Fisheries Committee on March 26th, 2009

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for appearing. I thank you for the clarification you've brought already.

I think it's safe to say, Ms. Ridgeway, that you're here because a couple of news articles raised some questions about your travel and whether it was good value for money. I think those questions are valid and important questions because it's taxpayers' money, and we certainly want to be assured that the activities are worthwhile and that they are done within guidelines that are reasonable and make sense, and so on.

Ms. Dansereau, in your opening comments you talked somewhat about how trips are approved and then audited and so on, so I think I understand that part of the process. I think I understand a little less better the decision-making of how we decide where we're going to go and when. For example, would the director general, Ms. Ridgeway, kind of map out her year in advance and say, “Well, I think I should go here and there”, and a bunch of travellers then put this on your desk and then you take a look at it and sign off on this? Perhaps you can help me with that part of the equation.

[Claire Dansereau]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Kamp.

I'm struck just by the way I manage these kinds of questions. A comment was made earlier when the question was put about who should be scrutinizing these things. In fact I always look at all of the expenses of a department--and I've done this my whole career--by what my mother would say. My mother raised four teenagers on a secretary's salary, so she's very conscious...and I see her as my little focus group as a taxpayer.

I do have that kind of careful scrutiny of what we do with taxpayer dollars, and I really believe there needs to be a benefit to Canadians, as does the minister, absolutely.

The process is that each of the sectors.... Mr. Bevan has the fisheries and aquaculture sector within which there's an international group, and it's the same on our policy side, where the policy work is done internationally, led by Ms. Huard. They will plan out the year to the best of their ability with the meetings that we know are coming. That is not just done from a financial perspective but a workload and work planning perspective, to make sure there are enough people in Ottawa and people who are actually working to priority. There is nobody who likes to spend money for the sake of spending money, and there's actually nobody who likes to travel for the sake of travelling--having done a significant amount of travel in my own career, I know it's physically exhausting and it's not fun. It may look like it's fun, but it's no fun. So we try to minimize it in fact to the best of our ability.

Within the department, the science ADM will look at her budget and her travel requirements for her folks to go to international conferences on science and other things. The ADMs then make those kinds of decisions for their sector within the budgets they have been allocated. Then they review against that, and it always needs to be against the priorities and what is the best value for the department and therefore for Canadians.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Can I ask if these reports have led you to review the department's travel policies, the details of how you travel, when you travel, what you can charge to what, and all of those details?

[Claire Dansereau]

A number of things came about at the same time. First, I became the deputy; second, the economy has been suffering a bit; and third, it's year-end. So all of those things fit well together to afford me the opportunity to ask where we're putting our energies. I think every department and every deputy before me would have looked at the overall travel plans and the priorities to make sure the money was well spent.

If we look at the percentage of our overall budget that goes to international travel, $2 million on a $1.6 billion budget is not very big. Considering the files that we have to work with and the real danger to Canadian industry and to the Canadian economy of us not being there, I think that's a pretty good track record set by my predecessors. So I would review it, but I suspect there wouldn't be a lot I would change. I think our policies are sound. We are governed by Treasury Board policy and we think our value for money is sound. But as in all cases, it's worth another review and I will be doing that.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Do you have a way to measure value for money?

[Claire Dansereau]

Some of it is through discussion. We have our reports on plans and priorities, a departmental performance report. We have to look at the activities and see if in fact we achieved some objective. As I said in answer to a previous question, Mr. Chair, sometimes it's difficult to say we won, that this is the year when Canada's goal was actually met because some of these.... As we know in the Doha Round, this has been going on for a decade, for a very long time. We won't see an immediate outcome. All we know is that we win some battles on, one day and if we weren't there we would have lost those. The sealing file is a case in point. It changes every single day, and it continues to change. The votes are happening as we speak, so it's hard to say.

I think the example Ms. Ridgeway has used, the bottom trawling, is a useful example, since Canada did benefit. To say year over year that Canada benefited by some amount is very hard to say. It's very hard to measure, unlike some other things we do.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Yes, I think I understand that. I think mostly what we've heard this morning is sort of on the value side, and we've heard about some accomplishments and so on. We're not questioning the value. I think we need to be assured of the value-for-money side of the equation, and so far I haven't heard an acknowledgment that maybe we could have done things a little differently or maybe we should do things differently in the future.

I think we would want to ask that question and see if there's a process in place to conduct the kind of review that would assure us and assure all taxpayers that we're getting good value for the money. Maybe there's a way to spend less money and still achieve that value. If there isn't, I understand the expenses were within guidelines, but I think the question is whether there is anything even within the department—and I understand much of it is set by the Treasury Board. But within the department are those guidelines being looked at to ensure they spend as reasonably as possible?

[Claire Dansereau]

Well, as I said, Mr. Chair, I have asked for all the plans myself this time, to look at them and to assure myself that in fact Canada is receiving the best value for the money and to make sure that, really, the percentage we allow for international travel is in fact reasonable, especially in these tough economic times. So the review starts with me, and I have committed to doing that and I am in the process of doing that.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Since these articles in February, has business changed at all? For example, Ms. Ridgeway, have you not travelled to some place where you thought you might have gone if there hadn't been this scrutiny?

[Claire Dansereau]

Mr. Chair, some of the meetings Ms. Ridgeway was intended to go to were not attended because we were waiting to come here. Because the time changed as to when we would be here, we wanted to make sure Ms. Ridgeway was in fact in Canada when we came before the committee. So some of those meetings didn't happen. But we will be looking at everything once again. I can assure the committee of that.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Is there time left that Mr. Weston might have a question or two?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Let me ask you a question that we might be asking ourselves rather than just you. When you are approved to travel business and first class, does that mean you feel you're required to do so?

