OGGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, October 6, 2003

¹

1540

The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.))

Ms. Barbara Uteck (Secretary to the Governor General, Office of the Governor General)

¹

1545

¹

1550

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

¹

1555

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Paul Forseth

º

1600

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

º

1605

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie (Director of Finance, Office of the Governor General)

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

º

1610

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Pat Martin

The Chair

Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

º

1615

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Ms. Judy Sgro

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Judy Sgro

The Chair

º

1620

Ms. Barbara Uteck

The Chair

Mr. Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, Lib.)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

The Chair

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Leon Benoit

Ms. Barbara Uteck

º

1625

Mr. Leon Benoit

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Leon Benoit

The Chair

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Leon Benoit

Ms. Barbara Uteck

The Chair

Ms. Barbara Uteck

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

º

1630

Mr. Ken Epp

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)

º

1635

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie

Ms. Carolyn Bennett

Ms. Barbara Uteck

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)

º

1640

Ms. Barbara Uteck

Mr. Derek Lee

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Barbara Uteck

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright (Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Deputy Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister and Security and Intelligence Coordinator, Privy Council Office)

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Yvon Tarte (Chairperson, Public Service Staff Relations Board)

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon (Secretary, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat)

Ms. Denise Boudrias (Senior Vice-President, Learning and Leadership Centres, Canadian Centre for Management Development)

Mr. Robert Wright

º

1650

M. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

º

1655

Mme Denise Boudrias

The Chair

»

1700

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Denise Boudrias

»

1705

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

M. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

»

1710

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

M. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Robert Wright

M. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Right Hon. Joe Clark (Calgary Centre, PC)

Mr. Robert Wright

»

1715

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Robert Wright

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

»

1720

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

The Chair

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

»

1725

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Mr. Yvon Tarte

Ms. Denise Boudrias

The Chair

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

»

1730

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Robert Wright

Ms. Judy Sgro

The Chair

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

»

1735

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

»

1740

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Tarte

»

1745

The Chair

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Yvon Tarte

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Ken Epp

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Ken Epp

The Chair

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Robert Wright

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Yvon Tarte

»

1750

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Robert Wright

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Right Hon. Joe Clark

The Chair

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

»

1755

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

Mr. Robert Wright

Mr. Leon Benoit

The Chair

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

¼

1800

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Stuart MacKinnon

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Ms. Denise Boudrias

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Ms. Denise Boudrias

The Chair

Ms. Denise Boudrias

The Chair

¼

1805

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

Mr. Robert Wright

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson (President, Public Service Commission of Canada)

¼

1820

¼

1825

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Gilles Charron (Director General, Finance and Administration Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Gilles Charron

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Michael Nelson (Vice-President, Learning and Development Programs Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

¼

1830

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Scott Serson

¼

1835

Mr. Raymond Crête (Director General, Resourcing Services Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

M. Scott Serson

¼

1840

Mr. Greg Gauld (Vice-President, Merit Policy and Accountability Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada)

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Mr. Scott Serson

¼

1845

The Chair

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Scott Serson

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Scott Serson

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Scott Serson

¼

1850

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Scott Serson

Right Hon. Joe Clark

Mr. Scott Serson

Right Hon. Joe Clark

¼

1855

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

½

1900

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Gilles Charron

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Michael Nelson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Gilles Charron

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Michael Nelson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

The Chair

½

1905

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Michael Nelson

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Michael Nelson

Mr. Raymond Crête

Mr. Michael Nelson

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Scott Serson

Ms. Judy Sgro

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Michael Nelson

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.)

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

½

1910

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Scott Serson

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

½

1915

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

Mr. Scott Serson

The Chair

---

CANADA

Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

---

NUMBER 062

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Monday, October 6, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1540)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)): Let's come to order here.

    Members, we are at meeting 62 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We're continuing the work we started this morning on the supplementary estimates. Today we have supplementary estimates (A) 2003-2004: vote 110a under Canadian Heritage; vote 1a under Governor General; votes 1a, 5a, 10a, and 35a under Privy Council; votes 1a, 15a, and 20a under Public Works and Government Services; votes 1a, 10a, and 15a under Treasury Board, as referred to the committee on Tuesday, September 23, 2003.

