you would take under advisement and perhaps look at?

Thank you, senator. I would point out that we have invested in additional capacity, both in terms of translation and in the booths that you see — and with additional capacity with the House. We share this with the House of Commons. But in terms of having permanent funding and a solution, I’m not sure how much that would cost. I’ll certainly have someone take a look at it.