Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2014

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

In his report, he gives a considerable amount of detail. I think he's trying to demonstrate that he was conscientious, so he's very thorough in providing information as to how they followed up on which aspects of things .

I wonder if it would be possible, given that this was done while he was in your shop, to come up with a total costing for the entire investigation process and then a breakdown for some of the components. I'm not sure I'm in a position to say what those components ought to be, but it's to give us an idea of what's involved in doing an investigation of this sort. Obviously intelligent people were involved, and intelligent people are not available at a low price.

To ensure that there was an obvious demonstration of impartiality, you went to a former justice of the Supreme Court. I think we know how much she was compensated for this.

[Marc Mayrand]

I don't have that, but it is definitely available. It was published.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes, that's right.

If you could get back to us with the global budget and a bit of a breakdown of what that was, that would be very helpful.

[Marc Mayrand]

The global figure was $1.3 million.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

It was $1.3 million.

[Marc Mayrand]

That would include legal services, the third party review. It would include forensic expertise that they needed, because there was quite a bit of analysis to do regarding various IT systems. There was great care in ensuring the integrity of the data.

Those would probably be the main items, but we can provide more detail.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

If you could do that, I'd be very grateful. Thank you.

That uses up my four minutes plus one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, there are three minutes left for Mr. Butt.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Monsieur Mayrand and your officials, for being here today.

I want to go back to some of the points that you made in your opening address.

I want to talk about some of the cost savings you have identified. You talked about the phase-down of the political party subsidy. That equals a $7.4 million decrease in your budget.

Can you remind the committee when exactly the political party subsidy will go down to zero so that you are no longer providing political party subsidies?

[Marc Mayrand]

We're currently in the last year.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

This year is the last year.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay.

[Marc Mayrand]

I think this year it's roughly another $7 million that will go through another—

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

At the highest level, when the full subsidies were being paid to all of the political parties that were eligible, do you have any idea what that annual number was prior to the changes that we brought forward?

[Marc Mayrand]

Again, it depends on the number of electors and from time to time the number of votes, but it was a little over $28 million.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

So the Canadian taxpayers are going to save $28 million a year by the end of the political party subsidy program.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Wonderful. That's great.

You talked about the completion of the main components of your office consolidation project, which was a $9.3 million decrease.

I actually didn't realize you had moved from Slater Street. I went to hand deliver my riding association return which my CFO had prepared to you one or two weeks ago and you were gone.

Where are you now? Are you in one complete location now, and is that an appropriate location to do all of the services? Given that the commissioner's services will be moving out of your offices and into the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, are you satisfied with the location you're in now? Is that sufficient for your operations, and where exactly are you located now?

[Marc Mayrand]

We're at 30 Victoria Street, in Gatineau. We're using the five top floors of that building. I hope the committee will come for a visit at some point in time.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

That would be nice.

[Marc Mayrand]

We can discuss matters of mutual interest.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

That would be lovely.

[Marc Mayrand]

And yes, it does respond to our needs.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I have a last question.

I would assume in a general election year that your budget would be larger than in a normal operating year. You talked about 350 full-time equivalent employees. I'm assuming that's in a regular standard year, where there might be a few byelections, riding association returns, and other things that you're normally having to do on an annual basis.

How does the budget inflate in a general election year? What kind of numbers do we get? If your base budget is $97.1 million—you're showing it here in a base year—what would it grow to in a year of a general election?

That's probably my last question—