Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

But not personally to them...?

[Supt Marie-Claude Côté]

When we receive complaints, we contact the complainants. The complaint we received was from a senator. We went back to the senator with the report and the information, and we're continuing to have discussions.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Did you find through your investigation that any kind of incorrect protocol was used in this circumstance, or is a change in protocol needed?

[Supt Marie-Claude Côté]

For me, the constable was asked to perform a duty. It was more than just the constable who was involved. I look after my employees, so I'm addressing the PPS employees only.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Well, we hope it doesn't occur again.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Ms. Sahota.

Now we go to Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you.

I want to be respectful here and supportive of the time necessary to allow us to go in camera to deal with the matter that Mr. Graham wanted to raise.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

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

I gave a series of questions to the Speaker at the beginning of the meeting. The next question on my list has already been partly answered, so I will go through it and then make a meta-question out of it to allow him to answer it.

On December 11, 2018, we met with officials dealing with the Centre Block rehabilitation. They indicated that a consultation process with parliamentarians would be created. I had three subsidiary questions coming from that.

Number one is, would that be coming via the Board of Internal Economy? The answer I think I got was yes, but you can correct me if I've misunderstood it.

The second subsidiary question was, are you able to tell us anything about when this process might be proposed? To this I think the answer was “soon”, but it was rather an uncertain soon.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It's on Thursday.

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

Thursday? Thursday is very soon.

Okay. That is very precise.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It will be at the board.

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

Then, to what extent will MPs have input into the structure of these changes before they go forward? Is it purely going to be via the Board of Internal Economy—I'm now looking post-Thursday, obviously—or are there other mechanisms by means of which MPs will have a say in the initial configuration of the ongoing consultations that presumably would last for a decade or more, as we try to implement all the different things we would collectively like to see implemented in this renovation?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It seems to me that this may be pre-empting—or not pre-empting, but.... You know that the board will make a decision, and I'm not going to prejudge what decision it will make on Thursday. Between now and Thursday, I think members should be encouraged to express their views to the members from their party who sit on the Board of Internal Economy. Of course, they can express their views to other members of the board as well. The board will decide how to do this, but your comments would, I imagine, be taken into account by the board in that deliberation, so keep it up.

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

A recent media report stated that changes to the initial plans for the West Block renovation, which I think also encompasses the visitor welcome centre, generated over 100,000 pages of communications “regarding deficiencies in construction, engineering, design and architecture at Parliament's West Block and the new Senate chamber.” That is a lot of material.

When construction problems of that nature are identified—I'm looking to the past now, but as a model for the future—to whom would that information have gone? I'm thinking in terms of people who are actually members of Parliament. Would that material have gone to members of the Board of Internal Economy? Would any of you know the answer to that question?

[Michel Patrice]

I haven't seen that information, so I cannot answer that question. I cannot say that any members of the board or the administration were aware of those 100 pages of communications.

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

That was 100,000.

[Michel Patrice]

A hundred thousand pages.... I certainly haven't seen it.

In terms of construction problems, I'm going to state the obvious. There are some that have occurred—for example, the south and west doors of this building. As far as I'm concerned, there have been construction deficiencies. Those doors have not been working properly since the building was operationalized. The south door has been fixed and replaced, but we're still having issues with the west door. I understand that it's going to be fixed this weekend. We had to take some interim measures to make it accessible to members this week, for example.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Reid, you're talking about the whole time West Block was being renovated, aren't you?

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

This is my way of opening up the point that there are many, many detailed documents that emerge, and there are many changes and compromises that have to be made as one goes forward. It is in the nature of the process. I would be surprised if Centre Block generates less than 100,000 pages. I suspect it will be a good deal more, and it's not because of anybody doing anything wrong. It's the nature of this kind of complex, multi-stage, multi-year process that involves many players.

Looking forward, the real question is how we can ensure that we have maximum openness to these problems as they arise. We need to be able to deal in a business-like manner with these issues: number one, how much the various compromises are going to cost; number two, what will have to be sacrificed when we make a compromise, and whether we are willing to give up on some feature we wanted; and finally, how it will affect the timing of our return.

Mr. Speaker, rather than pursue the details of how it was done in the past, maybe I could just ask if you have any thoughts on the best way to deal with this. I recognize that you and I are likely to be out playing golf in our retirement by the time this is done.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

We can look forward to that. You'll probably beat me, but I can look forward to one of those games someday.

It seems to me that it will be important that the board create a process whereby input is ongoing, those discussions can take place and members can have input to that process. How exactly it's going to unfold remains to be seen, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness and the concern you express about this. You are concerned that this be done in a responsible way, and I think you're right. Undoubtedly, decisions that we make may require compromises from time to time. However, it's up to us as members—whether we are representatives of the Board of Internal Economy, of this committee or generally—to make sure that our concerns are heard and that our desire to ensure that the public is served properly and Parliament functions the way it ought to is understood.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker and all of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham, you have time for a quick question, and then we'll go in camera.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I just want to follow up on Mr. Bittle's question for Mr. Aubé on the technology in our offices.

I declined to participate in the pilot project for the new computers in our constituency offices. When I asked if I could install whatever I needed to on my computers—which I could do on the old ones—they said no. This is more of a request than a question, but it would be very helpful if you could have a much more efficient process for approving software for our computers. There's an awful lot of software that we might want to use that isn't on your very narrow list of proprietary, not-very-secure software that is nominally secure. All the Windows stuff is proprietary, and there is no way of doing proper security oversight.

Meanwhile, there are open-source solutions that are much more secure and much more affordable. I'd like you to look at that. Thank you.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It's interesting that many of us use the Windows system on computers along with iPads or iPhones and the iOS. In those cases, there is a firewall between the two sides—the House side and the other side of that. You can put on other things, other apps and so forth. It's an interesting distinction between the two systems. It seems to me more difficult to manage that within the Windows environment, which works well in many ways.

That's not really an answer, but it's an observation.