    We are moving on to the Office of the Governor General. We have before us Ms. Barbara Uteck, who is the secretary to the Governor General, and JoAnn Mackenzie, who is the director of finance.

    The clerk who would have contacted you is not here this afternoon, but I believe the instructions he was asked to give to everyone who came before was we will give you a few minutes to make an opening statement and then we'll turn it over to members to ask you questions.

    So if I can, I leave it to you, Ms. Uteck, please.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck (Secretary to the Governor General, Office of the Governor General): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today and to respond to your questions on supplementary estimates.

    I would like to structure my remarks around the roles, responsibilities, and activities of the Governor General to provide context for your questions and so you can see how additional resources approved by Parliament in the past four years support the Governor General's program and the requirements of the office.

[Translation]

    The Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada has a constitutional role and a responsibility to bring Canadians together, honour Canadians, and promote Canada.

    Public resources are allocated to allow the Governor General to carry out the role and these responsibilities which are essential to our parliamentary democracy and our system of responsible government, and which enrich our life as an independent sovereign country.

[English]

    In the letters patent of 1947, virtually all responsibilities of the head of state, also known as royal prerogatives, were devolved to the Governor General. Since the appointment of Vincent Massey in 1952, the office has evolved to play an increasingly important role in the life of our country and has become more and more a Canadian institution.

    In her installation address in October 1999, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson expressed to Canadians her understanding of this evolving nature of the role of the Governor General:

Canada's institutions have never been static. They are organic—evolving and growing in ways that surprise and even startle us. In a mere 30 years, between 1952 and 1982, we repatriated the Governor Generalship and our Constitution. We adopted our flag, we formalized our understanding of rights and we strengthened and expanded the bilingual nature of our country.

    The Governor General also underscored at that time that to be relevant as Governor General was to be visible and accessible to Canadians, to meet them and to know them and to know what is important to them.

    As representative of the Crown in Canada, the Governor General has a constitutional role as de facto head of state that is central to the responsibilities of the office. Members of Parliament are familiar with this aspect of the office, which includes the opening of Parliament with a Speech from the Throne, the swearing in of the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, and the chief justice, and giving royal assent to bills. The constitutional role also includes the responsibility to receive credentials from foreign ambassadors and high commissioners before they are able to begin their functions in Canada, receiving visiting heads of state on behalf of all Canadians, and representing Canada on state visits abroad.

    As commander in chief of the Canadian Forces, Governors General play a significant role in recognizing the contributions of our military and in providing moral support and comfort to our troops and their families in times of active duty and loss. Governor General Clarkson has visited our troops in Kosovo and Bosnia as well as in the Persian Gulf last Christmas. She comforted the wounded and the families of the deceased soldiers killed on active duty in Afghanistan last year and again in the last few days, and she has paid tribute on numerous occasions to our veterans and those who have died in battle.

    As well as the constitutional role I have just described, Governors General have a responsibility to bring Canadians together. It is the established Canadian tradition that Governors General make an official visit to every province and territory soon after taking office. Governor General Clarkson did this in her first year.

    Let me describe a typical regional visit by the Governor General, just to give you a sense of what it's all about. In the spring of 2000, the Governor General made her first official visit to Saskatchewan. Over a six-day period, she addressed the members of the legislature, met with aboriginal workers and women in a shelter, and with leaders and community members at the Wanuskewin Heritage Park. She had discussions with members of the Baildon Hutterite Colony and with the Assemblée Communautaire Fransaskoise in Gravelbourg; held an open mike session with students at Robert Usher Collegiate in Regina on the issue of tolerance; presented Caring Canadian awards and exemplary service medals to local firefighters; held an open house in Saskatoon, where she met nearly 2,000 members of the community; held a round-table discussion with 15 young members of the 4-H club who live and work on their family farms in Biggar; met with their parents to discuss the challenges of maintaining their traditional way of life; and spoke with seniors about their programs for lifelong learning.

    As you can see from the variety of events that made up this visit, the Governor General seeks to reach out and engage as many Canadians as possible, and has continued over the past four years to make these kinds of visits to every province and territory. She has spent time with Canadians in over 150 communities across Canada. She has visited 35 remote communities in nine visits to the north, often going to communities never before visited by a Governor General. By listening to Canadians where they live and work, and by speaking about what she has heard, the Governor General brings us together; she reminds us of the common values that unite us while celebrating our regional diversity and Canadian identity.

