Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today as it reviews the various issues regarding Internet broadcasting, or webcasting, of proceedings of the House and its committees. My staff in its usual remarkably diligen

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. Thank you for that. I hadn't realized that program existed. I will pursue both of those avenues.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I certainly take your point. I think there again, though, if that means obviously this is with a view to attracting the public to it, you first have to settle the security issue to the satisfaction of everyone.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly there have been some extremely interesting suggestions made this morning, and they will be part of the discussion that I have with the Sergeant-at-Arms about how we might begin to address these outstanding issues.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In fairness, I think in the discussion we were addressing how management was trying to deal with these layoffs and saying to them, “We have worked out an agreement so that you could be priority in these cases.” But in these cases, of course, the thing is that they don't have the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They are the workers who raised this particular issue.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The problem is that restaurant workers have a fairly specific skills set. We are looking at training opportunities. Nevertheless, the skills of a sous-chef or of a pastry chef working at the restaurant are not necessarily in demand elsewhere at the House.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely not, and I would not want to give you the impression that we are not doing our utmost to encourage people to retrain, in some cases.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The House is prepared to reimburse tuition fees when individuals want to improve their skills or retrain. However, the initiative must come from them.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, of course. One of the things that we are trying to do at this time is invest in our employees at all levels and services, to give them as much flexibility as possible from a professional skills standpoint, while rewarding them at the same time for the work they do right now.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You’ve raised a whole other issue here. The question is whether we should keep the restaurant open for the use of parliamentarians, as is now the case, or open it up to the general public and change its mission, in order to make operations cost effective. Access to the facility i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We could always try out your suggestion during the break weeks. Perhaps this is something that we could consider, for the simple reason that during these break weeks, assistants and parliamentary staff are here. As for the summer months, that’s another story. I will broach the su

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, the problem is not the discrepancy between the wages they would earn working at a restaurant and what they are paid at Parliament, but rather the difference between employment insurance and the wages they earn while working at the parliamentary restaurant. I’m very certain ab

Procedure and House Affairs committee  And the number of hours of work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As you pointed out, I don’t have the figures with me, but I will be happy to get them to you. Let me clarify one thing. As far as I know, the agreements were with the casino and the Château Laurier. I don’t want to imply that various area restaurants signed on. These two facilit