Evidence of meeting #46 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 video is available from Parliament.
Deputy Secretary, Policy, Program and Protocol Branch, Office of the Secretary to the Governor General
There are different players. There are different levels of security. My colleagues could speak to that.
There are partners we work with when we're participating in these different activities. There are not as many ceremonial elements. When the Governor General's conducting a state visit, there are certain protocols that need to be followed. When the Governor General is visiting communities, she is greeted there in a very different way.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
By their nature, the overhead costs associated with planning the Governor General's domestic travel are much lower than the overhead costs of the Governor General.... I'm looking at the number of witnesses we have. We have five departments coming to present their testimony today for an international trip that happened. I'm looking at it and I'm saying, yes, we're looking at the food costs and we're looking at the transportation costs.
What kinds of overhead costs has the group of five...? I'll call you that now. Has the group of five looked at the overhead costs and the complexity of planning these trips, and whether the ratio of the overhead costs to actual costs is justified?
Deputy Secretary, Policy, Program and Protocol Branch, Office of the Secretary to the Governor General
Perhaps I can start by saying that diplomatic travel is a vital component of a country's international engagement strategy. The Governor General travels only at the request of the government, but the decisions with regard to these visits must always reflect the high standards of stewardship. We're all in agreement with you there.
These visits have specific objectives in place to try to advance Canada's international strategy. Mr. Wheeler has spoken to you about that.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Ms. MacIntyre, I appreciate that. I'm trying to make the point here that, when it comes to the total cost, there's an aspect of the cost that has to do with the overhead cost, setting aside the execution cost of this. I don't think that we as a government have any idea of how much that overhead cost is.
I don't know how many hours each member of your department spends planning this. If you multiply it by the average hourly rate of a public servant, does it come to $30,000? Does it come to $50,000? I don't know. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for your department to also look at that.
I only have about 30 seconds. Are we setting up standards for international travel based on the category of the expense? Do we say that from now on, going forward, this is the category of spending, for example, for fuelling or for food, and that if it's for a VIP person, it's this much, and for individuals, it's that much?
Are any of those being set, or are the budgets developed when we ask them how much it's going to cost, so that we take it without challenging it and developing a budget?
Chief of Protocol of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
What we're putting in place is an ongoing system where we're constantly looking for those savings.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, sir.
Witnesses, thanks very much. I do have one question for you, and I want to quote Ms. Block. She talked about hindsight being 20/20. I think this is probably the third or fourth time in OGGO or with other departments that we've faced this moment of hindsight being 20/20 and nothing seems to change. I think that's been reflected in a lot of the comments here today.
I wonder if each of the departments represented today would put in writing and submit to the committee, step by step, what your plan of action is in plain, basic language, please, not bureaucratese. What are departments going to do to ensure that in one year, five years or 10 years, there's not going to be another OGGO committee saying 20/20 again, and that we're actually going to stop this issue from recurring. I would appreciate that.
Colleagues, unless there's anything else, we will adjourn.
Thank you, everyone. The meeting is adjourned.