Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 8th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There's one minute left.

Go ahead, Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I may have missed the nuance of what was asked before, but it's my understanding that we have six or eight rooms that have the ability for teleconferencing, but we only have sufficient staff available for two or three of those at one time. We have the physical capabilities, but the personnel capabilities seem limited.

Am I correct on that?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

The distinction was between televised and teleconferencing.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'm referring to teleconferencing. If I said televised, I was....

[Audrey O'Brien]

Mr. Albrecht, I think you are correct that there are restrictions on the number of staff, because we have the number of staff that we've found appropriate to handle the average number of requests for teleconferencing. It's unusual to have a situation in which there is more demand for teleconferencing than we have staff to handle it, so I don't think that's proved to be a problem.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Then that's never been an issue as far as—

[Audrey O'Brien]

I'd have to check. I would hesitate to say “never”, but it's unlikely to have been a regular issue, because it would be something we would have had to address.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Well, it would seem to me that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

Mr. Comartin, you have seven minutes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you. I may not take them all, and Ms. Charlton will pick up if I don't.

Thank you Mr. Speaker and Madam Clerk, for being here.

I just have three questions. The first is regarding the supplementary estimates (C) in terms of the amount of $413,000 for the revised elector supplement. Would we not have known that at the start of the fiscal period, and could we not have estimated that amount?

Was it census? I think the chair has already answered, so....

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I didn't hear what the chair said.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

He has a really bad habit, Mr. Speaker, of interfering in the process.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

What did you say before the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I guessed that it was likely because the census came out and we redistributed ridings.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Yes. It's based on census data. That is where the electoral list originally comes from. Any riding that has more than 70,000 registered electors in it is entitled to the supplement, so there you are.

[A voice]

Any other questions for Joe?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'm trying to ignore him, Mr. Speaker.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I've never been heckled by a chair before.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

You should come to the meeting regularly. It happens all the time here.

With regard to the online recruitment tool, could you describe how that actually functions?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I'm going let Audrey deal with that, since that's part of House administration and recruiting personnel.

[Audrey O'Brien]

That is basically a way for people to put forward their CVs and to apply for jobs online. It allows us to use the online information to do a triage for the people who will move on to the next stage.

One of the things we've found, as the Speaker mentioned in his opening remarks, is that we have a growing number of applications for any kind of position that comes open, so we need to use the technology that is available in order to be able to work smarter to get through these hundreds of applicants and cull those that we want to keep through the various stages of the selection and competitive process.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Just to use an example, suppose I and a thousand other people put in our applications, and I'm not qualified because I don't have enough years of experience. Would the program automatically exclude that person?

[Audrey O'Brien]

This is still in the process of being developed, which is why it's been moved to this fiscal year, but you would automatically be counted out, and letters would be prepared automatically for you saying this is why you have not proceeded to the next step.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Is it the program itself that does the pre-screening?

[Audrey O'Brien]

Yes, that's right.