[Lorraine Ridgeway]

Certainly we would never be approved to fly first class. That's not allowed for anybody.

Business class, no, I don't feel I should, but I do feel I spend a lot of time in airplanes and airports and I need to work. I chaired or was head of delegation for more than 70% of the trips I took, so that's a tremendous amount of work, and it's not the kind of work you can get done in the office when you're running your work. So I often end up either sleeping or working.

I find that then it's not unreasonable to be in business class, especially if you're on a trajectory, a travel route, that's taking you for 24 hours in the air, and it's not inconsistent with the guidelines. I don't feel I should volunteer not to. I feel the airplane is part of my office, partly.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'm sympathetic. I've got a background in international law and I've travelled all my life, so I understand that.

Let me ask you another question. Do you ever ask what the different costs are and find that rather than—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

We'll come back again—

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

In the next round?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

—in the next round.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, and thank you for coming before the committee.

Most of us realize that travelling is probably the least glamorous part of any of our jobs--spending time in airports and on airplanes.

I'd like to put some of this in context, so that it's on the record. You talked about spending $2 million on international travel, and I believe Ms. Ridgeway's travel was $400,000 over three years. I'd like to put it in perspective, so that we have a good idea of what exactly we're talking about here, and to include how many days you were actually on the road and away from your office here in Ottawa.

I'm wondering also if any other staff travelled with you. Did you travel alone on these trips? What was the number of actual trips that were taken? Did the minister travel with you on any of these events, and was any of your travel at the request of the minister, that you travel to a certain location on his or her behalf? I would assume you have some details on each one of these trips, and I don't know if you want to give that to the committee for us to look at. I know you don't want to talk about each trip and the details, but perhaps there's something you can provide the committee with on details of the trip.

I don't know if you caught all that, but do you want to give it a try to get it on the record?

[Claire Dansereau]

If I may, I will answer some of the questions and Mr. Bevan will answer some of them.

We have in fact produced a report that we will provide to the committee on all of the trips by category from Ms. Ridgeway, so you'll be able to track what was accomplished in each of them. So, yes, absolutely, we know exactly the number, we know exactly the place, sometimes with ministers, sometimes not--it depends on the trip--and sometimes with other people, sometimes alone, and it depends again on the trip. Ms. Ridgeway can answer the specifics of that question.

So there is no money spent by a public servant that is not on record somewhere with an explanation as to why they were there. As we said earlier, those expenses are all audited and then they're all approved prior to departure and they're approved post-return. No cheque is given until all of that has been done. I'm sure you've heard complaints about the slowness of that process, and it's in part because of the due diligence that we do around literally every penny that is spent.

Lori, do you want to speak to some of the specifics of the number of trips you have travelled with ministers?

[Lorraine Ridgeway]

Yes, thank you.

I don't know which order to do it in. The number of trips each year was in the range of 13 to 15 to 20. Let's say it's just a little bit more than a dozen trips a year.

I just wanted to put that in context, if I may. Sometimes they're long. The reason is that we're in a global forum. The meetings I go to are multilateral. We have two summer periods to handle; you have the southern summer and the northern summer, so that squeezes all the meetings into the spring and autumn. That means the international agenda is often quite linked up and countries actually demand that meetings go so that they can be combined, especially if they can be adjacent. That kind of thing is out of our control. It makes a very, very busy spring and fall. That's why some trips are joined together, and they can be quite long.

It's about 150 days a year in the last three years. It has been an extremely busy agenda. One of the reasons is that we're implementing much new regulation and legislation on the fishing side, and the biodiversity side is heating up very strongly because we're coming to a big landmark year in the UN in 2014-15 when the UN Commission on Sustainable Development will look at what's going on in oceans and it will make recommendations. Those recommendations will be very big agenda-setting recommendations. They will be the kind that will have a decade's worth of influence.

So everybody's getting their positions ready and getting the international framework sorted out in a way that will end up in certain directions or other directions. It's quite controversial, and those meetings are heating up. That's where we get pulled into different kinds of defensive interests, as well as offensive interests.

With respect to the minister, I have travelled.... In the case of the trip that was highlighted in the press that took place in APEC, it was a ministerial meeting in Bali, co-hosted by Canada and Indonesia. Minister Regan was the minister's co-chair and I chaired the senior officials' meeting that produced the products that the ministers were adopting. So of course,I was travelling with the minister there. He was there as the ministerial lead.

I travelled with Minister Hearn on what I believe might have been his first international trip when he was a member of the High Seas Task Force on combatting illegal fishing under the auspices of the High Seas Task Force. I had been his senior official preparing for that and I was with him on that. Other times I have replaced him when he's been invited; I went to a high-level segment on his behalf.

In relation to the ministers' tasks, those are the three that I would highlight.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Monsieur Pomerleau.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our guests for being here today.

I come from a constituency that is not particularly affected by fishing. There is not a lot of deep-sea fishing between Montreal and Quebec City. So my questions will be more general and theoretical.

We have read in the papers that the budget for the Department of Foreign Affairs has decreased by 20% since 2006 and that it will continue to decrease. Does that affect your operations indirectly? Does it concern you?

[Claire Dansereau]

No, it does not concern us and it does not affect us at the moment. But we work closely with our colleagues in Europe and in other countries. We contact them frequently and they are of great help to us.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

In 1993-1994, when they were travelling a lot, a number of members of Parliament decided to collect all their Air Miles points in a common pot so that they could save money on tickets. Do you have a similar system when you travel?

[Claire Dansereau]

We follow Treasury Board policies, and that is not one of them.

When we travel a lot, we receive passes. So I have asked employees to use them whenever possible in order to save money.