Evidence of meeting #28 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. Would you provide the committee with the estimates, then, and with the final bill and the menus, please?
LGen Eric Kenny
I will if I can.
Once we looked through it—and we have the final invoices—the total cost turned out to be $80,000.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Will you provide us, please, with those estimates, the contracts and the menus for all the flights in question?
LGen Eric Kenny
We'll take it on, in order to look into those and provide what we have to you.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm not asking you to look into it. Will you provide it for us, please?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I think I have the will of the committee to ask that you provide it for us.
Were there any other, perhaps, hidden costs that were not part of that $80,000 that you discovered later or that haven't been included in that $80,000, or is that the drop-dead final cost and there's nothing else?
LGen Eric Kenny
Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. It's a great question.
There are additional costs beyond catering for our flights. Specifically, there are costs for airport taxes, administrative fees, security charges and local taxes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Were there any specifically regarding the fuel or the catering for that flight?
LGen Eric Kenny
When we go to certain airports, there are charges for landing fees and airport taxes that are not—
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay, so there are no other charges that are going to pop up.
LGen Eric Kenny
The charges of $80,367 for the catering costs hold, which were included in a further update we gave in June and were not part of the original Order Paper question. But we do have additional costs beyond catering, just to be clear.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
What was the cost per person for the recent trip the Prime Minister and the GG took to London and then to New York?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Could you provide that for us, and the contracts and the menus?
When you talk about a selection of chicken and beef—I know on Air Canada you have a choice of stringy chicken or stringy tasteless chicken—often it's the same item. Is it beef or are you offering a filet, a choice cut of beef? What is exactly being chosen?
I ask because I'm kind of gobsmacked—and I'm trying to be polite here—that it's 2022, and I'm sure there are dozens of people working on this, and that $218 just seems to be: Yeah, that's okay. I have to ask: How did this happen? We hear Lieutenant-General Kenny talking about changing things in 2019, addressing the contingency in 2019, unless I heard it wrong, but now it's 2022 and we're hearing, “Well, we're going to address the contingency.”
We keep hearing, “Well, we're reviewing and reviewing.” We've been reviewing for years. I don't have a lot of faith—and Mr. Johns was getting at this—that it's actually going to get done. We hear a lot about reviewing. Would you be able to maybe put in writing to this committee actual firm steps you're taking to address the costs?
Chief of Protocol of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Absolutely. To answer your question around the style of meals, standard commercial airline-practice meals is what we're ordering, in line with health and safety and travel regulations as the General mentioned. We are looking at concrete savings, and we'd be happy to make that available to the committee.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
With regard to the Governor General's trip to the Middle East, the previous week, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and 58 other people went on a trip to London, Poland and various other stops. There were eight stops. There were 60 people, and the cost was about two-thirds, so we had about 50% more travelling and yet two-thirds less cost for that trip for catering.
How do we end up with such a massive discrepancy between caring for the Prime Minister—so it's not like it's 60 members of OGGO, you know; we're talking top-echelon people.... How do we end up with such a massive difference?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It's on the same Order Paper. Maybe you can let us know.
LGen Eric Kenny
What I can say is that where we go to really dictates the price. So, for example, in Qatar and the UAE, the catering costs are quite high, and there are certain locations—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Yes, I think my time is up, but I'll come back the next time.
Thanks.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you very much. If there's further documentation that you'd like to provide, if you provide that to the clerk, the clerk will distribute that amongst the committee members. That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
We'll now go to Mr. Bains for five minutes.