    As part of bringing the office to Canadians during the 50th anniversary year, Order of Canada investiture ceremonies were held outside of Ottawa in Quebec City, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Halifax. Governor General Clarkson has presided over citizenship ceremonies in Calgary, Quebec City, and Ottawa to highlight the importance of our new Canadians and to welcome them as citizens.

¹  (1545)  

    A vigorous public access program under the banner “Welcome Home to Rideau Hall” has resulted in one million visitors to this national historic site over the past eight years.

[Translation]

    Let me now turn to the area of honouring Canadians.

    The Office of the Governor General has always been at the centre of recognizing and celebrating excellence in Canada through a national system of honours and awards. Recognizing excellence and achievement contributes to nation-building by promoting national pride, citizenship and respect. Canada's Honours Program includes among others : the Order of Canada which honours lifetime contribution and achievement; the Bravery Awards which honour ordinary people who perform acts of extraordinary courage; and the Caring Canadian Award initiated by former Governor General Roméo Leblanc, which honours unsung heroes who enrich the lives of the communities through voluntary work.

[English]

    Until 1997, no allocation had ever been provided for promoting the Order of Canada and other national honours, despite the fact that 95% of Canadians surveyed believed we should learn more about the achievements of our fellow citizens.

    On the recommendation of the Interdepartmental Honours Policy Committee, a national campaign was undertaken to increase awareness of the various awards and orders, and to target areas of the country and demographic groups that were under-represented in the public nominations. As a result of this campaign, nominations for the Order of Canada rose to over 1,000 per year, were spread more evenly across the country, and Caring Canadian Award nominations tripled.

    At the same time, in recognition of Canada's growing population and changing demographics, the number of investitures was increased from three to four per year, to accommodate an increase in the number of members invested into the order each year. Additional staff were required to research the nominations and administer the awards. Budgets for the honours program have also increased to respond to the creation of new medals, including the Order of Merit of the Police Forces and the Southwest Asia Service Medal.

    Both at home and abroad, Governors General have a responsibility to showcase Canadian excellence and creativity. By opening Rideau Hall to visitors year-round, by offering specialized tours of the grounds, providing educational programming and materials on the history of the institution to visiting schoolchildren, by displaying the work of Canadian artists lent by institutions from across Canada, by serving Canadian products, Governor General Clarkson has shared her pride in the work produced by Canadians and made every one of the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Rideau Hall more aware and more knowledgeable about the office, our history, and our country.

    The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, like other government departments, has a responsibility to function in a modern, efficient, and publicly accessible manner. To that end, additional resources have been recommended by Treasury Board ministers and approved by Parliament.

    I have been invited here today to address the particular question related to the one dollar main estimate request for this year. Let me address that now. The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General provides payments for operating expenditures to support activities performed by former Governors General as a result of their having occupied the office. This provision is available to the estate of a former Governor General for six months following their death.

    The one dollar request is being used to seek parliamentary approval for a one-time change to our existing spending authority, in this particular case, to extend payment for six months using existing funds to complete the legacy activities of former Governor General Ramon John Hnatyshyn, left incomplete by his untimely death.

    I would be more than happy to answer your questions on this or any other areas related to the office. Thank you very much. Merci.

¹  (1550)  

    The Chair: Good. Thank you very much.

    I think I would like to say before we open to questions that this is an unusual event only because we've been neglecting our responsibilities. This committee was created to begin a process of revitalizing the estimates process. Your office is one of those that is referred to us, and we made a decision that we would not let estimates pass this committee without some examination, just as a matter of practice.

    I should say for the benefit of the members, given that there have been all sorts of questions, I'm sure Ms. Uteck is well aware of that, and I appreciate the very thorough nature of the presentation you gave us. There have been all sorts of questions floating around. It is an odd relationship between the Governor General, who's the Queen's representative... The interpretation I have is that the Governor General herself could not appear before the committee, even if we invited her here, because of the royal prerogative of not entering the House of Commons and so on.

    I also should say to members that Ms. Uteck was willing and interested in coming here right from the first time there was a question raised. There has never been any resistance from the Governor General's office in coming to answer these questions. I appreciate the invitation in your remarks to take questions on any subject within your responsibilities.

