Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Robert Graham]

Because it was purchased from a Canadian company, the lead time for some of the equipment that was purchased by the PPS for PPS protective operations was many months away, so we leveraged an existing RCMP procurement mechanism. Some of that equipment has an RCMP label on it. It's used and operated by PPS personnel. When the vendor is able to provide unmarked equipment, we'll be exchanging that with the RCMP.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. I would assume, then, that unless anybody feels to the contrary, you wouldn't have any concerns with forwarding that information to us, and then we can establish what the reality is.

Basically, I'm saying that I don't know enough to question any further. I've given you what I know. You've given me answers. I'm saying that if there is a response to that from people on the ground, I think the committee could expect that we'll hear that response from them.

I'll move along.

I do want to clarify one thing. I want to be very clear—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You have 10 seconds.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The Prime Minister controls the guns in this place. Everybody keeps talking about the rubric and the Speaker and everything. I've established, and I'm willing to do it again, publicly if necessary, with the RCMP, but at the end of the day, make no mistake that it is not the Speaker who gives the command in terms of the weapons that are in this place. At the end of the day, that command comes from the RCMP commissioner, and that RCMP commissioner is under the command of the Prime Minister. That's what's unacceptable.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Before we go to Mr. Simms, would the committee's indulgence allow Elizabeth May to ask a question?

[Some. hon. members]

Agreed.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Christopherson's passion on this issue is the same as my own and that of one of our dear departed friends. I think if I knew anyone more angry at the changes that took place and how they were rushed through in the spring of 2015, it was the late Mauril Bélanger.

I happened to have been in the House that Friday morning when the proposal was put forward to consolidate forces and put them in the hands.... No matter how qualified and wonderful individual officers are—and there's no disrespect intended—this is wrong. Mauril knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. It was all pushed through.

Now, I agree very much with David Christopherson on this point. When I see the very same people who put their lives at risk, who were unarmed and defended this place on October 22, I do find it astonishing that we've never had a public inquiry into what went wrong, but I know one thing, which is that the guards inside this place were professional, courageous, and made no mistakes. Now they're the ones who don't have a contract.

I take from David's point that there must be something that happens in camera. I have no access to those discussions. I want to ask this question very directly, because it appears to me that the case right now.... I hate the fact that really good people are not getting the respect they deserve in negotiations. I think there's bad faith bargaining going on here, but from the ongoing disciplinary actions that I see, I'm concerned that we have less security on the Hill than we had before the change in the law because too many officers are spending too much time being disciplined. They're working very long hours, and I don't think we have as many guards on the Hill who have our interests at heart as I would like to see.

Is it the case that these disciplinary actions against the House of Commons security team, the non-RCMP House guards, are taking us below a threshold for having adequate security here on the Hill?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

First of all, I know that my old friend Ms. May.... I'm not used to calling you “Ms. May”, because usually you call me Geoff and I call you Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

You can still call me Elizabeth, but I think have to call you Mr. Speaker.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

At any rate, you and Mr. Christopherson and all members of the committee know full well that the question of what the law is and what it should be is a question for Parliament to determine. Of course I have great respect for that, and as Speaker I cannot get involved in that kind of debate, but I'll hand over the rest of your question to Superintendent MacLatchy.

[C/Supt Jane MacLatchy]

Thanks for the question, Madam May.

There are a couple of pieces I think I need to address on your question that I'm hoping will be helpful.

In the first case—and as I said, I will go into this in more detail later on—our ability at this point to enter into collective bargaining with the three associations that are currently in place for PPS is very limited. The legal advice I have is based on the law that created PPS, the Parliament of Canada Act. Within a certain period of time after the creation of PPS the employer or any of the parties had the opportunity to go to the PSLREB, the labour board, and make application to ascertain the number of bargaining units that will be part of PPS.

That application was made in 2015. The legal advice that I have received is that I cannot enter into collective bargaining until the PSLREB makes that decision, so we have been seeking alternatives into what we can do in the meantime. I'm as frustrated as anybody else with the delays. We did have our first hearing—last week, in fact—with the PSLREB on exactly that. I am hopeful that it can be resolved in reasonably short order, but there are further hearings required. In the meantime, the legal advice I'm getting is that I cannot collectively bargain. We have therefore been actively seeking alternatives to collective bargaining, actively looking for potential means of solving specific issues outside of the collective bargaining world.

