Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In terms of the constituency offices, are there best practices or things that we can implement? For instance, I'm having a counter put into my constituency office so that the front desk isn't just open, and people can't just run all the way to the back, for instance, to where my office is.

Is there somewhere these kinds of practices can be gathered and shared so that members of Parliament don't have to reinvent them each time?

[Patrick McDonell]

Yes. That's my security assessment team, and they'll share those best practices. I should add that even though the sessions are in Ottawa, that team's available all the time to speak with the constituency offices and give them tips. We're also improving our web page on the House of Commons site. There are all sorts of little tips the staff can follow.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Would that apply for our residences as well?

[Patrick McDonell]

No. There's nothing developed for the residences yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I wanted to ask about the $2.5 million for the PPS transition and establishment initiatives. It indicates there are some new full-time equivalents being put in place to support operations and corporate functions. It talks about the purchase of telecommunications, computers, software licences, project management fees.

It sounds to me as though those are obviously administrative functions that the new full-time equivalents would be doing. I'm wondering if you could confirm that, if I'm correct in that understanding.

Also, I'll just ask a couple of other questions. You can answer them all at once.

I would assume, therefore, that the telecommunications and computers, etc., would be to support the administrative staff who would be hired. How many new administrative staff is that talking about?

Obviously, the next question would be, transition and establishment initiatives would indicate that it would likely be temporary employment; is that what we're talking about here or are these permanent new full-time equivalents?

[Supt Michael Duheme]

I'll go through the $2.4 million. Other than the $14.4 million, operation-wise, with regard to our scanners, as you enter Centre Block downstairs all the visitors go through a scanning. During one of our reviews, it was determined that in certain areas, on the Senate side, we had constables doing the scanning. It is more cost efficient having someone who is not armed doing that type of work. It's in the vision of having the scanning done by one unit instead of having people doing two or three different jobs. A chunk of that money is in there.

We're looking at phase two with regard to the uniforms. It's also in that $2.4 million. There's some equipment. There's a small contingency for overtime; parental leave and performance pay is in that too. As for temporary and permanent employment, right now everybody is temporary. As we're building the org chart, we're starting to create these positions and they're going to be submitted to both Speakers for approval. I'd say that what we looked at, as we were building the structure, is what do we want to maintain under PPS and what can be serviced out to either the House of Commons or Senate. That's the thought process I was going through as we were building the structure. There is nothing permanent yet, but you are right when you were saying with regard to bringing people in, they need computers, office space, a desk, and whatnot.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I had misunderstood it a bit; it isn't completely administrative. What you're talking about is essentially some of those full-time equivalents are actually people who run the scanners, for example.

[Supt Michael Duheme]

Yes, exactly, in that $2.4 million.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You mentioned new uniforms and I think you said it was even part of this $2.5 million. You mentioned it in your opening remarks as well. You mentioned briefing rooms being shared with the various services.

When do you expect that to actually take place?

[Supt Michael Duheme]

I'm not going to say when the uniforms are supposed to come in but we're hoping they are in by April. We're hoping that by September 2016 most of the PPS team, other than the executive and the officer cadre, will move in to our new location. And as I was mentioning earlier with regard to integration, everybody would be housed in the same building. The concept of operation I want to bring forward is that when people come in, they change to new uniforms, go up to their briefing room where they're given the daily briefing of activities that are going on on the Hill and what they need to know, and then off to their posts.

According to Public Works, we should have the building by September 2016.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I know that sometimes it can be difficult to share a lot in terms of intelligence, but there was mention in the Speaker's opening remarks about the formalization of an intelligence unit and improvements to information sharing and threat detection.

What can you tell us about those? I understand that there are probably some things that you can't speak about.

[Supt Michael Duheme]

Basically, when PPS was created, the RCMP had their own little intelligence unit, the House of Commons protective security had their own, and the Senate had their own. What we did is we just brought all three people together and created an intelligence unit. It has more to do with the fact that they're not collecting intel on the Hill; they're collecting intel outside. And I think “collecting” is a big word. They're more part of daily meetings with the RCMP or OPS or if there are any demos, just to feed us so we can have a better situational awareness of what's going on on the Hill. From there, I inform the CSO's office, the CSD office, and the respective Speakers.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

How does that information get from there to the officers who are on the front line?

[Supt Michael Duheme]

If it's worthwhile sharing with everyone because it has an impact for the Hill itself, we'll make sure that everybody gets it. We've done it in the past through an email, in briefings that went on. That's normally how we share it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, Mr. McDonell, and Michael Duheme. We feel like we're in safe hands, and we certainly appreciate that.

Thank you for coming this morning; I know you're all very busy. Now you can go back and protect us some more and we'll have our vote.

PARLIAMENTARY PROTECTIVE SERVICE

Vote 3c—Program expenditures..........$16,887,833

(Vote 3c agreed to)

Shall I report the vote on the supplementary estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Our next guest is available, but we'll suspend for a minute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll continue now with our third and final examination of appointees to the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments. I remind members that in accordance with Standing Orders 110 and 111, this committee is to examine the qualifications and competence of the appointee to perform the duties of the post to which he or she has been appointed.

Our witness this morning is Dr. Indira Samarasekera, who is appearing by video conference from Vancouver.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Chair, will we have time to discuss the motion I had on the floor regarding witnesses and bringing them back in order to question them on the actual work they're doing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We have committee business at the end of the meeting, so if that's what people want to discuss, yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

That is what I want to discuss.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Doctor, you have up to ten minutes for an opening statement, and then we will get questions from each of the parties here.

Thank you for appearing before us today.

[Dr. Indira Samarasekera, Federal Member, Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments]

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be here.

I will make my comments very brief because I'm sure committee members will have questions. You have my CV in front of you. I'll mention my qualifications at a high level, and then I'll move on to some competencies and qualities that I might bring to this task.

I'm an engineer by training. I have been an academic all my career. I came to Canada in 1977 to pursue a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering and I became a Canadian citizen in 1980. I was a professor for 20 years, and then I became vice-president, research, at the University of British Columbia. I then went on to serve two terms as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta. I'm currently senior adviser in the policy group of Bennett Jones. I serve on a number of corporate boards, non-profit boards, and I do other volunteer activities.

In my career, I have also had extensive experience working with the Government of Canada in my capacity as president, and with the governments of Alberta and British Columbia.

In terms of qualities and competencies, let me start with competencies. As president and vice-chancellor, I have had to develop the ability to deal with a great deal of complexity. It broadened my expertise. I've had to develop an ability to function independently, have independence of thought and approach. I have not been involved in any political activities or been a member of any political party. I like to think that I have high integrity. Certainly I have a reputation of an individual with integrity. I've developed and proved my capability of good judgment.

Finally, in my position I have had to maintain a very high degree of confidentiality. As you can imagine, I'm exposed to the files of students, faculty, and staff. I'm privy to confidential information from governments around budgets and policies, and that's something I have executed in my job.

With that I'll stop and hand it back to you, Chair. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here this morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much for appearing.

We'll start the round with Mr. Chan.