Government Operations Committee on Feb. 13th, 2007

[Ian E. Bennett]

Yes, under contract. For example, we have a contract with the Government of Thailand and with New Zealand. All coins are manufactured in Winnipeg.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I'm not talking about coins; I'm talking about denominations, about paper money.

[Ian E. Bennett]

Oh, no.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

You don't do that?

[Ian E. Bennett]

No.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

But you print it for us.

[Ian E. Bennett]

No.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

You don't print our paper currency?

[Ian E. Bennett]

No, that's the Bank of Canada.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

The Bank of Canada prints dollar bills! So you have to talk to the Bank of Canada people about security and counterfeiting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard of coin counterfeiting. From time to time, you can put a peso, for example, into a machine, but I haven't heard that there were any counterfeit one- or two-dollar pieces on the market. However, suddenly we're told that we have to watch our $20 bills. Everyone takes $50 bills because they don't dare take $100 bills anymore. Do you have that problem with coins?

My last question concerns succession. Ms. Nash asked some excellent questions, and I got some of my answers. With regard to human resources, should we, like other federal organizations, do labour force planning, considering the average age of the labour force? Are you recruiting, for example, at artistic institutions and so on to get male and female engravers? Do you have a succession plan? If so, what is it?

Are you concerned about a fair male-female distribution and all the other human resources considerations at the time of hiring?

Lastly — and this is one of my favourite subjects — are you concerned about official languages? I hope you won't answer that your inspiration is the same as that of the Department of National Defence. I'm very serious. I'd like to know how things are going with regard to recruitment and respect for the language of work, both in Winnipeg and in Ottawa. How do you ensure that employees work in the language of their choice?

Thank you.

[Ian E. Bennett]

I can start and Mr. Neville can continue.

This is quite interesting for me because I worked nearly my entire career at the Department of Finance and for the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The working environment in both those places was mainly Anglophone.

I was surprised to see that most of the employees at the Royal Canadian Mint were bilingual. This is an opportunity for me to improve my French. It's a challenge, but I'm determined to make progress.

In Ottawa, 40% of employees are Francophone, whereas there are virtually no Francophones in Winnipeg. Nearly all Mint employees are bilingual. It's a very pleasant working environment for bilingual people, for Anglophones and Francophones.

Mr. Neville.

[Richard Neville]

You referred to the succession. I'm pleased that you raised that question because it's a very good one.

It concerns us, and we have a succession plan for all senior positions and all key positions at the Royal Canadian Mint. Every year, we conduct a review to ensure that everything is up to date. If someone has to leave, we've already anticipated the consequences because we have planned so as to avoid problems. That's very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you, Ms. Thibault.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, a very short question.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

How many sales and marketing people do you have?

[Richard Neville]

Twenty-one or twenty-two.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

In all of their sales work or the work that they've done internationally and in some of your international travels, has anyone ever requested a $1 million coin?

[Ian E. Bennett]

Not yet. I guess--

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So there's not a great demand for coinage of that size as far as any of your sales or marketing people can tell?

[Ian E. Bennett]

Two quick things. One is that we have a sales marketing staff on our payroll. We also have representatives in countries who aren't on our staff, and they seek out the contracts. There's no payment to them unless a sale is made, so it's more than 20 or 21.

Point two: With respect to the million-dollar coin, we're not going to produce any unless there is a demand. Indications from what you'd have to call the wealthy investors are that there is a demand in the Middle East, in Japan, and in the United States. The only precedent for this is Austria, which produced a thousand-ounce coin, the philharmonic coin, to showcase their bullion product, which competes with our gold maple leaf coin. They produced 15 of them and sold 15, and their quality is not the same as the quality we will have in our coin.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What kinds of sales projections do you have for this?

[Ian E. Bennett]

It's difficult to say. We have an interest shown in ten right now.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I also noticed there's no line for research and development. I guess that has been folded into some of the other lines here. Which ones would they be?

[Richard Neville]

Generally, general administration, and we have some in our plant, cost of goods sold.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Your charter says you can have subsidiaries. Do you actually have subsidiaries?

[Richard Neville]

Yes, we have one subsidiary, Royal Canadian Mint Holdings, which we own 100%, and it in turn owns 50% of a subsidiary called TGM.