In terms of the members of the former House of Commons security services who are now PPS employees and those who were involved in the incident on October 22, 2014, absolutely I agree with you that these people are to be commended. They are professional. They are proud, and they have every right to be. I certainly wouldn't want to say anything that would lead anybody to believe that I have nothing but the greatest respect for what they did, and what they do every day to keep this place safe, but the other issue is that we have a dress and deportment policy that was created in consultation with all three associations. Any alteration to the uniform is in violation of that policy.

When this first started in June, prior to Canada Day, I had newly arrived at the end of May. I started in this position at the end of May and I was very open to looking for alternative solutions and, as such, was very flexible in terms of any discipline at the time. I didn't want to go there at the time. Since that time, we were able to provide the former House of Commons security services employees, who are currently represented by SSEA, with the economic increase that was part of an agreement before PPS was created in 2014. That was part of the action I took in June. We got them that economic increase. I got an agreement that the labour action would cease, and that's what happened. Everybody went back to uniform.

Subsequent to that, we signed what I'll call a labour peace agreement, a memorandum of understanding, with that association, basically saying that there will be no further pressure tactics on the part of the union and that they will adhere to the dress and deportment policy, and we agreed to go forward into mediation of specific grievances. We did that, and we absolutely did it in good faith. I categorically deny that we were there in bad faith.

Of course, I can't go into the specifics of the mediation. We came to the table and actively tried to find an agreement. We were not able to reach that agreement. Both parties were very far apart. The nature of mediation is that it does not always result in an agreement. It doesn't mean either party was there in bad faith, so I deny that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Your seven minutes are up.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I didn't get any answer to my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You'll have to pursue it later.

Go ahead, Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

First of all, thank you for coming, Mr. Speaker. It's good to see you again, as always.

I have a specific question. I might be able to get to it. I think I will, but given what was said earlier by Mr. Christopherson as well as Ms. May, I feel compelled to weigh in on that as well.

Mr. Christopherson and I have been here for the same amount of time. We came here on the same day. The similarities do not end there. I've visited many parliaments in my capacity with the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association, and I truly believe that for the operations and security of a parliament to be answerable to an executive is just not right. It doesn't make sense. To some it might, but to me it does not. I think that the responsibility belongs to Parliament. I say that as a single parliamentarian. I am not speaking as a representative of anybody around me, but as a single parliamentarian.

I thank them for their comments, and I truly believe and endorse what they're saying.

Under professional and special services in your handout there, I'm just trying to dig into it. You may have answered this already. In 2016-17, under supplementary estimates (B), the amount was $929,000. Now we've jumped up to just over $6 million. Can I ask what that pertains to?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

What does the line say beside the number?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

This is from table 2 in the Library of Parliament brief under “professional and special services”. You probably don't have that. Last year, in 2016-17, it was just under $1 million. Now we're up to about $6.2 million—$6.3 million, really.

Does that pertain to extra members requiring extra security, and so on and so forth—you mentioned that—or is it part of something new as far as security is concerned?

Professional and special services is the line. This is under general expenditures, not PPS. If you look at the supplementary estimates (B), that's what I'm looking at.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I think Mr. Aubé will be able to respond to that in a moment.

[Stéphan Aubé, Chief Information Officer, House of Commons]

Mr. Chair, there are two reasons for the majority of the costs that you're seeing.

First, we've entered into an agreement with one of our security partners, and we're purchasing a service for that. That's why it's classified there. The cost of that service is over $3 million. That service is a big reason for that increase.

Second, we launched a project over three years ago that has come to bear over the last two years, which is the renewal of the enterprise resource planning project—RERP on the Hill—for both financial systems and HR systems. A lot of these services are being purchased by external suppliers to help the House implement these two major initiatives.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I see. This is all new.

[Stéphan Aubé]

This is all new, sir.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Can you provide an update on how that's going? Do you anticipate that to be a higher number before the end of fiscal year?

[Stéphan Aubé]

Part of it will be continuous, because of the agreement we spoke about. I wouldn't want to speak about that here, sir. It would require that we go in camera.

There is another one, which we're hoping will go down. We're planning to put the system into production over the next year and a half, sir.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Let's exclude that for a moment.

Do you anticipate any additional funding that would be required before the end of fiscal year?

It seems to me that in many cases things have increased to the point where it almost looks astonishing. Do you anticipate anything else in that realm to require a major increase in the next little while? I know I'm asking you to foresee the unforeseeable, but is there something on the horizon that you're looking at with caution?

[Stéphan Aubé]

The current horizon is dictated by our strategic plan. There are no other major initiatives in the current strategic plan that would require an increase in that funding right now.