Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2006

[Audrey O'Brien]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I hope my answer will not be helpful to the many people out there who are hoping that I will leave.

We do in fact have a succession planning program, but we have no document that would show you how these things are going to happen. I know that my predecessor, Mr. Corbett, was very interested in this issue, as am I. After Mr. Marleau left, Mr. Corbett and I saw the torch being passed to a new generation. Now, we no longer expect people to remain in their positions for decades.

I think it is now more urgent than ever before to see to it that steps are taken to ensure that we can choose and train the people around us with a view to their replacing the senior officers of the House some day. Thanks to the work done by Mr. Marleau and Mr. Corbett, the procedure service is in a very good position today. I have come back to my first love: I came from the procedure service and I am therefore very familiar with it.

I think we have made considerable progress in other areas as well. In January, I had the honour to chair what is known as the Clerk's Forum. It was a retreat for all House officers, and the theme was succession planing. As Clerk, one of my objectives is to ensure that each service has a plan in place to identify and train key individuals, and I am making sure that this is being done. As you were saying, in today's context, we should not only be expecting people to retire; they may also resign or decide to take a sabbatical. There are now all sorts of circumstances that may not have existed in Major-General Cloutier's day.

He was more of an icon

than an ordinary public servant. I see every day that we need new energy to train the officials we have and to recruit people who could replace them. There is a whole wave of people who will be reaching retirement age at about the same time. We do not have a plan that we could possibly apply to everyone. There are people who spend their whole career in procedure, while there is a great deal of mobility between Mr. Desroches' service or Mr. Bard's and the public service or the private sector, because the people who work in finance, human resources and technology are in demand everywhere. The options in procedure, however, are rather more limited.

So we share your concerns with respect to the importance of being...

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome all of our witnesses as well.

I have a few questions I would like to ask. It is all very well to award national contracts for office supplies, but people in the regions we represent say that they are taxpayers as well. There may be just one province that is getting the 7 per cent benefit, but that is part of life in Canada. We have provinces and we have a country. The provinces collect taxes...

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

A great country.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Yes, a great country, Michel. If you would visit it, you would like it a lot.

I'm talking about money that benefits the region. However, the people in our region say that they elect their member of Parliament and send him to Ottawa to represent them, and the little companies say that they too want to receive some benefits from their income taxes. I wanted to tell you that this is what people in the regions think. I'm sure that a number of members of Parliament think the same way.

I would like to hear what you have to say about translation. Do you get any complaints about translation? I am not talking about the quality of translation in the House of Commons. I want to know whether it is possible to meet the demand, because the House does have a responsibility to provide translation services to members of Parliament.

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

I'm told that translators are not employees of the House of Commons, but rather of the Department of Public Works. That came as a surprise to me, but that is the situation. You should perhaps ask the Department of Public Works this question.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Mr. Chairman, I could add that there is a group within the Translation Bureau that works only for Parliament. Mr. Bard, the person in charge of information services, handles liaison with the Translation Bureau.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would like a description of what these people do and I would like to know whether there are any complaints. I'm not talking about the quality of the work. When I get complaints about quality, these are cases when translation software has been used, which does not provide a proper translation. I hope you are not heading in that direction, because I would be 300 per cent against it. I'm talking about the service we have here in the House of Commons.

We are at a disadvantage. Let me give you an example of what I mean. I come from a bilingual region and we always have to send out our documents in both official languages. When someone represents a unilingual region, he or she needs the translation service less. The material we want to send out often arrives late from translation, because the people there are very busy. They do their best, but... I would like to know what is being done to improve this situation.

[Louis Bard, Chief Information Officer, House of Commons]

Mr. Chairman, there are 300 Translation Bureau employees who work just for Parliament — both for Senate and the House of Commons, as well as other parliamentary activities. This includes the interpreters. There is a hierarchy of priorities for translation. Clearly, when Parliament is sitting, the debates are the first priority. We have a commitment that the proceedings of the House will be available as of 6 a.m. on the Internet and at 8 a.m. in the paper version. This is a huge machine that operates when Parliament is sitting. Next, there is committee work, and the next priority is work for members. All of this is seasonal and cyclical. It all depends on what is going on in the House of Commons.

Last year, during the period when there were over 100 million ten percenters, the translation volume was enormous. From time to time, we do daily reviews of translation volumes. We calculate what is delayed. We review the service standards. We try to improve the work tools as much as possible so that we can hire translators working in remote locations, not just in Ottawa. Many new initiatives are underway to increase the number of translators and interpreters we have.

If you have complaints all the time or if there are services you find inadequate because of the delay, you should bring this to our attention. At that time, we will review the situation and work on much more concrete things than we do in our daily evaluations of the translation volumes. This is an ongoing concern. There is also a link as well between the activities of the Senate and those of the House of Commons. When the Senate is sitting, some of its work has the priority. There is a whole decision-making procedure, but I can tell you that these people work only for Parliament and try to meet members' needs in the best possible way.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

You mention that there are priorities. We know when the House of Commons sits, because there is a calendar. When it sits, there are individuals doing the simultaneous translation. There are also people working on the text of Hansard for the next morning. And there is the service for members of Parliament. If the House of Commons is busier, does that mean that the service for members of Parliament suffers? Members of Parliament are supposed to be providing services to the people of Canada. We should not forget that we are here for them. If a member of Parliament comes from a bilingual region, he or she wants to try to have material just as quickly as an MP from a unilingual region. As members of Parliament, we want to provide equally fast service for our constituents.

