Human Resources Committee on June 5th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Committee members, let's call to order.

With your indulgence, and we've mentioned this to the witnesses, before we begin on the witnesses we do have two items that we can move through pretty quickly for committee business and they have to do with the eternal flame project. So with your indulgence I'd like to just move those up to the start of the meeting right now as we are, without going in camera, because I don't think anything here is earth shattering but we have had communications. So I'm going to pass it over to...unless there are any objectors to doing this. The other reason is that I've been notified that there are possible votes this morning and we could be interrupted later in the meeting, in the last hour of the meeting, in which case we would have to go to the House of Commons.

So, that said, I prefer to do this now and get it done before we move on to....

Madam Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

We're feeling a crunch of time, as you know. Will that not cut into the very brief time we have with our Library of Parliament witnesses?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

What I intend to do—and I should have said this as well—is extend their time into the second hour in lieu of the fact that we've moved this up to the front, if that's okay with members.

I'm going to hand this over to the clerk because the clerk has been dealing with this issue.

Caroline.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Caroline Bosc]

There are two quick things. The first thing is that you have before you a letter from Sara Carleton, who is last year's recipient of the award. In the letter she explains why she's requesting an extension. It's essentially because she's doing it on Clara Hughes. Clara Hughes is doing a bike ride tour this summer and she would like to include that in her report. So if committee members are in agreement she's asking for a couple of months extension, or not a couple of months rather but essentially she'd submit the document on July 11. So if members are in agreement then we can allow her to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Madam Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

If there is no impact on future awards, I would not oppose this.

[The Clerk]

Madam Groguhé asked if there would be any impact on future recipients, and the answer is no.

There will be no impact whatsoever.

Essentially we would just be giving her a little bit more time.

We would grant her more time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Is there any further discussion? Otherwise I'll look for consensus without calling a vote.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Okay. We'll give that extension then, and the other....

[The Clerk]

The other item is relatively simple. The deadline for applications was on Monday. We've only received one as of yet, so to ensure that we have a high calibre of applicants I'm suggesting that perhaps we could extend the deadline a little bit to encourage more people to apply. It's been done in the past with only one applicant. There might be a few postmarked in the mail; it's possible. But it might be good to give it a little bit more time, try to publicize the award, and then we can get a few more applicants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Butt.

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

Madam Clerk, what is the process then for advertising this? How are we encouraging more people to apply? Why would there only be one this year and we've had multiple in previous...?

[The Clerk]

It's been in a decline in the last few years. I think it's mostly because of the status our committee's website. The website is being redone but what I've done, in conjunction with the chair, is reached out to a few disability groups in the country, which we already had in our contacts based on our past studies on disabilities, to publicize the award. We're hoping that as a result of this we'll get a few more applicants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Madam Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Knowing that we've been advertising it and the fact that you have reached out and we still haven't had any, I'm very reluctant to extend the timelines because we have timelines for a reason, so that everybody has fair access. I'm pleased that you've already reached out to those groups and because of that I'm not sure what more we would be doing during this time. So I would be reluctant to extend right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, I just wondered if through you I could ask the clerk what are the criteria? Who set the criteria for this? If there aren't many applicants, should we be looking at possibly, as a committee, those criteria and maybe designating the funds for another purpose? So is it set out by Parliament or is it set out by a policy of this committee?

[The Clerk]

There are two aspects to the answer to that. The first is that by law we are required to give a certain amount. The amount is not fixed, but by law we are required to give an amount for this award. It's legislated so we have to keep doing that. We can't allocate the funds for anything else. The amount can be changed, and the criteria for selection are set by the committee. Maybe that needs to be re-evaluated at some point but the criteria are already set.

Just to comment on what Ms. Sims said, we hadn't reached out to those organizations yet. The plan would be to do so now and create a later deadline.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

On that point, because of my involvement with many of these organizations, I've already reached out and there is some definite interest to bring proposals back. I quietly took the initiative to call some of the organizations, People First and others in Canada, who are very interested. They missed the generic call that we put out.

Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I want to speak in favour of the legislation, but first I want to clarify. You mentioned that in previous years we've already set a precedent where when we have one or a few submissions we have extended in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Yes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So I think we have a precedent that we should continue to follow. I want to make sure that if we're going to award this money, it goes to a worthy recipient. Having a large number of applications would promote that, so I think we should support the extension.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Ms. Groguhé, you have the floor.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I think that we have to grant the extension. That is the best thing to do.

There is only one candidate, which is somewhat unfortunate. Is it possible to know who we will be looking at? Do we have a list of organizations or persons who are interested in this award? I suppose that we also contacted some organizations in Quebec. It would be good to have an idea of what has been done in this regard. As to the extension, there is no doubt that we should grant it.