Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I do have a statement that I will go through. We have copies that are available both in French and in English for members of the committee to consume, either during or afterwards.
Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity today. I would like to share with the committee the results of our work in examining the governance structures of other jurisdictions and, in the first instance, our findings in provinces and territories in Canada.
I'd like to highlight three provinces where the regimes either are the most different or are thought to be the most different, starting with the Province of Manitoba.
In Manitoba, there are 57 members in the provincial legislature. In this area, a commissioner is appointed within six months following a general election. The mandate of the commissioner is to decide on the appropriate salaries, allowances, and retirement benefits for members of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and to make regulations for implementation and decide on the disclosure regime.
The Speaker is responsible for approving member expense claims and does so through the staff of what is called the Members' Allowances Office, the staff function, the MAO. Members may appeal any decision made by the MAO directly to the commissioner, whose decision is final.
Again within six months following an election, the director of the MAO prepares a compliance report, which describes any administrative or interpretative issues that have arisen in the administration of allowances and also verifies whether the amounts paid were in compliance with the Legislative Assembly Act and regulations. The report is then audited by the provincial Auditor General, who expresses an opinion, and both the report and the opinion are tabled by the Speaker in the Assembly and posted on the Web.
Moving to Nova Scotia, where 51 members make up the assembly, a body that is also called a commission has replaced the legislature's Internal Economy Board. The commission, however, is no more independent than the current governance of the House of Commons. Membership in the commission is similar to that of the Board of Internal Economy of the House.
Under this regime, the clerk administers members' expenses and members appeal decisions to the commission—essentially to the board. All members' expenses are disclosed. Twice yearly, individual member expense statements are publicly disclosed. On a monthly basis, data regarding member purchases is extracted from the financial system and posted on the legislature's website. It's really a dump from the financial system that's simply put on the website, so it's fairly difficult to comprehend.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, with 48 members part of that legislature, the governance body is also called a commission, the House of Assembly Management Commission. This commission is chaired by the Speaker, and the clerk is responsible for member expense administration.
The makeup of the commission is similar to that of the Board of Internal Economy, with representation from elected parties. Once every general assembly, an independent committee is established to inquire and report on salaries, allowances, severance payments, and pensions paid to members. All member expenses are disclosed. Again, similar to Nova Scotia, twice yearly an individual member expense statement is prepared, which summarizes expenses by category.
Mr. Chair, it's important to also appreciate the environment in which these three legislatures operate. The average number of sitting days for these is 63, 54, and 47 respectively. The House of Commons sits for 27 weeks, or 135 days, making the difference I believe significant. In addition, in terms of travel, our parliamentarians' travel is quite extensive and on the national scene. In 2012-13, members collectively used almost 12,300 points. This represents 12,300 round trips and the expense claims that go with those trips. The volume that the House of Commons deals with is impressive.
In terms of other provincial and territorial jurisdictions, all other jurisdictions have the equivalent of the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy. Most jurisdictions have some form of public reporting, and the frequency of reporting varies.
I wanted to highlight those three that were the most different or thought to be the most different.
In terms of other Westminster-style parliaments, the Clerk and I travelled to London to review the model adopted by the U.K. As members may be aware, the model in the U.K. is quite different and boasts an independent arm's-length agency for members' expenses. The reforms were adopted following the leak of an unredacted copy of an expense report for all parliamentarians. Journalists had begun to point out a large number of alleged abuses of allowances and expenses. There was, as you can imagine, significant political fallout, and the reforms were adopted. I'd like to summarize those for you this morning.
In the U.K., the model that's been adopted is that an independent body has been created to oversee and regulate members' expenses. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, IPSA, as it's called, was created in 2009. The agency was created to address the member expense scandal. At the time, the House of Commons did not have a very rigorous finance function, and existing rules were not being enforced. There were internal proposals to increase transparency and compliance, but these could not be put in place in time once the political storm had been unleashed.
