Evidence of meeting #4 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming here this afternoon.
I was just thinking here, in reading The Hill Times this week, Mr. Speaker, you had a few comments about Public Works and “speedity”, and things like that. I was just looking at the estimates, and I was just thinking, “Is there anything in there for tow ropes?”
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
That may be a little humourous, but there is some seriousness to it. I don't know, I must be a slow runner, but whenever I run out of the justice building, the two buses have already left in tandem towards the House. It's just a little frustration for some of us over in the justice building. The service in 2006 was phenomenal. The drivers are phenomenal, but for some reason now it seems to be if you don't make the first bus, the second bus is two minutes behind it, and the third bus is 40 minutes behind it. This is just to make you aware of that.
But I will go to something a little more serious to do with budgets and members' budgets. We had a situation in Mississauga—Erindale a couple of months ago where one of our member's staff was hurt putting out a fire. His office was totally destroyed. So he's in a situation now where he's trying to re-establish an office and he's finding it very frustrating trying to do that. In the meantime, his constituents are not having access to his services.
I was talking to him last night, and he says right now he has to go and borrow chairs and tables from the local library to set up his office. He still hasn't got approval on Internet access. He still doesn't know where he stands on furniture, if he has to rent or buy furniture. He said the committee, which was established here to help him address that, has met for a couple of weeks, but still really hasn't come up with answers.
It's something that's probably new to you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to make you aware of that. We MPs outside of Ottawa sometimes face a lot of frustration in dealing here in Ottawa for services.
I use the example of my own office. When we were setting it up we had to basically do some internal walls in our offices, and our IT people were trying to get the IT people who were hired to put in the IT system to come and do it, which involved running some wires that any electrician could do, but of course they wouldn't let us do that.
We had to wait for six weeks. We finally got frustrated, said enough's enough, and went to put the walls up, put the Gyproc in. We thought, “Well, we'll do what we have to do when they decide to come”. And then somebody finally had the brainstorm that we could go with a wireless router in their office, and all of a sudden we don't need all this wiring.
It seemed to me, as a new member, there was a lot of confusion with staff in setting up MPs' offices and what they could or couldn't do. Again, it's just something that I'll highlight here and make you aware of.
As far as questions go, getting back to Mr. Dechert's situation, what process do you have in place for a situation like that, where a member's office gets destroyed, whether it's a fire or flood, or something like that? What is the proper process they're supposed to follow, and then which budget does it come out of?
Clerk of the House of Commons, House of Commons
These are, of course, extremely unfortunate events. The usual thing would be to advise me and to advise the chief financial officer.
Just to come back to your IT frustrations, one of the things that was addressed in here with this additional money for the CCN network is, in fact, to address those ridiculous delays of six weeks that we were stuck with initially. We are hoping that will improve things.
Clerk of the House of Commons, House of Commons
In the case of Mr. Dechert, I'm not sure exactly what has transpired with him. It ought not to be the case that he's borrowing chairs from the library, and committees are meeting even as he's standing on the sidewalk trying to deal with his constituents. That's not to make light of a very difficult situation; I will pursue that with him this very afternoon, and we'll take it from there.
Perhaps I could ask the chief financial officer, Claire Kennedy, who might have more information to give us on this particular case, to comment.
Claire Kennedy Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
Thank you.
In answer to the question, I spoke personally with the member once we were contacted by his office a number of weeks ago. I provided the contact that the member gave us with different options in terms of rental of equipment. At the time, the member could not re-enter the facility because it was not deemed safe by the fire department, so relocated across the street. We provided options to the member, as I said, in terms of rental.
As well, we had assembled a team to assist him with regard to IT equipment, laptops and so on, at the time. We did some follow-up. At the time, some employees had their own laptops. We were in contact with the member to arrange to provide him with the equipment until it was deemed safe to re-enter the building where he was previously.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
That's great. I'm glad to hear that.
