Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 7th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

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

Yes.

[Supt Mike O'Beirne]

I'm sorry, your question...?

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

I was asking about the decommissioning of Centre Block and the move to West Block. What challenges would that present operationally? What are the planning and preparatory stages? What kind of costs do you anticipate in meeting those challenges?

[Supt Mike O'Beirne]

We're in consultations with our partners on this, to come to ground and get a better understanding of the timelines and what they will entail. We're not sure if we can close Centre Block down on a Friday and have West Block open on a Monday. There may be a transition period there. We're going to be looking to get some further information on that.

There's also the government conference centre, which is at the forefront of our attention. As we get closer to 2018, we'll have a better idea of what our personnel pressures will be. Will we have to maintain a fully operational Centre Block concurrently with a fully operational West Block and the government conference centre? Those are some of the unknowns we hope will become clear in the remainder of this calendar year.

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

It sounds as if it might be a question for a future meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

Ms. Sahota, and then we'll go in camera.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you for being here today. I definitely want to reiterate what my colleague said, that the PPS staff are incredible. We've all built relationships with them in the hallways over the time we've been here, and they do an outstanding job, a phenomenal job.

A couple of my main questions relate to the integration of communications. How is that going? How have you seen it change the efficiency or the effectiveness of the force? Have there been complications with that? Have there been additional costs? I know that the last time you were here we discussed it a little, that there would be added costs to integrating. How is that working out? Did the integration go smoothly? How often are the different departments communicating, Senate to the House of Commons to the RCMP?

[Supt Mike O'Beirne]

This is happening on a daily basis now. With the full integration of the security forces, there are fully integrated briefings in the morning, fully integrated communication strategies where the messaging is immediate, whether it's corporate or operational. We have these on a daily basis, multiple times a day, if required. To complement this, for any kind of special events, notifications are sent to all personnel. The distinction that you had mentioned between the RCMP, the House of Commons, and the Senate does not necessarily exist anymore in the previous form that we understood it to be prior to the PPS. If I can use a crude analogy of 33%, each entity seemed to have been operating with, let's say, 33% of the plan or 33% of the information, and now, with the creation of the PPS, it's 100%. An operational plan will encompass every aspect of an operational plan, 100% of it, whether it's happening anywhere on the precinct, and all security forces are advised of that.

We are in constant communication with the corporate security office and the corporate security directorate. We work closely with them multiple times a day, or for any special event. We continue to ensure that the operational communications strategy and the corporate communications strategy are seamless. As I mentioned, the collocating of personnel at 180 Wellington has contributed to further integration and increased communication.

We continue to refine our model every time we possibly can, with learned and best practices.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

The increase that we are seeing in administrative costs, what is that a direct result of? You talked a little about HR, and different areas. Is there a key area that you're seeing the increase in?

[Robert Graham]

When PPS was formed, a lot of the focus was on combining the operational individuals from the House, the Senate, and the RCMP. Some elements were perhaps not a great focus at the time, like a finance group or an HR group. To leverage the good work already being done by the House and Senate, for instance to implement a financial management system, we're leveraging the work that the House administration is doing. The payroll is being administered by a group that's been seconded to PPS, but leveraging existing systems that are already extant on the Hill. There are some areas that it makes sense for us to leverage with our partners, but in some areas, for instance a receiving warehouse, it makes no sense for PPS to build its own. So we're going to continue to leverage the partnerships we have with the House and the Senate administrations to take advantage of assets already there.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We're going to suspend for about 30 seconds. We'll try to stay a couple of minutes later.

Everyone at the back will have to leave the room because we're going in camera.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]