Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Honourable members of the committee, mesdames et messieurs, my name is Stewart Wheeler, and as chief of protocol of Canada, I'm pleased to join the committee alongside my colleagues to contribute to the important discussion taking place today to help clarif

Government Operations committee  If the chair permits, I'll maybe jump in and just explain. It gives me an opportunity to outline the process, because people clearly have interest in understanding how those menus are arrived at. In collaboration with the RCAF, we establish protocol once a visit has been approve

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. We all agree that there are certain problematic issues connected with the flights. This is what we have observed. That is why we set up a working group that will review the processes and find answers to the following questions: how is it that these hi

Government Operations committee  If the chair would allow, I'm happy to jump in and add a little bit of detail there on the question of the selection of locations. Often when we are travelling as guests to a host nation, it will be dictated what airport we need to land at. In consultation with Public Safety, ot

Government Operations committee  I would just mention again that we are identifying cost savings. One of the examples the general gave was on this idea of contingencies. To help people understand, the standard operating procedure when you're on an international commercial flight is that you would be given a cho

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. To answer your question around the style of meals, standard commercial airline-practice meals is what we're ordering, in line with health and safety and travel regulations as the General mentioned. We are looking at concrete savings, and we'd be happy to make that ava

Government Operations committee  I think that on this visit there were a number of complexities, given the number of countries and the number of stops. We would have to go back and look at the specific airports. However, I can say that the discussions with host countries.... In this case, the host countries that

Government Operations committee  We work with the air force to request a meal plan that is in line with the health and safety travel regulations, taking into consideration how long the flight is and how many meals would be offered. As I mentioned, meals are arranged to align with standard commercial airline prac

Government Operations committee  As I mentioned earlier, our job is to work with our partners, whether it be the Governor General's office or the Royal Canadian Air Force, to ensure that there are appropriate meals provided during the visit. As I mentioned before, our job is not to task, but to share information

Government Operations committee  I think I could lead on that question to say that there's always a back-and-forth between the flight steward and my team in looking at the options that have been put forward. There may have been changes to some elements, but again, looking at redundancies, looking at variety duri

Government Operations committee  The final discussion on menus is a conversation back and forth. As we mentioned, it would be a member of my team, and no, they would not see the price at that time—

Government Operations committee  As I mentioned, we.... That is—

Government Operations committee  We would always be happy to see the committee, but I think you're absolutely right, sir. What we need is to have an environment between the teams where those things are being flagged to us.

Government Operations committee  Yes, absolutely, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to take that on board. We are constantly working together, and these people work together all the time. What we are asking our teams to do is to work in between the operational working on a specific visit to sit down and say, “What isn't wor

Government Operations committee  From the Global Affairs protocol perspective, I would refer to what the general mentioned, which is the complexity of factors that are in play when the final catering cost comes out. Those change for countries and for airports. It's not like the Treasury Board travel guidelines f