The question I have that comes from this, though, is that in this scenario, now this member has to get his office up like any other MP's office. Does that come out of his MOB, member's office budget, or where does that funding come from? To establish an office isn't cheap. It can be $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, a one-time hit. Who should pay for that?
Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
Most members usually do have insurance as well. There are some damages that are covered.
As well, once we have the police report or fire department report on an exception basis, because the equipment will need to be replaced, the House is, per se, self-insured, if you wish, in terms of its assets. It would be so costly otherwise to provide insurance for all constituency office assets and equipment that it was determined that it was a much cheaper option, for unfortunate events like this that occur, to create a provision to assist the member in the replacement of the equipment.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry; I had to leave the room briefly to attend to my duties as whip.
You may already have answered this question. If I am off topic, the Chair will certainly rein me in; the absent party is always to blame.
You referred to “additional operating costs for services to Members, as well as economic increase for employees” in the amount of $5.713 million.
Is the economic increase not optional? In the Speech from the Throne, the government talked about freezing salaries. There is reference here to negotiated collective agreements. But how is that going to work? Have you answered that?
Clerk of the House of Commons, House of Commons
The collective agreements which have been ratified and which you see in the Supplementary Estimates are collective agreements which go back a certain amount of time and were negotiated based on the former Expenditure Restraint Act, which kept wage increases at 1.5%. That was negotiated until the end of 2009-2010. The Board must now make a decision with respect to 2008-2009, in terms of retroactive payments under collective agreements.
With respect to 2009-2010, the Treasury Board has already announced that the 1.5% salary increases that were negotiated under collective agreements are still a legal responsibility. However, the affected entities—departments, Crown corporations and agencies or the House of Commons—will have to absorb that 1.5% within their internal budget. So, we will have to find the money to pay that 1.5% to people in 2009-2010. The decision has not yet been made by the Board. That will be duly discussed to determine how the Board intends to respond to what the Minister of Finance is asking, namely that it be subject to the same parameters as those put in place by the Minister for the public service.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Do I have any time left, Mr. Chairman?
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Ms. O'Brien, Mr. Milliken, I have a brief question. If there is any time remaining in the next round, perhaps I will have an opportunity to go into more detail.
Mr. Milliken, what has been happening with the advisory committee of senior officers? Since becoming Assistant Whip, I have been designated to sit on that Committee. If memory serves me, the Committee has met twice. The last time was at an informal dinner which took place in your office. I am surprised, because as a parliamentarian who sits on the Committee, I don't have the impression I am receiving any information. I am not sure what the future holds for that advisory committee, which brings together information commissioners. Ms. Marlene Jennings is also a member of that Committee.
Liberal
Peter Milliken Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
The Treasury Board has made no request in relation to that group in recent months. That group normally meets when a request comes from the Treasury Board or officers of Parliament, but we have received no such request from either one.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
At the meeting I attended and at which Ms. Jennings was also present, I had understood there were questions from senior officers. They were wondering whether there could be discussion of the future of the constitution. Would it not be possible to change or enhance the mandate of that Committee? If Ms. Jennings recalls the discussions that took place, those questions were raised by both government and opposition members. Following that, the House was prorogued.
Should we wait to meet again to discuss this? You said you would call a meeting to discuss that issue.
Liberal
Peter Milliken Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
We can certainly do that. I have heard nothing about changes to the order governing that advisory board. Absolutely nothing. I believe things will continue as they have in the past—at least, for the time being. If there are changes, someone will have to announce them—either the government or officers of Parliament. In my opinion, things will remain the same for now.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
The government has announced that departmental budgets are frozen. I imagine that also applies to the budgets of the Information Commissioner and all other senior officers.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
As a Member of Parliament, I am very interested in the impact on every position, on behalf of the people of Quebec and Canada. Will we experience negative impacts from this? I would be interested in hearing your opinion. Indeed, I believe a number of other colleagues around the table were also interested in such a meeting.
Liberal
Peter Milliken Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
We can certainly have a meeting. I will organize it soon. However, I have received no complaints from any officer of Parliament with respect to their budget—absolutely nothing.
Bloc
