Government Operations Committee on Dec. 12th, 2022

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wheeler, in response to Mr. Johns' questions, you acquiesced to the need for more frugality during a time when Canadians are having to make very real and very hard decisions about how they are going to make ends meet.

I would suggest, and even expect, that this should be a goal of the government, not just during an inflationary crisis but always, to ensure that taxpayers are getting good value for the money that is being spent. I would think that should be the culture of a government, to ensure that it is spending Canadians' money wisely.

My colleague highlighted the special requests that were brought forward through an Order Paper question. I would also note that one of the items that was reported on was $250 for one litre of orange juice. That is 1,000 millilitres so that is $62.50 for one glass of orange juice. It would appear that the price of orange juice has increased by four times since 2012.

My question to you would be whether all people—staff, including the Governor General's staff—are subject to ATIPs.

[Stewart Wheeler]

I am happy to take the question. The question is whether all members of the delegation or the staff travelling are subject to ATIPs.

All public servants in our ministry—and I would not speak for other ministries because there may be security implications or other reasons—all protocol officers and officials of Global Affairs Canada are subject to ATIPs, yes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

It would perhaps be reported who made the special request for the $53 sandwich, the 200-and-something-dollar salad or the $250 litre of orange juice. Would we get that level of detail?

[Stewart Wheeler]

Thank you very much for the question. I think it gives me the opportunity to clarify a little bit the reference to special requests.

In our past appearance before the committee, we discussed the process whereby menus were chosen by the general's team and my team for various legs of a flight to ensure that the menus were appropriate for the length of the flight and that they met dietary needs, among other things.

In the past, standard options from menus of caterers would be adjusted to meet some of those requirements, and through this process, we have learned that the mere fact of going back and forth with a caterer who is doing specialized catering has resulted in increased costs with every adjustment.

As part of the ongoing working group, we have identified that as a specific driver, which we are eliminating from our processes. Going forward, we will be choosing standard menu items off of budget. We will be ensuring, where possible and where caterers are able to procedure it, that those options come with price tags on them. We will choose them to be cost-effective and make sure that no changes to those standard menus are sought to ensure we do not have those things going forward.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I echo many of my colleagues' comments here this morning that hindsight is 20/20, and I appreciate that you've made decisions to ensure that you understand the costs that are going to be incurred before a trip is taken, not after a trip is taken.

Again, I think many Canadians, when they are planning a trip, need to understand the costs they are going to incur before they take the trip so they can make wise decisions about the trip itself.

I appreciate that and will end my time there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mrs. Block.

Go ahead, Mr. Kusmiercyzk, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have been listening with tremendous intent and interest to the discussions here, and I appreciate all of the excellent questions that all of my colleagues around the table are asking. Those are the questions that Canadians are asking and want answers to.

I want to go back to the different legs of the journey. The trip begins on March 16, if I'm not mistaken. On March 16, the group takes off from Ottawa. I noticed that the first expense there on March 16 is a Tim Hortons expense for coffee. There are two take-12 coffees that were purchased for a price of $45.18. That seems infinitely reasonable to me.

I want to ask whether those coffees were used on the flight. I'm just curious. Is that something that could be procured and basically brought onto the flight? Could I just get an explanation for that expense?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

I don't have the answer for you as to who used or drank that coffee but, yes, we can bring the Tim Hortons onto the flight, specifically to your question. It was the flight crew who went and purchased that, the flight steward.

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

That seems very reasonable here, two take-12 canisters of coffee from Tim Hortons to bring on the plane.

The next expense that I see is, again, the flight from Ottawa to London, as I understand it. It looks like it is an overnight flight across the Atlantic. I see a food expense of $3,689. I believe you had 46 people on that flight, if I'm not mistaken, including the guests, the staff and the crew, which works out to about $80 per person. Again, I imagine that this is an overnight flight.

Can you also explain this? There is a $2,000 fee for wet and dry stores. Can you explain that for me?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

Did you say, “wet and dry storage"?

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

It says, “wet and dry stores”, $2,093. You had about $3,600 for meals, and then you had the additional cost of wet and dry stores of $2,000. I just want to understand what that means.

[LGen Eric Kenny]

That would be things such as ice and other aspects to bring the food within, which is my understanding at this stage. I don't have the other specific details. I apologize.

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

Okay, but for the meals, it looks like it's $3,600 for that leg of the flight, from Ottawa to London, which works out to about $80 per person. I imagine that includes dinner and potentially breakfast on the flight over, but then we go to the third leg of the trip, which is the London leg. All of a sudden, we go from $3,600 for meals to what I see, which is $29,000 Canadian. That is what the cost was from London, the catering from London, England. That is about 15,000 pounds, and that is $29,000 Canadian.

Can we sort of explain a little how we went from, again, ordering two Tim Hortons take-12 canisters and paying $3,600 for food from Ottawa to London, to then, in London, all of a sudden, paying four times more: $29,000? Can you explain that increase in cost for that leg?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

As you are highlighting, there are different costs depending on where we go. In many cases there are costs that we can control. In some cases there are costs that we cannot control. We're often found with only one caterer that's available that meets the standards we require and the health and safety requirements for those who are on board.

As per any cost, what we find is that there are five factors. There's the cost of the food, which is a protein, which is typically between $23 and $90 total. There's a tray set-up fee that goes on top of that, which is sometimes the same cost as the food. The tray set-up fee includes the bun, the salad that you would get and the small dessert that goes with it. Beyond that, there are food and snacks, which, as we've highlighted, we are only going to be purchasing now in Canada moving forward.

