Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2008

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

I understand.

[Audrey O'Brien]

And the number of hours of work.

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

Ms. O’Brien, it wasn’t clear from your statement because you mentioned persons on maternity leave. I don’t know that they have to do with all of this.

[Audrey O'Brien]

They are the workers who raised this particular issue.

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

You’ve already said that you are open to suggestions. When Parliament and the restaurant shut down, we could find alternative employment for parliamentary workers. They could work for the library or for other departments. Perhaps departments need additional personnel. We could work out some arrangements with them for those times when Parliament is not sitting. These employees could work at all kinds of jobs. I recall having made some similar suggestions.

Has a study ever been done to look into this possibility? Has the government ever considered other employment opportunities for a number of workers who would have priority when Parliament is not in session and who could be assigned to work in a department?

[Audrey O'Brien]

The problem is that restaurant workers have a fairly specific skills set. We are looking at training opportunities. Nevertheless, the skills of a sous-chef or of a pastry chef working at the restaurant are not necessarily in demand elsewhere at the House.

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

In the case of a sous-chef or chef, we’re talking about two or maybe four individuals who work shifts. However, the waiters have other skills or could be trained to perform other duties. In today’s working world, we’d like all Canadians to have enough varied training to secure employment. We don’t want people to collect employment insurance. Yet, Parliament seems to find it totally acceptable to lay off these workers and have them collect employment insurance benefits. That appears to be the ideal situation. Everywhere else, the emphasis is on providing training programs.

Mr. Chairman, I believe we need to provide training to ensure ongoing employment. There’s no shame in that.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Absolutely not, and I would not want to give you the impression that we are not doing our utmost to encourage people to retrain, in some cases.

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

Are there any training programs that are subsidized by Parliament? Currently, through the employment insurance program, members of the public can take advantage of phase two of employment insurance and benefit from specific training programs which allow them to have a second job.

[Audrey O'Brien]

The House is prepared to reimburse tuition fees when individuals want to improve their skills or retrain. However, the initiative must come from them.

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

However, they must have some assurances that the skills needed for a second job…They don’t want to lose their job at Parliament. The job is important to them. If an employee acquires some new skills and accepts a job elsewhere, then the same problem arises with the new employee who is hired. The aim is to give these workers skills and some flexibility in terms of their training, but at the same time, enable them to keep their job at Parliament. Could this option be explored, if it hasn’t already been?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes, of course. One of the things that we are trying to do at this time is invest in our employees at all levels and services, to give them as much flexibility as possible from a professional skills standpoint, while rewarding them at the same time for the work they do right now. We’re trying to give everyone more choices. As you said, it’s not a question of retraining workers so that they move on to other jobs and of finding ourselves grappling with the same problem. We are taking a good hard look at the situation of restaurant workers who get laid off, which I’m sure is difficult for everyone.

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

Fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Ms. Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you, Ms. O'Brien.

I would like to continue on the issue of how to best ensure that employees of the House of Parliament—particularly those who work in the restaurant, but there are other areas where they also see the cyclical nature of their employment—are provided with as much employment as possible within the House.

With regards to the restaurant itself, you've raised a couple of issues that would need to be addressed, were the service or the operations of the restaurant to exist outside of the weeks when the Parliament is in session. I wonder what are some of the options being looked at in addition to doing maybe a pilot project to see, if it was kept open during the short adjournments, whether it would be able to operate and not be in a deficit position; whether or not there's the possibility of bringing in some experts to actually look at what would be the value of having the restaurant open in terms of it becoming a marque of commerce. You actually do advertising. Right now, nobody knows anything about the restaurant; it's by word of mouth, etc. The average person who lives in Canada, even if they're coming to Ottawa to visit the Gatineau Hills or to visit family or friends, would not know that there's a parliamentary restaurant and that it is accessible right now for very limited....

So would it be reasonable to look at the possibility of actually developing a plan where it would be branded, where it would become an attraction whereby people who do come to Ottawa would have that on their agenda in the same way as they might have Domus or some other restaurant, and say, “That's a restaurant I have to go to; everybody says that's the restaurant”, etc. I'm suggesting that may be one of the options looked at, but you would probably need to bring in some experts, both in branding and in restoration, to determine whether or not it's feasible. If it is, you will have to invest money, which means you're going to have to come back and ask for money to put it into place.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes, I certainly take your point. I think there again, though, if that means obviously this is with a view to attracting the public to it, you first have to settle the security issue to the satisfaction of everyone.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Yes, but that would be part of it: to look at whether or not such a project is feasible; and two, what are the chances, an actual business plan that would determine.... It would have to be part of it. That means you would also have to have your security experts examine what is the infrastructure here, what are the security needs, how can access be provided on an ongoing basis and still assure the level of security that's required. The cost may be phenomenal, in which case the restaurant would never be able to do it. You'd have to charge $500 a plate, something like that, to be able to cover that. But look at that as a whole piece and see if a business case can actually be built for that.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Certainly there have been some extremely interesting suggestions made this morning, and they will be part of the discussion that I have with the Sergeant-at-Arms about how we might begin to address these outstanding issues.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

Do I have any more time? I just want to address another point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm being flexible today.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe it was Mr. Godin, or possibly Mr. Guimond, who raised the issue of the agreement with Château Laurier and the casino, but the union raised the issue that the difference between the employment insurance and the benefits--

[Audrey O'Brien]

In fairness, I think in the discussion we were addressing how management was trying to deal with these layoffs and saying to them, “We have worked out an agreement so that you could be priority in these cases.” But in these cases, of course, the thing is that they don't have the hours of work that are attractive to them. One of the things they didn't like is that they thought, well, if you can top up maternity benefits on EI, you should be able to top up our EI as well instead of our working.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Yes, but that wasn't the point I was getting to, because I understood that particular point in your explanation very clearly. It was the question of skills training.

I think there was some confusion because when the issue of skills training was raised to you it was raised in the context of employment insurance. Your response, which was an excellent response, was that, yes, there is a program or a policy where we do reimburse the cost of continuing education courses, etc. But that implies the person is actually at work. It is completely different from skills training for someone who is actually receiving employment insurance benefits. Under that case, it's the employer—and they may not be employees of yours.... A company or an organization is prepared to put into a place a program of skills training for unemployed people who are eligible and receiving unemployment benefits, and while they're collecting their employment insurance they are receiving this training.

I'm sure that every single MP here has companies and organizations in his or her riding that provide those kinds of services. What they basically do is look at the landscape of who the people are within a particular geographical area—for instance, it could be a sectoral area—who are unemployed. Chances are they will come off their unemployment and still not be able to get a job, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons may be skills. Programs are actually put into place. In some cases, funding is received from the provincial government, from the federal government, in order to provide that training. The person is receiving employment insurance.

That is something you might wish to look into as well.

[Audrey O'Brien]

Absolutely. Thank you for that. I hadn't realized that program existed. I will pursue both of those avenues.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Right, thank you.