Health Committee on Oct. 7th, 2009

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Audrey.

It seems like a very well-prepared plan, and it looks like you've thought of everything. Is there any support you're not getting in your efforts to be adequately prepared? Is there any required financing that's not there, or do you feel that you have adequate levels of support?

[Audrey O'Brien]

I really appreciate the question. Right now we're fine. We're covered for this and we have contingency funds. If we were faced with a major requirement for temporary assistance from outside agencies—I'm thinking of interpreters or translators—then we could go forward and ask for supplementary funds. But I think we have everything we need right now.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Maybe I missed it in here, but have you established a list of your top priorities? Do you have a business continuity plan? Have you decided which services would have greater priority?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Our main purpose is to support Parliament. The chamber is the heartbeat of the place—and support for it is absolutely essential to us. Support to committees comes after that, followed by support to members in their individual offices.

The exact form it will take is difficult to talk about because of the hypotheticals. There are so many permutations and combinations. The need for technology, for example, for a good technological response, is always present. Because we're so dependent on technology, it's a high priority.

Perhaps the sergeant has something he might want to add.

[Kevin Vickers, Sergeant-at-Arms, House of Commons]

I think the clerk has articulated the priorities very, very well. It is the core functions of Parliament that we're going to concentrate our resources on. Obviously in my area security will always be up there with regard to priorities, but everything will be totally dedicated to those four key functions of Parliament: the chamber, the caucuses, the committees, and your parliamentary offices.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Have you set any benchmark rates for absenteeism that would be the necessary level to close Centre Block?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Perhaps Kathy, as the expert in human resources, would have some comment on that.

[Kathryn Butler Malette]

You can see by the plan that low to moderate absenteeism is relatively normal. We are in that phase right now. We have a lot of people who have colds and that sort of thing. It's our seasonal time of year, and then the plan shows a little higher absenteeism, and then 30%. Let's say we had large service areas and a lot of MPs out, then I think this action plan would go into effect. The clerk and the board and the whips would all be in discussion in terms of the next steps.

We regularly monitor absenteeism of the administration. At this point there is certainly nothing to worry about, and we hope there will be nothing to worry about over the next few months. For us, it's more if individual groups suddenly get hit with a virus.

[Audrey O'Brien]

With regard to something like closing the Centre Block, we will be very careful to keep in contact with the local regional health authority. If at some point they recommend against gatherings, we would cancel the tours, for example. I think the business of cancelling people coming into the galleries would have to be taken only in fairly serious circumstances because of the openness of Parliament. Now, it's available by television, so that's another thing that helps. If you make the decision to close the galleries because of illness, then people can see what's going on by watching television. That's an enormous help.

With regard to the question of 30% absenteeism, let's say, 30% of members, it may be that the House leaders decide it would be a good idea to suspend sitting, say, for two weeks and then make that up in the constituency weeks later. They could decide not to sit for a period of time so that members wouldn't be travelling. I know the travelling back and forth from constituencies is a big concern among members.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

If I recall, clerks from different Commonwealth countries and from around the world keep in touch through various organizations. Have you had any conversations with other clerks in terms of preparations they're doing, and is Canada in line with its preparation efforts?

[Audrey O'Brien]

I would say that in terms of legislatures we are ahead of the game, but with a lot of my Commonwealth colleagues, resources are problematic. We are fortunate to have the resources we can devote to people working on a business continuity plan. They are so short of resources that basically one person has to do many, many things. In that sense, we're extremely fortunate, and I think we've used our good fortune to good effect in terms of our preparations.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. O'Brien.

We're going now to the second round of five-minute questions and answers.

I think we're only going to get through one round, Dr. Duncan, which will be you. Then we're going to suspend for a couple of minutes.

Dr. Duncan.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all. There has been a lot of thinking done here.

I'm new to this. As you said, this was posted yesterday and it was drilled yesterday. I haven't seen what's available; I've just seen what's here.

First, we're operating in a different way to a traditional business. Is that correct?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Because of the political piece to this.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Precisely.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I have to give some thought to that.

I'm going to ask a batch of questions.

What thoughts have been given to protecting the health and well-being of our employees? The human resource protocols are considerable in terms of absenteeism. I think you brought up travel. Work from home I would think would be challenging in this environment in terms of security issues. IT must be a very big issue. I'm thinking along that line.

I'm sorry, I'm throwing a lot out there.

The issue came up about training other people, the idea of cross-training, and whether there are legal issues there.

I'll come back to what Dr. Bennett mentioned, and again, you mentioned how a traditional business would operate versus the political.

My experience is that in those businesses there would be an education part of this and you actually record who has been trained, and if there is an update to the plan, you go through that process again.

On the issue of the drill, it's really important for a plan to get to every desk in the organization.

[Audrey O'Brien]

First of all, we share with you the concern for the health and well-being of all our employees. This is something on which we have a joint occupational safety and health committee. We work in partnership with the employees on these issues. But again, there, we view this as a partnership with the employee. The employee is responsible for being aware of their own health, so they have to take measures. They will take measures and we try to educate them on measures—for example, hand-sanitizing, social distancing, those kinds of things. That's regularly communicated through those general communiqués, but also we're asking managers to make sure that in their discussions with their individual office colleagues this is discussed. We make the nurse-counsellor available for meetings to answer questions if they are concerned about particular things.

We have the usual kinds of protocols in place for people with regard to sick leave provisions, family leave provisions, and so forth, because we have a lot of young families. One of the things we're proudest of is the idea that we are a family friendly employer, so there is a very understanding culture with regard to the absenteeism of parents who have to look after kids. That's not always so very predictable, so it's really important that we be responsive to that and understanding. But at the same time, there is a sense in which those parents have to be responsible in return.

You mentioned the business of working at home, and certainly there are some areas--and of course people are connected with the BlackBerry and so forth--where we ensure there is a constant ability to communicate. But as Kathryn was saying, it would be wrong to pretend that we could arrange that for all workers.

One of the things about this, as I answered another member, is that there are a lot of jobs being done here and a lot of positions doing work where a delay would not have a significant impact. There might be an impact, for example, on how quickly financial claims can be processed, but I don't think that would qualify as a supreme hardship in the great scheme of things.

Those are the kinds of decisions we're going to try to make, but at the same time keep the communications channels open to the caucuses, to the whips, and to the Board of Internal Economy, to say this is the level of service, there is a three-day turnaround time ordinarily, but right now, because of high absenteeism, you're going to have to face a 10-day turnaround time.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Let's hope this is not the case, but if there were--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Sorry, Ms. Duncan, you're over time.

I want to thank Ms. O'Brien and Ms. Malette and Mr. Vickers for being here today and for giving us this very insightful, very useful information. Thank you for the handouts.

We will suspend for two minutes now. I would ask that people leave the room. We're going to be going in camera very quickly. Bells are going to ring at 5:30. We're going to have to clear the room quickly and then start our committee business section for ten minutes.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Madam Chair, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to explain things. As I know your time is very short, I just want to say that if any members want to follow up on this by coming to see me and talking more about specifics, I'd be happy to sit down with anyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

[Audrey O'Brien]

I would honestly be pleased to do so.

[The meeting continued in-camera.]