There's also a component of what we call “overages”. As described by Mr. Wheeler earlier, we're only buying a 20% overage at this stage. We used to buy a 65% overage. That gives that option for the front crew, as was mentioned, for the passengers. Then there are back-end fees that could be sometimes up to 20%. In this particular case, it was 50% of that particular leg that were back-end fees. Back-end fees are handling and delivery, they're storage, they're cleaning and disposal of international waste and they're taxes.

When you add all that together, all of a sudden it becomes a much larger bill, as you've described, so we're always looking at value for money and making sure that we're going to caterers who will provide the best value for money. I would also say, as highlighted by Mr. Wheeler, going forward, we're not going to be working with Global Affairs Canada on any changes to the menus that are offered by the caterers. That's really going to drive down, we believe, the prices, but there are certain things that we will not be able to control. Some of those things are the back-end fees I described and the tray set-up fees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that's your time, Mr. Kusmierczyk. We actually went over about a minute.

Ms. Kusie you have five minutes, please.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've mostly been talking about food, so I'm just going to go back to some of the Library of Parliament questions, which I think were very worthwhile, which are related to food. I should also add that my colleagues have made reference to them, but no one has asked them specifically.

It says here that the Global Affairs invoice summary notes charges of over $40,000 in vehicle rentals for a trip to Abu Dhabi that was cancelled, as compared to $25,000 for rentals in Doha and $17,000 for rentals in Kuwait City. Can you explain why the car rentals for a cancelled trip are higher than those in cities the delegation visited?

This one is particularly interesting to me because I actually thought that this was from section 3 of the public accounts, but now that I reflect upon it, I think that was actually an expense tied to National Defence as opposed to Global Affairs. I thought it was a good question anyway.

Please go ahead, Mr. Wheeler.

[Stewart Wheeler]

You make reference to costs attributed to the stop in Abu Dhabi. At the time the visit was first being planned and accounts were being set up within our SAP accounting system, a stop in Abu Dhabi had been envisaged in order to meet the president of the UAE. When the final program was finalized, the meetings with Emirati leadership were held in Dubai, not in Abu Dhabi. Therefore, we dropped the leg to Abu Dhabi, and all of the costs that had been for services retained there were transferred and used in Dubai. There were no sunk costs lost on a “cancelled trip” to Abu Dhabi. Simply, those transportation costs that were contracted with a service provider in Abu Dhabi provided those in Dubai as well.

The visit to the United Arab Emirates was longer than the visit to Qatar that you are referring to and that would also account for a difference in price between those two legs of the visit.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you for that.

I was trying to recall how sunk costs are budgeted or recorded. I'll have to go back to my books, I guess. It's the same thing I was trying to recall from the last round, the process for applying products with the accrual method.

I'll go on then to question nine from the Library of Parliament. It says that the National Defence invoices list roughly $26,000 in satellite communications charges and Global Affairs’ invoice list notes over $10,000 in mobile charges for the advance visit. How do these costs compare to communication costs for other advance and official visits?

I will ask the second question at the same time, which is this: If there is a significant difference, what accounts for the discrepancy?

I know certainly in the House of Commons, when we're going overseas, we have the opportunity to go onto other more cost-effective packages, so what would be the reasoning behind these costs, then, please?

[Stewart Wheeler]

Thank you very much for the question, honourable member. It allows me to clarify that precisely.

In an effort to reduce costs for communication and to keep our team and our principals connected to Canada and each other during a visit, one of the tools we use is called mobile pucks. They are a mobile Wi-Fi or a Mi-Fi, which we have in the office of protocol. We can reuse them in every visit in the future, and they allow us to avoid roaming charges, which many of us have noted can be very high, particularly when travelling internationally. They also allow us to make bulk purchases of cheaper SIM cards, which are then added to these Mi-Fi pucks.

On a number of invoices, you'll see Wi-Fi or mobile charges. That's what that refers to.

With respect to the question of comparability to previous visits, I don't have the level of detail for previous visits before me. However, I can reassure the honourable member that we look at the situation in each country and the destination based on what the roaming charges would be versus the cost of using the pucks that we have and taking them with us from Canada. That's always part of our effort to keep those costs under control.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Ms. Kusie.

Mr. Jowhari, go ahead, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses. I'll probably start with Mr. Wheeler.

We talk about the costs of the trips for dignitaries and the Governor General. Are the costs when the Governor General is performing domestic visits comparable to the international visits?

[Stewart Wheeler]

Thank you very much, honourable member, for the question.

I'd have to defer that question to Rideau Hall, as the office of protocol is not involved in the Governor General's domestic travel.

[Christine MacIntyre]

Thank you for the question.

If I understand the question correctly, it's whether the costs for domestic travel within Canada are comparable to international costs. I would say that costs are dictated by the nature of the specific type of visit.

Within Canada, the Governor General visits communities across the country upon invitation to visit bases and to recognize Canadians for their efforts—both civilian and military—across the country, and would not typically take an Airbus or a large group of people. It's a small group that accompanies her, and it's all done within the budget of the Governor General's office for these particular visits, so I wouldn't say there's necessarily a comparison there.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

We cannot compare the domestic costs of the Governor General doing business with the international, because there are different players involved.