IPSA's main role is to regulate the expense system, which it does by determining the rules governing members' expenses, and to administer and pay members' expenses and their salaries. IPSA is governed by a board of five, one of whom is the chair. The appointments are ratified by the House of Commons. Candidates are selected for recommendation based on the principles of merit and fair and open competition. They are appointed for specific terms. Three of the four members must meet specific eligibility conditions. The agency has a chief executive officer and a professional staff.
Within the agency there is also a compliance officer role. In the original legislation it was defined as the commissioner for parliamentary investigations, but was subsequently amended to compliance officer. The compliance officer is appointed in a manner similar to the board of IPSA, and IPSA must provide resources to the compliance officer for the carrying out of the mandate.
The role of the compliance officer is to conduct investigations if the officer has reason to believe that a member may have been paid an amount that should not have been allowed under the allowance scheme. There are strict processes to follow regarding how investigations are conducted, as well as limitations on how investigations are launched.
The Speaker of the House has a committee for IPSA. The members of this committee are the Speaker; the leader of the House; the chair of the standards and privilege committee; five members who are not ministers, all appointed by the House; and three laypersons who are appointed by resolution of the House. The laypersons must also meet strict conditions prior to being appointed.
The role of the Speaker's committee for IPSA is twofold. It considers IPSA's appropriation and agrees on the Speaker's recommendation to the House for the appointment of the IPSA chair and board members. The Speaker still maintains other committees for the functioning of the administration of the House.
Implementing this model was quite difficult. It was done in great haste due to the environment. Members were generally dissatisfied with the new agency, saying that the service was poor and they were not better served. In fact, at the time of the election in 2010, members were out of pocket for a significant period of time as IPSA struggled to get off the ground.
IPSA had a significant credibility issue to overcome due to its poor response to members in a post-election period. The election unfortunately happened to be timed at the same time as the coming into force of the legislation and the creation of the agency. The compliance function is now, some three years later, just getting off the ground, post-enactment of the legislation.
It's clear that with the creation of this new agency the pendulum had swung to an extreme position. Some three years later, the middle ground is being found. A rigorous arm's-length relationship was forced with a strict independence mentality, which no doubt caused relationship issues to arise.
Today we note the existence of an informal liaison group between the House and IPSA that meets on a regular basis, is jointly chaired, and whose objective is to discuss and consult on potential changes to the allowance scheme, which is under the exclusive jurisdiction of IPSA, and to improve relations with members.
This is a large group, and from the House perspective it is quite diverse and representative of members according to geography, gender, age, family status, and other criteria.
Mr. Chair, I'll now address the issue of independence, transparency and accountability.
First, I would like to say that independence doesn't necessarily lead to transparency and accountability. It only leads to independence.
The House has made significant advances on transparency and accountability with respect to spending.
As the clerk mentioned earlier, I would like to remind the committee of the following initiatives: public disclosure of minutes of the Board of Internal Economy meetings, an annual audit of our financial statements, posting our financial results in the Public Accounts of Canada, posting the administrative by-laws of the House on the website, posting the Report to Canadians on the website, posting the Strategic Objectives on the website, annual publication of the members' expenditures reports with increased disclosure in recent years, a transition toward enhanced quarterly reporting on members' expenditures in the coming fiscal years, beginning April 1, 2014, the planned posting of the Members' Allowances and Services Manual on the website and the planned posting of the Public Registry of Designated Travellers on the website.
We could adopt the following measures to continue improving transparency and accountability through increased disclosure.
First, we could prepare and publish a quarterly financial report, possibly using the same format as the Public Accounts of Canada. The report would present credits for each program activity and line of income, like we do when the Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates are presented here in committee.
Then, we have the modification of our program activity architecture in order to establish an improved report at a much more detailed activity level. Our activities are currently summarized in two categories: House of Commons members and officers, and House administration.
We could also look into a more detailed presentation of activities. We could even examine the members' annual expenditures reports before they are posted on the website.
Mr. Chair, the House has a robust finance function in place, says the CFO of the organization—