    So with that, I will turn it to members. We'll see where we end up.

    Mr. Forseth.

    Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much.

    Thank you for making the extra effort to be here.

    In continuing in that vein of the chair about our committee not looking after our duty and our responsibilities, we've had past administrative difficulties in clarifying certain things, so I want to remind you again that according to your oath of office, and also because you are giving evidence before a parliamentary committee, you are under oath. You understand that, certainly.

    The spending plan in the main estimates reflects requests from the taxpayer of about $19,189,000. That's what I see in the main estimates, and folks in my community are wondering why the spending has gone from about $11 million just a few years ago to about $19 million. They ask what has changed that would fully account for the large increase--has there been a lot of staff added, or does more travel in Canada come out of this increase? Help us with that.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Yes, thank you for that question.

    The increases to the main estimates have been approved by Treasury Board ministers and by Parliament over the past four years and have covered funding for the following purposes: first of all, to strengthen the visitors services program at Rideau Hall as a national historic site; to promote the national honours program and to increase awareness about the public nominations process involved in these awards; to cover the costs of an increase in state ceremonial activities--for example, the greater number of incoming state visits to Canada as well as an additional bravery and Order of Canada ceremony; to fund a new Southwest Asia Medal and the Order of Merit of the Police Services; to mark the 50th anniversary of Canadian Governors General, which did include some regional travel, and I will go into some more detail on that; to improve the information technology services of the department to meet government-wide standards on online service delivery to Canadians; to meet occupational health and safety standards in the workplace; and finally, to fund increases in our core operational requirements.

    If it would please the committee, I would be glad to go through a breakdown year by year.

¹  (1555)  

    Mr. Paul Forseth: I would just say that probably not at this point, but perhaps after you leave today you could supply to the committee more detailed information in paper submission form about what you've said.

    I'd like to ask a follow-up. I hear in the media there's a so-called barn on the property that's getting a big upgrade or a makeover. Can you tell us what this is all about? Why, and how much? And is this spending also coming out of this increase to the $19 million?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I will go back to your first question, Mr. Forseth, to answer your second question. You asked about staff increases, and that is certainly one of the factors in terms of core operational requirements. We have made an addition of 45 staff in the last four years, and that's in order to serve the program that I've outlined in my remarks.

    With respect to the so-called barn you mentioned, it is actually a stable that is an historic building, one of the many buildings that exists on the Rideau Hall property, which, as you know, was acquired by the government following Confederation. This stable has been restored by the National Capital Commission to accommodate staff. Part of the reason for that was not only the addition of new staff but to meet the occupational and health issues I mentioned.

    Rideau Hall is both the official residence of the Governor General and her workplace and the workplace of the office that supports her. It's a very old building that had a number of serious health and safety violations, so to address those the National Capital Commission, which manages the property, along with the other official residences, recommended changes.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: So essentially what's happened is this building, which is a very historic building, has been turned into an office building, I take it?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: That's correct, and if I might, the cost has been borne by the National Capital Commission.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: And how much is that? You can ballpark it.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I'm in no position to answer for another government department's expenses.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Perhaps you could find that out for us and table that later with the committee as to how much it cost.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I would ask that the NCC, the National Capital Commission, provide that, because I can't answer for the expenditures of another government department.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Yes, because this is part of another global question, which is that I take it that when the Governor General travels, especially to visit military, there's military spending involved; there's a lot of security spending that may be in RCMP; and then there are also a lot of ground improvements, and, as you said, the building that is under National Capital Commission, so that's spending.

    Do you have, even in a ballpark figure, when you add up all this other peripheral spending, a figure for how much the whole entity of the Governor General is costing per year?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: No, I cannot... I can tell you that other government departments do provide support for the Governor General, and you've named some already. There is the National Capital Commission in terms of the maintenance of the Rideau Hall grounds and residence; the Department of National Defence in terms of military support in her capacity as commander in chief, as well as travel; the RCMP in terms of security; and other government departments, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Canadian Heritage, in terms of royal visits and other state ceremonial occasions.

    I don't manage their budgets, so I'm not in a position to answer you with respect to the specific amounts they spend on providing this support.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: I'll come back in another round, but I would think that perhaps in future years as part of some kind of annual reporting at least someone ought to be accountable to at least pull all this information together and acknowledge in some report, on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer, just how much is being spent globally. At least we should all know what those figures are.

