Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2014

[Marc Bosc, Deputy Clerk of the House of Commons, House of Commons]

Mr. Lamoureux, I think I'm going to answer by saying the following. The Speaker has explained to the committee why he's here. I'm here to support him, and I think that the purpose of our presence here today is to support the Speaker in discussing the estimates.

That's my answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lamoureux, are you getting a feeling about where I'd like you to go on this?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I'm starting to get a sense of it, Mr. Chairperson, but when we talk about the administration of the Hill and our responsibilities, I think it's a fair question to put forward. As the member of Parliament for Winnipeg North, if I wanted to be able to hire an individual outside of Winnipeg Centre, or outside of Ottawa, do I have that ability? Can I hire someone to work out of another province?

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

Mr. Lamoureux, we all appreciate persistence, but I think—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm going to help, Mr. Speaker.

Let's move to estimates, or main estimates, or give your time to the next questioner, please.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay. Well, I'm not necessarily wanting to push the envelope too hard, Mr. Speaker—

[An hon. member]

You don't have any envelope.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Please, Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

It's interesting that the House of Commons was selling off some silverware, from what I understand, out of the parliamentary dining room, I think it was.

Mr. Speaker, can you provide some further comment as to why we would be doing that?

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

First of all, I should maybe make a small correction. It wasn't actually silverware. It was silver-plated. As embarrassed as I am that it wasn't real silver, it was silver-plated.

My mom had some very lovely silverware that we inherited through the family. It requires a great deal of upkeep and polishing and has some additional costs to maintain.

It was reaching the end of its life cycle and it was deemed to be more practical to dispose of the asset and acquire stainless steel—

[A voice]

It was 10 years in storage.

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

Oh, I see. It actually had been in storage for 10 years without having been used, so it was seen as appropriate to get it off the books.

When the House of Commons disposes of assets, there's a very standard operating procedure for that. It goes through crown assets. It's done with everything from old tables and chairs to.... It moved in the same category.

I should mention that the curator of the House of Commons is a very experienced gentleman who has a great deal of knowledge of cultural and historical significance of all kinds of art and artifacts around the precinct. He did a thorough examination and found it to be not significant in any way. It wasn't like it had been presented to the House by a head of state. It was just silver-plated knives and forks that didn't seem to be worth keeping after not being in use for 10 years.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I simply thought it was kind of interesting, when I first heard about the fact that we're selling off silverware from the parliamentary restaurant.

Are there other things? Are we selling dishes? Are we selling the kitchen sink? Is there anything else we're selling out of the parliamentary dining room?

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

I can certainly check into specifics. If you're looking to add to your serving set, we can see what's on the books. But as I said, with normal wear and tear, normal breakage, sets become impossible to replace.

I remember I broke a Royal Doulton three-tiered cake set owned by my mom about 10 years ago, and she almost cried because it's delisted; you can't get that anymore. When those types of things happen, we dispose of the existing assets and look to replace them with high quality, something that suits the precinct and suits the types of offices and restaurant we have, but at the same time is cost-effective for taxpayers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I never thought of telling my mother, “Oh, that's just a reduction of assets in the household.”

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There are special times for that stuff.

Mr. Lukiwski, you are up for four minutes, please.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thanks.

I have a couple of quick questions. I don't see that you mentioned this in your overview, so I'm not sure if you're prepared to answer, but I have a couple of backup questions as well.

Right now there is, I guess, a trial or test program going on in the House with, I don't know how many members involved—50 or more—trying out iPhones as opposed to BlackBerrys. I understand this is a six-month test to see if there's a second platform that would be suitable for the House. I'm wondering what financial impact that may have and if, in fact, at the end of the six months the decision is that we can have iPhones as an option to the BlackBerrys, what financial impact that might have as well.

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

There were some costs, obviously, in acquiring new physical devices but also, I believe, in licensing costs, but I'll maybe ask Stéphan....

[Stéphan Aubé]

This is given in the Speaker's response. The costs have been minimal. We currently have the infrastructure to support the iPhone, so we didn't have to invest in new infrastructure to support iPhones. What we had to do was expand our existing infrastructure to buy specific licences for the pilot, so the costs were really minimal. That will be reassessed if we decide to move ahead with the introduction of the use of iPhones, but it hasn't been decided yet. We're waiting until the end of the pilot to seek feedback from members.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

This is kind of a non-monetary question but is related to the same thing. I've heard there may be some security issues with the iPhone as opposed to the BlackBerry. Can you comment on that?

[Stéphan Aubé]

I can only comment on the fact that the approach we have implemented for the use of the iPhone is as secure as we can get right now. In the context of how we are providing the service to the members, it meets the current security requirements for the House to deliver the services that we're delivering, being some of the mail, and the contacts, and the calendaring that we're providing. We are still reminding members not to use any of the phones, including the BlackBerrys, to store and use confidential or secure information.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you.

Do I have a couple of minutes left, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes, go ahead.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I'll move on then to some of the items you have covered in your overview.

Again, I concur with my colleague, Mr. Butt. We appreciate all of the efforts you've made and House administration has made to try to reduce costs under the strategic operating review. I think you've been doing a very good job, so congratulations to you.

With regard to that, there are a couple of areas in which I'd like to get a little bit more detail. I'm referring particularly to the cost savings you have seen with parliamentarians primarily using flight passes. You said there were significant savings, but I haven't really seen a comparative total as to what we were experiencing before using flight passes and what we are experiencing now.

Could you give us a flavour of that? I understand it is significant, which is great, but exactly how much money are we saving?