Evidence of meeting #7 for Library of Parliament in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was staff.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you very much.
It's nice to see you again, Ms. Lank. I think it was about a year ago that we endorsed your appointment. Have you been there about a year now?
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Nine months, okay. Hopefully, you'll be there in a year.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You'll make the year.
One of the things that I twigged to is that you are asking for an increase of 3.9% in your overall budget. Can you give me an executive summary as to why you need 3.9%?
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
Absolutely. There are two key drivers. The first one, and perhaps the one that would be most obvious, is the closure of the Centre Block, and the opening of the new branches. By no longer having that one branch, and tours only in the Centre Block, we need to increase our capacity. Now we have tours in the Senate of Canada building and in the West Block. A guide used to be able to run a tour through the whole building, showing both the Senate and the House of Commons, but we now need more personnel simply to manage the fact that we have tours in two locations. That's one significant pressure.
We also have more branches, and because of what Madam MacLeod was speaking about, in terms of wanting to modernize our service offering, and have more face-to-face contact, it's really important to us that those branches are not empty or just have books. We want our staff there to serve you in those branches.
We have five branches now, and need to increase the number of front-line library staff to meet your needs. That's the second kind of front-line pressure.
In terms of the other element, the virtual reality experience project, which I think is of great interest to all of us, is an extraordinarily complex project. We have worked very effectively, I believe, with the National Film Board. The project was conceived with an extraordinary vision, but as we have worked through the actual complexity of what we are building, it has proven to be a bit more expensive than we originally thought it would be. That's where you see about $119,000 added this year. It's part of the complexity of meeting those needs.
Finally, I'm sure you can appreciate that when economic increases are granted to employees, be it through negotiated settlements or implementing the government-wide increases to executives, we simply don't have the capacity to absorb that money internally. Salaries do grow bit by bit, and the need for us to be able to fund this growth is obvious.
Those are really the only pressures we have included here.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You mentioned, I believe, 363 full-time equivalents.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
In the upcoming year, in the period covered by these estimates, what will their increase in salary be, percentage-wise?
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
I wish I knew the outcome of those negotiations, Mr. Lauzon. Those discussions are ongoing at the bargaining table or at arbitration.
Conservative
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
No. We have only built in what we know, because we simply cannot anticipate what will be negotiated or decided by an arbitrator, and for us to put it into the main estimates would suggest an outcome that we simply are not—
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You're going to be back looking for more money when that contract is settled.
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
I can't promise you that I won't be, but I should mention that last year there were times when we were able to absorb the increase internally. We will come back as needed, but it will depend on the numbers. I really don't know how that will pan out in the long run.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
In a past life, I was in a management position in the public service. Out of curiosity, what would your sick-time rate be?
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
I do not have the answer to that off the top of my head, in terms of the number of sick days, on average. What kind of information are you interested in, Mr. Lauzon?
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
I remember going into an office where we had a 14% sick-leave rate. When I went to seek more money from my seniors, they said, “Well, maybe you should do something about your sick rate.” All we did was mention to the employees that when they don't come to work, their colleagues have to pick up the slack. Surprisingly, our sick rate went down to 6%.
Through economy, could you not come up with 3.9% on the size of that budget? That doesn't seem like a terrible amount of.... Have you looked at that?
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
For sure, we have looked at it. We have looked very hard at it. Indeed, when I came into this role, I was very clear with my management team that any increases to our budget required a robust business case, after we looked to see if we had the capacity internally.
We have not put in anything beyond what we feel must be there, unless we cut service. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to. In order to provide librarians to you in the branches, and to serve through the various avenues we spoke about this morning, we need these resources.
If we had to cut—
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
We don't want to cut service to you, is what it comes down to. On the sick leave—
Liberal
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
Can I just make one comment about sick leave—
Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament
—because I think it's really important. In my experience—
