Evidence of meeting #21 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chamber.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Do you have sufficient funding to provide security over the entire precinct? Is everything where you need it to be?
Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
That's the discussion I'll have with the Speaker.
As I said, the budget of $62 million that was presented was the budget that existed previously at the House of Commons, the Senate, and the RCMP. It was just brought together. There is a caveat there: there is also service that the RCMP is providing that is not factored into that $62 million. As we grow, there will be additional requests for funding on the executive and the management structure.
As I said, in different committees we gave ourselves two years to finalize all the review and to state exactly how much it's going to cost.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Okay.
I have another quick question. A number of other buildings, such as 131 Queen, use a security force at the gate other than the PPS. Is that going to remain the same, or will that be changing over time and be integrated into the PPS?
Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
That will be part of our ongoing reviews.
Liberal
Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
No. The review for that portion hasn't even started yet.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
That's fair enough. Thank you.
Do you have a quick question, Anita?
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Yes.
I noticed that there was a decrease in travel points usage, which in part led to savings of $5 million. In our committee, we've been talking about a family-friendly Parliament. One of the things we've heard is that some families with a number of children actually don't have enough travel points. How can you explain the fact that it's actually gone down?
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
The first thing to understand is that the 64 travel points that members have, except for the leaders of the parties, who have a few more, have not changed. The same number of trips is still available.
If members wanted to bring forward something in relation to changing that number, I would suggest that they speak to the House leader for their party or to the members of the Board of Internal Economy from their party to propose that. I take note of what the member for Ottawa West—Nepean has said, but I'll turn to the Clerk to add to that.
Marc Bosc Acting Clerk, House of Commons
I would just add—and Dan may jump in—that in fact what we find is that members don't fully utilize their points. That's the statistical analysis that we've done of it. That's what it shows.
Liberal
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
But this, Mr. Chair, for the overall cost, is about right. It's what I said. The total budget is based upon the fact that some members—many—don't use the full allocation, right?
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
But it doesn't reduce the ability of members to use their full number of points.
The question you're raising is whether or not there ought to be more points for those with young children, for instance, who are concerned about that. As I say, you might want to take that to your member of the board for discussion.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Okay. That would be part of our study.
I note that the bells are ringing, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
It would likely be because the cost of the trips has gone down, and there are members like me, of course, who live in Ottawa, who don't use the travel points.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Of course, we've always had members from the national capital region; I guess we perhaps have a few more with redistribution these days. It's more that the cost has gone down because of the flight pass system we're using, and the fact that some members don't use the full allocation of points. That has created some savings for the House.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate all of you being here.
You mentioned the electoral boundaries redistribution and some of the costs associated with it. That has me thinking a bit towards the next election and whether there would be any changes required there. Obviously, there is discussion happening right now about potential changes to our voting system. There are going to be some consultations taking place. We're certainly hoping that there will be a referendum of Canadians.
Looking at that situation, any system that's adopted, outside the Prime Minister's preferred option of a ranked ballot or the current system we have being maintained, would require some combination of either a redistribution of the seats or a change in the number of seats, or possibly both. Obviously there would be some lead time required, especially when you're looking at increasing the number of seats, in order to get the chamber prepared for such a thing and to make sure there are enough offices for members of Parliament. I understand that we're not aware of what those changes will be, but we have to understand there's a possibility that there could be an increased number of seats or a redistribution.
In both cases, there would be some lead time required. I wonder if you could give us some sense as to what lead time would be required in order to have the chamber, members' offices, and any other changes that would be required prepared in time for the next Parliament.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
The difficulty is that this is a hypothetical question, and it could go in various directions. As Speaker, I'll be watching with great interest to see what the House decides and what Parliament decides in relation to this question. I'm optimistic that it will happen without any tie votes—
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
—but we'll wait and see on that question. I'm certainly interested in seeing that. It's very hard to respond in view of the fact that we don't know what will come.
Obviously, after the last election, the 30 new seats of course entailed additional expenses, which I talked about in my comments earlier and which are accounted for, of course, in our proposals in relation to the estimates.
Do you want to add anything, Marc?
Acting Clerk, House of Commons
Other than administration, we are always prepared to analyze whatever proposals come forward, and we can turn that around fairly quickly as an administration. We are fairly agile. We will have to wait and see what comes of it.