    I'll wait for another round. Thank you.

º  (1600)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Forseth.

    Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    First of all, thank you. I am very familiar with the Royal Prerogative, which enables you not to testify, but I believe that, when sums as large as $19 million are being spent, all Canadians and Quebeckers feel it is natural to come and at least account, not for the work you're doing, but for the amounts that are being spent, and I congratulate and thank you for that.

    However, I have two separate questions to ask. I'm not a constitutional expert, but, under the Constitution, it's only a custom for the Governor General to represent Canada abroad. She is here to represent the Queen in Canada. Where does this custom of the Governor General representing Canada abroad come from, and why? There is nothing in the Constitution permitting her to do so; she's not an ambassador of Canada. If she isn't an ambassador, why does she use amounts of money from a department instead of spending money from her own budget? That's the first question.

    Second, you say that the National Capital Commission is responsible for renovations, maintenance and so on and renovates and maintains Rideau Hall. That's only hearsay, but we have learned that a chief of staff or someone like that apparently lives on site in a residence that was renovated at a cost of roughly half a million dollars. Is that correct, and were those renovations paid for out of the Governor General's budget or by the NCC?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck:

    With regard to your first question, I could answer you by saying that, as the de facto Head of State and on notice from the Prime Minister, the Governor General conducts state visits to represent Canada. It is not the Queen who represents Canada abroad, it is the Governor General, and that is a tradition. The Queen represents England. All the predecessors of the present Governor General have conducted state visits at the Prime Minister's request and on recommendation by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The purpose of those state visits is of course to promote our foreign policy objectives.

    As to the renovations, I believe you're referring to the house in which I live as part of my duties. I'm at the Governor General's service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every Governor General's secretary has lived in that house since Lord Dufferin's time. I can assure you that I pay rent in accordance with Treasury Board regulations. As for the renovations that have been made, I must say that the house was built in 1867 and that the renovations were recommended by my predecessor, together with the NCC. The NCC paid the cost of the renovations in order to preserve a historic house which ultimately is part of the government's national heritage.

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    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: You live there with your family?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: That's correct.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: I would like to know who decides on the state visits. You tell me they are conducted at the request of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Are they or the Governor General entirely responsible for organizing those foreign trips?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: The Governor General is consulted, of course, but the trips are nevertheless selected by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Monsieur Lanctôt.

    Before I move to Mr. Martin, I should say that the member of the committee from the Progressive Conservative Party is the Right Honourable Joe Clark, and he has recused himself, because the item in the budget is the Ray Hnatyshyn Fund, and I believe he's associated with that. He's on the board of advisors, or he has some capacity with that, so he felt it was inappropriate for him to be here today. Otherwise, I suspect he would have been.

    Mr. Martin.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Thank you for letting me know that.

    Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Uteck, for being here.

    I'm interested in one question that was raised by Mr. Clark, actually, at previous meetings and others as well. Up until fairly recently, I'm told, the Governor General was not supposed to travel outside of Canada unless he or she was in the company of a cabinet minister, so that there could be no confusion as to who is speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada.

    Do you know of that policy, and do you know approximately when that policy may have changed?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I don't believe that the policy has changed, Mr. Martin. When the Governor General has travelled abroad on the state visits that she has done, and she has done four since becoming Governor General, she has always travelled accompanied by a minister of the Crown, Minister Anderson.

    Mr. Pat Martin: In actual fact it would be more accurate to say that the minister of the Crown who's going along with the Governor General is speaking on behalf of Canada. The Governor General may in fact be speaking on behalf of the Queen. Is that accurate? In the event that a message is to be given—

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I would say that the minister is speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada and that the Governor General is representing Canada as the de facto head of state.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Okay, fair enough.

    I have some specific questions. I hope you might have your budget in detail there. Who is Hawk Communications of Moncton, New Brunswick? It says that in 2001-2002 you hired Hawk Communications from Moncton, New Brunswick, for $132,000. What would that contract be about?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I would ask my director of finance, Ms. Mackenzie, to reply to that one.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie (Director of Finance, Office of the Governor General): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Hawk Communications was a firm that was selected through a competitive process to undertake for the office advertising or marketing initiatives when we were talking about the citizen access initiatives that we got underway. They were our firm of record to assist us. A small organization like ours does not have a lot of in-house staff that could provide some of the marketing skills.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Would that have been done through Public Works on their pre-approved list of—

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Yes, it went through Public Works. They advised us, and it was a full competitive process.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Who are BWB Services of Ottawa?