[Louis Bard]

That is a very good question, Mr. Chairman. The service to members continues at all times. It all depends on the volume they receive on a particular day. In the House of Commons, more English than French may be spoken on a given day. The same is true in the case of documents. There may be more documents in French to translate or vice versa. It all depends on what is happening.

The important thing for me is the trend. I note your concern: you have seen deterioration in the translation service for members of Parliament. I will pay particular attention to this matter.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would like to raise a point. All I am saying is that sometimes we need a document translated quickly. We submit our request, but sometimes we have to wait until the evening before we get what we need.

[Louis Bard]

If your translation request is urgent, it is important to specify that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We'll move to round two, colleagues. There will be five minutes per questioner. We'll start with Mrs. Redman.

Mrs. Redman, you're splitting your time, if there's any left, with Mr. Proulx.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

And I have Mr. Allison and Monsieur Guimond, and we'll go back to Monsieur Godin.

Mrs. Redman, please.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I have a comment and a couple of questions.

I know my colleague, Mr. Preston, was saying that being Conservative, he was worried about the increases, but I would have to tell you, I think these are very prudent increases that have had much discussion at the Board of Internal Economy.

I look at the 3% increase in members' operating budgets and would underscore that's service to Canadians. There is nothing going into the pockets of any members of Parliament; indeed, the increase goes to give decent salaries to hard-working constituency and Hill staff. I'm glad to see that we're able to fill in some of the demands on constituency offices.

I want to ask a question about the main estimates--the increase of $512,000 for the production of the ten percenters. I know from the text that's the year-over-year increase, but you say that it has exponentially increased over the last ten years. Can we assume that graph will continue to go up and it will continue to be an increase in our annual expenditure?

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

We don't know whether to assume that or not. The number of ten percenters being produced has increased very dramatically. In the last financial year there were 111 million pieces printed by House of Commons printing services for members. That 111 million includes ten percenters only and not the householders.

I don't have the figure for the previous year at my fingertips, but it's a significant increase and it has been going out for some time. We're assuming it will either continue to increase or stay at that kind of level. It's a lot of printing.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I don't want to take up all of Mr. Proulx's time, but I would be interested in knowing what percentage of members of Parliament use their full allocation. I realize there's actually no limit, but in one month if I send out ten percenters enough to cover my riding, there must be a ceiling, and I know there's not right now. I wonder if maybe that's something we should look at in the future, because it seems to be going up and up. I don't know if you want to answer that.

Under employers' obligations I want to point out that there is an increase, but that also covers parental leave. I want to say how pleased I am to see that we are able to afford families with children that kind of flexibility.

Have there been any initiatives or studies...? I realize this is more of a policy rather than a dollars-and-cents-alone initiative. We used to talk about family-friendly workplaces, whether it was flexible hours or.... I know that parental leave and leave for people to look after sick and infirm relatives were brought in by the previous government. Are there any initiatives going on within the bureaucracy to look at whether or not this is a family-friendly place to be employed?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes, Mr. Chairman, one of the things we have worked at very energetically is the whole idea of presenting to employees the most reasonable and accommodating approach in terms of the responsibilities they have vis-à-vis their families. For example, one of the things that's going on now is we're studying the elaboration of a new policy on the duty to accommodate, the whole idea of being able to accommodate exceptional circumstances, whether they are for family or whether they are....They don't even have to be exceptional circumstances, but what do we do to accommodate families? We're looking at that again to see whether or not there are revisions we need to put in place.

We have flexible hours. We have very generous maternity and paternity benefits and leave. We're seeing more and more young fathers taking paternity leave. That's one of the things that I think is very appealing to employees here. I would say, generally speaking, we're an employer of choice with regard to family matters and support to wellness in that regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sorry. Thank you.

Mr. Allison.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our witnesses today.

I have one quick comment and then three very quick questions. I just want to say, from my point of view, I'm glad to see that the $5,000 for furniture has become permanent. In 2004, when I was elected, I inherited Sheila Copps' furniture, and the most impressive piece of furniture was the paper shredder. I'm being dead serious. I had never seen a paper shredder so big, although the other equipment was in need of repair, should I say, in terms of desks and things. Without actually going out and replacing all the equipment, this $5,000 will certainly enable me over the years to replace desk and chairs, so I do appreciate it becoming a permanent part of the allocation.

In terms of technology, I know we talk about information technology investments and the same delivery of services to members. Would that include things such as the upgrades to the House in terms of the technology with speakers and things like that? Okay. That makes some sense.

I also think it makes a lot of sense if we maintain some consistent level. The challenge I have is we're just sitting in here not knowing the historical categories. We look at an increase of 11% to 12% last year or the year before, but we don't really know how to compare it to where we're going to be even next year.

It's hard to look into the future and know what's going to pop up and what isn't. Do you anticipate that as we start to fund some things so we don't have big hits and big flows, we will be looking at modest increases like 4% to 5% a year, or are you able to tell that at this point in time?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Are you referring to the technology or to the overall budget?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

The overall budget.

[Audrey O'Brien]

I think it's very difficult to predict where members will be feeling the pressure with regard to their own budgets. I thought you were referring to technology, because in that regard I was going to say that I think the campus-wide infrastructure we've put into place and the foresight the board has shown with regard to those investments will serve us well in the sense that it is intended for the long term. It's an investment that we will continue to leverage.