Government Operations Committee on Sept. 22nd, 2022

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Could you provide the committee with that information? What was the reduction? What was the contingency in 2019, and what did you reduce it to? What have you reduced it to now?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

We can look into that.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

If you could provide that, that would be great.

If we were to go on a military flight—you're flying officers or military people on those types of planes—would we find the same sort of situation if we were to do an Order Paper question on those types of things?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

Is that on flights with just military, specifically? Often, with the military flights, we fly through military airports and get our food from military facilities, which have a very different cost.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

I have one last question for Mr. Wheeler. You mentioned that the protocol office was doing a review, and you were maybe going to have some new procedures and policies.

Could you give us a bit of a timeline on that? Could you then provide that review to the committee, so we could see the results of that?

[Stewart Wheeler]

Yes, absolutely, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to take that on board.

We are constantly working together, and these people work together all the time. What we are asking our teams to do is to work in between the operational working on a specific visit to sit down and say, “What isn't working here? Let's look at the numbers, now that we see those line numbers, and ask why this is part of the standard operating procedure. Nobody asks for this, so why is it part of it? Can we eliminate it in the future? Can we decide that we're going to set up some flags, so that flags go up, a question comes over and we make an alternate choice?”

That's what we're hoping, to instill that kind of rigour. We're hoping it will be an ongoing process and it isn't a one-stop review and then it's over. We want this to be the new practice.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Can you provide that review to us, though—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm sorry. It's not a bad question.

Could you provide that? Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for coming today. Thank you for acknowledging right off the bat that this is something that's not acceptable and for working toward....

Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, MP Kusmierczyk.

Madam MacIntyre, in your opening remarks, you said, “we immediately reached out to our partners at Global Affairs and National Defence to confirm the costs involved, to review processes related to in-flight catering and to evaluate and implement measures to improve efficiencies”. I would be interested in hearing about evaluating and implementing measures to improve efficiencies.

Can you talk about the measures and what you were trying to improve?

[Christine MacIntyre]

The measures I was referring to are the measures that my colleagues are developing. Our office is supportive of anything we can do to bring more efficiencies to these processes—for example, bringing down the contingency, removing choice to the passengers on the flight and looking at questions. Really, we're open to anything we can do, because we were extremely concerned when we saw these costs come out.

For example, as Mr. Wheeler spoke about earlier, the office of protocol often looks at what the program is and how it connects with the flight. Do we need to eat on the flight? Is there an option where people can eat before they leave or after they arrive, so that catering doesn't need to be there? Are there additional elements that are part of the standard practice that we really don't need and that we can eliminate to have better efficiencies when it comes to these visits?

Further, what are other ideas? Let's think outside the box. We know that these costs are increasing in the airline industry. Every Canadian is seeing that when they're booking flights. How can we follow suit? How can we also encourage creativity and these kinds of flags from our department colleagues? That's something we want them to do. We want to encourage that kind of rigour.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I might suggest that we establish a target or threshold by meal per flight, depending on the length. It would be a good idea. We as MPs have per diems, and we follow those to a T. Anything above that comes out of our own pocket.

I'll just leave it at that, because I want to give my colleague Mr. Kusmierczyk time to be able to ask his question.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Jowhari, and thank you very much, Chair.

Actually, my colleague just asked the very question I wanted to ask: Do officials at Global Affairs know if a cost is reasonable? Is there a schedule of rates that can be compared? Is there a guide, for example, that guides the folks who are signing off on these decisions?

[Stewart Wheeler]

From the Global Affairs protocol perspective, I would refer to what the general mentioned, which is the complexity of factors that are in play when the final catering cost comes out. Those change for countries and for airports. It's not like the Treasury Board travel guidelines for a specific location, but I think that's exactly the kind of thinking that we're thinking about. When we get experience with travelling to different airports, we'll recognize, for example, that this is an airport that clearly gouges the state and private aircraft, because they force you to use certain caterers. Can we take that into consideration as well in the selection of which airports we choose to go to along the way?

I think we're open to looking at all possible economies affecting the various elements of our planning process.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

But I guess my question is about whether we can just set up a band, for example, where we can say that this is a reasonable cost, and anything above that requires extra thought or extra reconsideration. I think that would be helpful.

[Stewart Wheeler]

That's precisely the kind of flag I'd like our teams to be developing.

[Christine MacIntyre]

Again, to add a personal experience, I actually contracted COVID on this visit. I had to remain behind and quarantine in Qatar. So in terms of the Treasury Board.... This came to me as a public servant. You talk about per diems for members of Parliament. This to me gives an overall sense of the difference in the scale of price in these countries. For example, in Canada the Treasury Board per diem for breakfast is $22.80. In Qatar it's $42.77. In UAE it's $43.

It gives you a sense that where you go, as the general has said, really plays an important role in determining some of these costs. This is why asking these kinds of questions and having this kind of process is so important to go forward.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. MacIntyre. I'm happy to see that you've recovered from COVID and that experience.

[Christine MacIntyre]

It was a very unique experience.

[A voice]

It was hard to leave her behind.

[Christine MacIntyre]

Yes. The entire motorcade left and I stayed behind for 11 days. It did help me appreciate what some of the challenges are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

That ends our second round, but it is my understanding that there is agreement amongst members for one more set of questions.

Mr. Paul-Hus, please go ahead.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

General, when the Governor General went to London, what aircraft did she use? She does not fly commercially, so there must have been another aircraft. It was not the CC-150 Polaris, because in the answer provided to the written question No. 512, we can see the list of all the flights taken as of the month of December, and that aircraft is not on the list.

How did the Governor General get to London?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

I can't say for certain, but usually, she flies on the CC-144 Challenger or the Airbus. Those are the two aircraft used by the Governor General.

[Christine MacIntyre]

In this instance, I can confirm that she took the Challenger to fly to London.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

The Challenger came back empty, and the Polaris flew to London with the delegation on board and was used afterwards. Is that correct?