Evidence of meeting #18 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was increase.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
I see. Where does Parliament fit in the pecking order?
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Okay. I just wanted to make sure of that.
I'm sorry to loop back to the increase, but can you just repeat what the overall increase is? Is the 3.5% the only increase this year over last year?
Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
The increase itself is broken up into different components. One is related to the CPI. That's what we award to the members' budgets. As well, what we saw with increases was related to one-time events in terms of security and in terms of initiatives and stuff like that. They essentially add up to about $5 million this year. Those are “one time” in nature, some of them particularly related to COVID-19.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
What's the total percentage increase year over year if you add in everything, such as the CPI and inflation?
Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
It would be 3.5% this year over last year.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
So that was the total increase. Okay.
On the Parliamentary Protective Service side, I was Speaker at the tail end, just as the entity was being constructed. Overall, is there any feedback on whether or not that has achieved the goal of streamlining, of finding efficiencies and of eliminating duplications, especially as it relates to cost? Have we seen increases or decreases or about the same level of spending? Where would you rate the impact of the new service on the cost of providing security on the Hill?
Chief Financial Officer, House of Commons
I think I'll ask Mr. Brookson or Mr. Savard to answer.
Chief Financial Officer, Parliamentary Protective Service
Thank you for your question, Mr. Scheer. It's a bit of a complicated one.
When we were initially created, we had the RCMP element protecting the grounds of the precinct. Therefore, through the transition we managed to gain some savings from removing the RCMP and replacing them with our own personnel. Those savings have been basically reinvested within the service to grow the support functions and the administration.
Overall, the cost of security didn't increase that much for the last couple of years. This year is the first in three years that we have asked for a substantial increase of about 10%.
As well, as the nature of the work gets more complicated—I would have to pass it back to Mr. Brookson on the nature of the security services that we offer and the threat level that exists—I believe some of the objectives initially when PPS was created have been achieved, but the threat environment has evolved. That's what we need to keep up with, to my understanding.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Just so we all know, it's a little bit inconsistent with our traditional meetings, where everything goes through the chair. I want to say thank you to Mr. Scheer for the tone and temperament of that exchange for the benefit of interpreters. As long as we're not speaking over each other, we're good with that. As long as we are professional and honourable, as members always are, we will continue at this pace.
I'll now pass it over to Mr. Turnbull for six minutes.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me first say thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. I'm sorry I can't join you in person, but I do want to thank you for the tireless work you put in every day to make our House of Commons function.
I have two lines of questioning. Then I hope to share my time with my colleague Ms. Romanado.
To the Parliamentary Protective Service folks, just given what we saw during the occupation of downtown Ottawa, which I won't recount at length, certainly when you talk about an “evolving threat environment”, I really see that this incident was something that tested all of us and the Parliamentary Protective Service. It certainly brought up many concerns for the health and safety of members of Parliament and staff on the Hill.
Given that, will this change the budgeting considerations in the future for PPS? What security measures are now necessary on the Hill that weren't before?
Perhaps I will direct that to Larry Brookson, but I'm happy if anybody else wants to answer.
Larry Brookson Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to be sensitive to speaking in the open with regard to what security measures we currently have in place. It's also important to note as context that the submission of these mains was in the pre-occupation period.
I know that's not answering your question, Mr. Turnbull, but I'm more than open, once we get into closed camera, to talk more specifically about ongoing threats and the service's ability to continue to be where it needs to be to protect parliamentarians, staffers and members of the public who are on the precinct.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I will just follow up quickly, Madam Chair, with a question through you to Mr. Brookson based on that.
The estimates that we see in front of us do not include an added budget for the evolving threat environment that may be represented by that incident of the occupation of downtown Ottawa. Would that be correct?
Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
That's correct, Mr. Turnbull.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Would you anticipate, through you, Madam Chair, an increase to the overall PPS budget for the future in order to be fully equipped to deal with those types of evolving threats?
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you, Mr. Brookson.
I'm going to move to the House of Commons administration folks who are there. Thank you again, all, for being there.
I want to talk about the hybrid setting. Certainly, we've operated for two years in a hybrid setting. I think this is becoming more popular. I think we've all experienced advantages with this added capability. Yet, there have also been challenges, right? We've experienced the benefits, but there have also been challenges.
My staff team and I, for example, just recently planned a big event on the Hill for stakeholders, members of Parliament and senators, and we have really struggled to get the resources to have a sub-caucus meeting that is hybrid and has translation services. I'm concerned about this. It's very frustrating for members of Parliament. I've certainly heard it from some of my colleagues. I wonder just how this is being addressed in the current budget. Will there be more resources and a solution for increased capacity to have more hybrid sittings, especially for sub-caucuses and special events that members of Parliament are organizing?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I think the answer to your question depends on the availability of interpretation services. To date, that has really limited our capacity to provide support.
I think the conversation really has to take place with Public Works to see what can be done to build the pool of interpreters and what qualifications they need to secure in order to be effective in providing support for services on the Hill and elsewhere within government.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Is there a budget implication to that? It sounds like there's a capacity issue there in terms of drawing from the same pool and needing more trained people, perhaps. Is there a budget implication for the resources that are needed in order to accommodate all of the meetings on the Hill? Has the assessment been done of how much more of a budget we need?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I don't think we can really answer that question quite definitively at this point. We don't really know what demand growth there will be. We are limited now because of the interpretation services' capacity. Once that's adjusted and the members decide that they want to expand the range of meetings they want to hold that need to be supported by the administration, we will make an assessment of the impact that it will have on our resources and respond accordingly.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Let me just say that I really appreciate the work that our translation and interpretive services are doing every day to support us. I know they're working hard. This is not an issue with the current interpreters. They're fantastic people behind the scenes who work tirelessly every day to support us. Thank you to them. I just think we need more wonderful people like them.
Thank you, Mr. Robert.
I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Romanado. Hopefully I have a little time left.