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: BWB Services of Ottawa are the—how would I call them—catering contract or consulting. They provide the extra help services. BWB stands for “bartenders, waiters, and busboys”.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Fair enough. Okay, thank you, I don't need to know anything about that then.

    Under other professional services, though, there's another $1.133 million for other professional services above and beyond training, education, busboys. For instance, what other services? You have quite a detailed list of what other services it might be, but in addition to all of those, there's $1.133 million in other professional services. What would that budget line be all about?

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    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: I haven't come as prepared as I could for that answer, but I will give you what I know is in there. For sure there would be professional services for informatics if we would have had any—

    Mr. Pat Martin: That's separate, informatics services.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: I'm sorry. Consultant services are there as a separate line, are they?

    Mr. Pat Martin: Yes.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Are training services there as a separate line?

    Mr. Pat Martin: Yes.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: And temporary help and agencies.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Yes, and other business services are another separate line of $230,000.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Okay, are translation services?

    Mr. Pat Martin: No, possibly some translation. Maybe you could ask—

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: That sounds high, but I could certainly provide a breakdown of who's in there.

    Mr. Pat Martin: We'd be quite interested in seeing that, given that all of the other things are broken out. Informatics is broken out and BWB Services, legal services, personnel extra services, special fees and services, training and education services, other business services. Then under other professional services there is this further amount of $1.1 million. That's a lot of contracts. It's a total of $2.1 million contracted out.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: What I would suspect is that there were a lot of small contracts in there as well. But I will provide a list for you.

    Mr. Pat Martin: One last specific question. Who is Maureen Boyd of Rockcliffe, Ontario?

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Maureen Boyd was a communications adviser.

    Mr. Pat Martin: An amount of $124,000 per year for a communications adviser.

    And non-professional contracted services is over $500,000 per year. What would that be, then, as opposed to other professional services?

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: And BWB doesn't appear under non-professional services?

    Mr. Pat Martin: Non-professional contracted services are $606,000 per year, $580,000 per year, $734,000 per year... BWB Services is a completely separate column.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: I'm sorry, I can't answer. I will have to get back to the committee on that. I apologize.

    Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I think some of that detailed information would be interesting to all of us.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Martin.

    I suspect a large part of that will be located within the already published public accounts, but I would appreciate any clarification you can provide for us, Ms. Mackenzie.

    Now I have Madam Sgro and Mr. Pacetti, and then I believe I'm back to Mr. Benoit, Mr. Epp, and Ms. Bennett.

    Judy, would you like to go first?

    Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): Ms. Uteck and Ms. Mackenzie, thank you very much. It certainly sounds as if you've gone out of your way to ensure that you were here before us today.

    I'm sorry I missed it, but I think the question was asked: how many people actually work within the Office of the Governor General?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: There are 180 employees in the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: As much as it's terrific that you are here, was there no one else who could give the committee the preliminary information that we were requiring today without having to have you come back all this distance to appear before us for a few questions? I appreciate the fact that you've made the effort, but...

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: The other person who might have been able to come is also on the state visit with the Governor General, so really it was a matter of one of us coming back.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Was there no one else in the department, out of the 180, who deals with the finances to the extent that...

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I think it would be fair to say, other than the other deputy secretary and Ms. Mackenzie, there is no one else who has the complete overview of the full operation of the department.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Who oversees and authorizes the expenditure in the Governor General's office? One of the things we're trying to do as a committee is to understand the role of Treasury Board and the Department of Finance, and so on. Where does the Governor General's office fit in this puzzle that we are trying to sort our way through?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: All of our budgets are part of the annual estimates process. As such, our submissions are routed to Parliament through Treasury Board ministers in the same way as all other government departments are. I would point out, however, that in our case there is an additional level of scrutiny by the Privy Council Office, because it is the Prime Minister who signs our Treasury Board submissions.

