Library of Parliament Committee on May 3rd, 2018

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

That's fine, thank you.

Between 2012 and 2013 and 2014 and 2015, the library's financial resources were reduced as part of the Strategic and Operating Review.

What were the repercussions of that reduction?

[Sonia L'Heureux]

My voice is hoarse. Perhaps my colleague Ms. Potter could answer that question.

[Lynn Potter, Chief Financial Officer and Director General, Business Support Services, Library of Parliament]

The Speakers asked us to reduce our budget by 2.5% before the end of fiscal 2014-2015, and we did that. However, we had to reduce it by an additional 7%. At that time, operating budgets had been frozen for two years. So we had to do some reassignments in order to be able to pay our employees' salary increases. We also had other operations that year. At the end of the third year, in 2014-2015, we reached our objective, which was to reduce our budget by 2.5%, or about $3.5 million.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

What were the biggest challenges you faced following that reduction?

[Lynn Potter]

Since 80% of the library's budget goes to salaries, the biggest challenge was to manage the cuts so that they would have the least possible impact on the employees, while also being able to provide the necessary services to parliamentarians.

We focused on attrition as much as possible. We also made some cuts to initiatives that were less important, and we emphasized services to parliamentarians. We eliminated 36 positions at the library, especially management and administrative assistant positions, and positions in internal services.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Lucie Moncion]

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

Welcome to our second meeting this year, and probably the second meeting in four years, as I understand.

Way back in 2014, this committee passed a unanimous motion—and I assume, Madam Chair, that I can make this request at this time—instructing the library to put the answers to Order Paper questions, which were sessional papers, on the public website. They were already on the Intraparl website.

However, they don't appear to be on the public website yet. It has been about four years since the motion passed. Are these sessional papers now available on the public website, and if not, when will they be?

[Sonia L'Heureux]

I don't know if you read the note that we circulated to the members through the clerks about the sessional papers, but for a number of reasons, mostly technical, we could not progress as far as we wanted in alignment with the motion in 2014. The documents can be viewed publicly through our catalogue. They reside in our catalogue, and they are the scanned copies that we produced for convenience. The challenge with these copies is that they do not meet accessibility standards. Given that the committee did not meet for four years, we did not have an opportunity to come back and talk about the challenge that we were having in addressing the accessibility issues.

We did a pilot a few years ago, during which we took 10 documents, a sample, to see how much work it would be to go from the scanned copy that we have to something that would meet accessibility standards. Something that would take 20 minutes on 10 documents requires two and a half hours to bring to an accessible level. Given the competing pressures that we were having with the 25% increase in demand in research and reference, and in general demand on the library, we weren't able to progress on that front.

As I mentioned earlier today, the House of Commons is moving to discuss with the Privy Council Office the creation of those documents in a digitized fashion that meets accessibility standards and that could be made available to the public through the journals, I believe.

Sonia may have something she can add on that topic.

[Sonia Bebbington]

What seems to be envisaged right now is that they'll be available through the journals and will be potentially searchable within a separate database as well, although we're in a preliminary phase of that project.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Why can't we make these scanned versions available on the public site now?

[Sonia Bebbington]

We can make them available. It will take a small technical change, but there is a risk related to accessibility requirements that we'd like the committee to understand. These scanned versions don't meet the accessibility requirements, and that can result in a human rights complaint. It's just a case of understanding that risk.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Would you agree that this is essential, that this is a good idea, and that we should be moving in this direction?

[Sonia Bebbington]

As a librarian—

[Sonia L'Heureux]

I think that we will do whatever Parliament wants, but we're also very concerned about putting ourselves in a situation that may generate complaints with regard to human rights.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Are you making a recommendation that we forgo this request and maybe backtrack? I'm a little confused.

[Sonia L'Heureux]

I would suggest that maybe we take a pause. Given that the House of Commons has clearly indicated that it is working with the generators of those documents—the executive—to make them not only digitally available but also accessible, we should let those conversations take place to make sure that they can be offered through the journals.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You've had an increase in the last year. Is money the issue? Do we still have insufficient funds to do what's necessary, or are you bringing forward other areas?

[Sonia Bebbington]

Going to the source of the document so that you're dealing with a document that's born digitally is much more efficient than having a library that receives a second or third generation print version try to reverse-engineer accessibility into that file.

In terms of efficiency and use of those resources, it's much more efficient to go to the source and deal with documents as they're born digitally.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

That's it.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Lucie Moncion]

Thank you.

Mr. Ouellette.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Can you tell me how many people worked in that four-year period on the file Mr. Van Kesteren referred to? What was the involvement of IT and others to make this project a success?

[Sonia Bebbington]

Two people work on digitization in my team. In addition, one team works on description and metadata. The manager of that team did the study on what we would need to make those documents accessible. I think it took two months to do the research on the accessibility standards and to test the ways of changing the documents to make them accessible.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

In your study, did you look at other countries of the world that have had the same problems, such as the Library of Congress, or the United Kingdom, or Australia or other European countries that probably have more stringent laws on accessibility than we do, but successfully implemented considerable transparency for government files?

[Sonia Bebbington]

The most similar case I know is that of England.

There is indeed a tabling process right from the beginning, in the departments. That process is exactly what House of Commons colleagues would like to see.