Human Resources Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Just a second. We have an original motion by Ms. Yelich that the budget be approved for $18,500, so let's deal with one at a time. But we will deal with all three motions.

[An hon. member]

Could you read the whole motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

The whole motion, as moved by Ms. Yelich, is:

That the proposed budget of $18,500 be adopted, and that the chair present the said budget to the subcommittee of the Liaison Committee.

Mr. Lessard, go ahead.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Before I vote, Mr. Chairman, I want to know what I am voting on. Correct me if I am wrong. We heard witnesses in the past, with regard to employment insurance reform, and to my knowledge, we did not create any budget for that purpose. Did the witnesses who came before the holidays come here without our adopting a budget?

I would simply like to understand what is going on. We are not only talking about the video-conference fees, but we are also dealing with the expenses of the witnesses. Did the witnesses who came before the holidays claim their expenses? Were they entitled to that? Did they know that they were entitled to a refund of their expenses? Are we now creating a rule whereby we will pay the expenses of the witnesses we invited pursuant to the Conservative motion? Mr. Chairman, I would just like to understand this before voting. I have always voted on issues that I understood. However, I do not understand this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's a fair question. Part of it is for video conferencing. Part of is to cover the expenses of witnesses should they request to be paid to be here. That's what we need to pass.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

You don't have to request for them. His question was about what budget the previous witnesses came under.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once again, they were all from Ottawa, so there was no request. These are from regional—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Montreal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sorry, locally.

Once again, they did not request funds. This is for funds for video conferencing, which we prefer to do if we can do it, as well as for money for any other witnesses should they request to be reimbursed for their travel.

There may be a chance that we may not need this money, but the point is still that it is there and in place in case we need it for the witnesses.

Madame Lavallée.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

All this does not add up. This is surreal.

Mr. Chairman, there has been no due process. Normally, to draw up a schedule like the one you drew up, you should have called a meeting of the steering committee. At that meeting, the members could have anticipated the costs and you would have taken steps to cover the costs before the money was spent.

We are now in a surrealistic situation where we have to approve expenses very quickly because you have already made commitments. This is not a normal situation. We are trying to adapt to your abnormal situation, and let me tell you that I, for one, am very uncomfortable with it.

The best thing to do would be to call a meeting of the steering committee to deal with your budget and your schedule tomorrow at noon or very early tomorrow morning, before our caucuses, so that you can correct the error through a normal procedure. The current procedure is not normal, and that is why we have all this unrest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once again, this followed procedure. There was a motion put before this committee before Christmas that witnesses who requested to be here would be allowed to come. They were contacted. It was set in place. They've all agreed to be here. Now we're asking to approve a budget so that should some of those witnesses require reimbursement, we'll be able to deal with it. Plus, of course, there is obviously video conferencing.

It's over the next two weeks. We can meet with the subcommittee. It's going to have to come back and be approved by the committee anyway. You have a proposed calendar in front of you for the next two weeks.

What I'm asking about right now is that we have a motion on the floor by Ms. Yelich proposing the budget of $18,500, which we may or may not use, to cover off the video conferencing and any individuals requesting to be reimbursed for travel. That is the motion on the floor.

Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I am trying to figure out the logic. We are pressed for time, because witnesses are coming tomorrow. There were witnesses from Quebec before the holidays and there were also witnesses from Montreal.

There was no urgency before they came and there was no urgency on the day they appeared or on the following day. Why is the matter urgent today? I would like to understand this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure. Either the individuals did not request to be covered for expenses or it was covered under a general fund that we had in place.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Were they told that they could claim their expenses? Were the people present here today informed of this? Did anyone submit a claim?

Mr. Chairman, can we discuss this issue at the steering committee? I do not see any urgency because the decision has already been made. I would like to debate this at the steering committee to try and clarify all these questions that we are raising.

I do not want to complicate matters. I want to be able to explain things logically. Currently, I do not see the logic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Hiebert.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

If I understand you correctly, Mr. Chair, you're simply saying that tomorrow we have a definite expense in the teleconference, and it's a definite expense that we will have to face unless we cancel those witnesses. So you're asking for money to make sure we have the money in place to hear those witnesses.

It seems perfectly reasonable. I would urge all members to allow the budget to pass, and if we want to amend it we can always amend it. But for the time being, let's give the opportunity for the witnesses who are scheduled for tomorrow to appear by video conference. We have to be able to pay for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, if there are no other questions—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

But that motion before us is not just for tomorrow. It's for everyone who has been scheduled so far. It's $18,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once again, Ms. Davies, if there's any money that's not spent, it goes back to the committee. We don't have to spend the money. It's just making sure that we have ourselves covered so we don't have to go back a couple of times.

Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we do not apply the same rule to everyone. This is something like the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Although you are entitled to it, you are not told about it. Therefore, you cannot get it because you do not know about it.

The same applies to the current situation. Some witnesses came before the committee. We didn't try to save the committee some money by hiding from the witnesses their right to claim expenses. In my opinion, all the witnesses should get the same information. I am convinced that some witnesses will claim the expenses whereas other witnesses will not. But why do we apply this rule, all of a sudden, to the witnesses who are here today and those who will come tomorrow, whereas it did not apply before the holidays?

Mr. Chairman, I am completely confused.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Actually, the rules remain the same. Everything has been consistent. The Board of Internal Economy has asked that anyone travelling first be asked if we could do it by video conference, which is what the clerk has done. Should anyone request any funds, then we have been able to take those out of the general budget.

We now have additional witnesses, for which we don't have any more general funds available, and that is why we're asking to have the budget approved, so that should any of the witnesses who will be coming before us over the next week or two request funds, we will be able to take care of that, and certainly be able to take care of the video conferencing as well, which some people have opted to do. They want to be put in by video conference. So this is exactly the way it has been handled before. We haven't had to request money before, because we've been able to take it out of the general funds.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I do not want to debate this issue, but I want to understand it. If I understand correctly, we did not adopt a budget before the holidays because a budget had already been approved. Did I understand correctly? Is that what happened? If so, then I have my clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Every committee has a $5,000 budget for general funds. That would have been used for that.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Therefore, this had already been approved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

So I'll call the question, then.