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    Ms. Judy Sgro: So when you're putting your budget and estimates together for the upcoming year, as other departments do, do you meet with Treasury Board to discuss those and to review them?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Absolutely.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: What about the Department of Finance? Do you have any kind of relationship with them?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: No. As part of the process of preparing our budgets, we meet on a regular basis with the Treasury Board officials as we're developing and determining what our requirements are.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Given the fact that there has been a 64% increase in the budget, is there not, as part of our own processes, a listing? Given a 64% increase, and given the fact that the Governor General has broadened Canada's visibility in so many ways and is certainly strengthening a lot of different areas, is there not a package of what it costs to run the Governor General's office? That would include the National Capital Commission and what it spends. Is this all not put into one particular package somewhere in the Government of Canada, as it would be in some of the other departments?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: No, it's not, other than the reporting that we do through public accounts at the end of every year.

    My understanding is that Treasury Board in the 1980s had a committee that was charged with estimates reform. At that time, because of the special status, it was decided to exempt Parliament, the House of Commons, the Senate, the Library of Parliament, the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service from the requirement to file part III of the estimates. So our reporting is done, as I say, through public accounts at the end of every year.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: It's part of the larger package that's there.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: That's correct.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Can you give us an idea of how much time you would spend on the budget with Treasury Board or Privy Council, or whoever it is you're working with on the budget? Is it a 15-minute visit, or how long would it be?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: If I might, Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask JoAnn Mackenzie to take that question.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Thank you.

    Our department, like other government departments, is scrutinized when we're preparing our main estimates and then with the OAG's office when we prepare our public accounts. So it is not a rubber stamp.

    I think perhaps there is an impression that if the Prime Minister has signed off on our submission, there isn't a challenge role there. I have to reassure you that there is a challenge role that we do face, by our colleagues at the Treasury Board Secretariat. Also, we do have to negotiate where our funding sources are going to come from—I think that was part of your question on the Department of Finance's role, as well—so that there can't be any surprises.

    We have to prepare our increased budgetary requirements in consultation with PCO as well, mostly again because of the routing that our submissions and our requests go through and we're going to the Prime Minister to have them signed off. We want to ensure that machinery of government is comfortable with the messages and where we're going with some of our programs.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: When you submit some additional information, could you get us a consolidated look at various departments?

    You mentioned the National Capital Commission, Foreign Affairs, and HRDC, and I think there are a few other departments that assist the Governor General's department and her role. Could you include with the additional information a report on that, and on other departments and their contribution to the Governor General's office?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I'd be glad to do that. As I said before, I can tell you which departments support the Governor General. I'd be glad to provide that to you in writing if that would be helpful.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Could we get the financial contribution for the last couple of years?

    The Chair: Yes, Madam Sgro.

    If you would undertake to provide us with that list... I have already asked the researcher. They will assemble it for us, rather than asking you to do it, because they have better access across than you would.

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    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Okay, Mr. Pacetti.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for appearing before us.

    I have just a quick question. In regard to the Queen's visit last year, would that fall under the Governor General's department?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: No. All royal visits and state ceremonial functions are managed by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

    I suppose the one small exception to that would be that Her Majesty stayed at Rideau Hall for three of the days that she was in Canada, so we would have paid for the hospitality, obviously, of having her in the house.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Benoit.

    Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Welcome.

    I would like to start by saying that Her Excellency the Governor General has done a marvellous job in dealing with ceremonies recognizing our armed forces. I have attended some of those, and she truly has done a remarkable job. I really appreciate that.

    Having said that, I do feel that there are some huge gaps in an explanation of funding, particularly from other departments and agencies, and we're apparently going to find out somehow here, over time, just how much money the Governor General's office does cost, not only from the budget that's allocated but from other budgets.

    Could you just explain, as a way of trying to get at that, why it has been necessary to add 45 staff over the last four years? That's a huge increase out of a total staff of 180, which, by the way, is much larger than I would have expected for the Governor General's office.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I could give you a breakdown of the increases in staff. A number of them were to augment the visitor services program. In other words, as I said to you in my remarks, there are a number of tours provided. The house is open year-round. There are specialized tours to describe the history of the house and the history of the grounds; educational materials for school children, who visit on a regular basis; specialized exhibitions on history and Canadian art; a visitor centre, which obviously needs to be staffed, where visitors who enter the grounds can go for an introduction to the history of the office and the residence; and a small gift shop that is attached to the visitors interpretation centre.

