Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2006

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Physical infrastructure, then. So if I have any complaints that the buildings are falling down, I have to take them to Public Works, not to you.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes, or you can go to see the minister or his parliamentary secretary.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Just to follow up, are security costs included in that, or is that above and beyond?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The House of Commons security, not Senate security, yes.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

The House of Commons security.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

And not RCMP outside the building, only inside the building.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

So there is a bit of a shared costing in that piece too.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes, that's correct.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I do thank you for the reporting. I have been on a bit of a personal crusade over the last year or two about estimates and how lacking in detail they are. Your last page of detail at least breaks it down so we can see what's going into what pot. I continue to say that if a comptroller in my company had handed me financial details like this he wouldn't hand them in twice. There just doesn't seem to be much on some of these things.

I thank you for the general reporting and the specific parts you've added, but as a Conservative I need to also say we are talking about a 4.5% increase here. Could you enlighten me, since I was not here last year, what last year's increase was?

[Audrey O'Brien]

In the members' operating budget, last year's increase was....

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It went from $346 million to $383 million. This year it's only going up $17 million instead of almost $40 million. We cut it almost in half.

[A voice]

That's more than half.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's good that we cut the increase. I understand, and each thing we've added seems as if it was needed--new technology, changes to the members' operating budget--but at some point I'm not sure we can continue to grow at these levels of increases. At what point do we tell the rest of the world we can live within the same means as they do?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The board tries to be responsive to the demands that members are making, so I guess it's a matter of convincing members that further demands for funding for MOBs or additional services are unnecessary. That's not an easy job. I know that the whips work at this persistently in caucus meetings, from the rumours I hear, but I'm sure it's very difficult for them, because once you start providing a service, even a minimal service, members ask why they're not getting it as well as someone else is getting it elsewhere. You start with maybe a thing like wireless telephone service, and people want better ones and better ones. We've got quite good ones now, but I'm sure it's costing more than it cost when we first allowed members to buy a cell phone out of their members' office budgets. But then they're getting better quality service too.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I agree, and of course next year there will be a new technology that will need to be there too.

That's really the only point I wanted to make. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There are two minutes left on the government's side.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Just very briefly, are there any other plans to transfer expenses from members' office budgets to the House budget in addition to what you've discussed--for example, rental costs for constituent offices and that kind of thing?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

No, not at the moment. There are continuing discussions, needless to say, but at the moment there are no plans.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Monsieur Guimond.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank you for testifying before us, Speaker Milliken and Ms. O'Brien. When the Speaker comes to testify, his entourage is quite considerable. I would also like to extend greetings to these individuals whom we often meet in the course of our work. I see Mr. Desroches, Mr. Bard, the head of security, Mr. Denis, Ms. Lajoie and Mr. St-Louis.

Mr. Chairman, my training was in human resources and I am not good with figures. We must remember that there are human beings behind all these figures, human beings who are of concern to us. There is something that has been bothering me for a long time and that I would like to talk about with you, because I think this is the right place to do that.

Do you have a succession planning program in place? I'm asking the question of the Speaker and to my colleagues, the members of the committee. Do you think it is reasonable and acceptable that the House failed to plan for a successor to Major-General Cloutier, the former Sergeant-at-Arms, who died of cancer at the age of 72? I should say that this is not a trick question that Ms. O'Brien asked me to ask you. I am not in league with her to that extent. Did you think that Major-General Cloutier would live forever? Did he think he would live forever? May God rest his soul. I'm afraid of ghosts and I hope he won't come back to haunt me. Is there a succession planning program in place?

When I worked in human resources, we were told that organizations should have a succession planning program not only for cases where people die of cancer, but to cover all departures, cases where people leave for whatever reason. If Ms. O'Brien is appointed as ethics commissioner, we will have an acting clerk. I know that there are some young wolves behind her who would love to see her leave. I'm not naming any names, but I know that there are some young wolves out there, and perhaps some she-wolves as well.

More seriously, do you have a succession planning program? If so, I would like you to send it to the committee clerk so that we can review it.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That is a good question, Mr. Guimond.

There is a program of this type for many House Administration positions. We have hired many young people as table officers in the House the last few years in order to do exactly what you are talking about. Of course, the employees in some of the groups in the House Administration are aging. We do make personnel changes from time to time and we hire new employees who receive the training required from experienced staff.

There is a problem in the case of the positions you mentioned. The Sergeant-at-Arms and the Clerk are appointed by the Governor in Council. These appointments are not made by the Speaker or House employees, but rather by cabinet. It is difficult to prepare someone for the position of Sergeant-at-Arms or Clerk of the House when the appointment is not made by the House.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

All right, let us forget about those two positions.

Let's say that Mr. Desroches is appointed Executive Vice-President of Finance at Nortel and suddenly resigns.

I do not mean to be impolite, Mr. Chairman, but I must say that it is pleasant to roast witnesses. This is great fun. Do not give me a politician's answer. Is there a written program? If so, I would like to receive a copy of if from the clerk. Is there a succession planning program written down in black and white somewhere?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I am going to ask the Clerk to answer this part of the question.