    The second area for an increase in the staff is the honours secretariat, where, as I described to you in my remarks, there have been increases owing to changes in our demographics and the growing Canadian population. There have been increases in nominations to the Order of Canada, to the Caring Canadian Award, and to the bravery awards. In order to provide the appropriate level of research and analysis of the nominations that come forward, we have required additional employees.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: To me, listening to you, it would indicate a growing bureaucrac—a huge, rapidly growing bureaucracy—with a huge spending increase. What is the Governor General doing now that past Governors General just weren't doing?

    There has to be some value for the money. Surely past Governors General did a good job in carrying out the responsibilities. How is it that there have been such huge increases over the past couple of years?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Well, as I just said, for example, the increase to the honours program is a reflection of changes in our population, the demographics of our population and the numbers in our population.

    As well, there's the creation of new medals. A medal was created through the work of the honours policy committee, and so on, to honour those who served in southwest Asia, as well as our police forces.

    I can say also that a number of the increases in staff were to improve our information technology capacity, and that's part of serving Canadians in a modern, informative way.

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    Mr. Leon Benoit: In a more general way, who has determined that it's necessary to increase the Governor General's role in this way, thereby causing this huge increase in expenditure?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I don't believe it's tied to the role, Mr. Benoit. The Governor General is doing the job that she has been asked to do to the very best of her ability. Some of what I have described to you would be happening with any Governor General, and some of it is to support an active program. I think it balances out that way.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: In fact, you've said that a lot of this is work that would have been done by past Governors General. Well, the increase in budget is very noticeable. The increase in staff is very noticeable.

    Again, is it the Governor General's office, the Governor General herself in this case, that has determined that it's necessary to do all these extra things that weren't done before, for her to be carrying out her responsibility to the country in a way that's acceptable to Canadians?

    The Chair: I'm just signalling to Mr. Benoit that it's time to draw his question to a close, because we have to move on.

    You may reply.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Let me respond to your question, Mr. Benoit, in that a number of the changes that I have described in the requirements for an increase in staff have to do with the evolving nature of the office, which is in part the degree to which this Governor General is fulfilling the office and in part the requirements that any government department has for a modern, accessible office that responds to Canadians.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Then another question, to follow up on that, is who has determined that the evolution that leads to this extra cost is necessary?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I think it's a natural part of the process of how we have evolved as a country, if you look at the history of the institution since 1952, when a Canadian was first appointed as Governor General.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I also assume that you go through the standard budgeting process, as other departments. You put forward your basic yearly requirements and requests for program enhancements like everybody else would.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: That's correct.

    The Chair: We are almost out of time. I'm going to allow Mr. Epp, who has not had an opportunity, to ask a question, and Mr. Lee, if you wish to, I would allow you also to formulate one well-crafted question.

    Mr. Epp.

    Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I would just remind you that we started ten minutes late, so I guess that's what happened here.

    Anyway, I thank you for being here. I'll forget all the preliminaries, all the niceties. Just take them for granted. In the interest of time, I have some succinct questions.

    First of all, who does your audits?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I'll ask Ms. Mackenzie to answer that.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: If you're referring to our annual attest audit for the public accounts, it would be the Office of the Auditor General.

    Something that I think everyone should bear in mind is that we are treated like other government departments. From the minute we prepare a budget until the very end, through public accounts, we go through every exercise that other government departments would do.

    Annually, we prepare our public accounts statements. In years past, the Auditor General's office would work with our office. They would come in and conduct their annual attest audit. They would consult us if we had any other special areas that we wanted them to check. Because they knew we were a small agency, if we had an area of concern or an area in which they had a concern, we would welcome them to come in and work with us and help us address those issues.

    We have also conducted internal studies or evaluations of programs that we wanted to address as well—for instance, our informatics technology plan. We clearly felt that our informatics area was just not quite meeting it, so we went to PricewaterhouseCoopers and asked them to evaluate our systems and our capabilities to meet the requirements.

    Following that evaluation, we then went to Treasury Board with a plan. Their experts examined our plan, and they approved and recommended the funding we went forward with.

    That's just one example of the type of internal evaluation that we carry on.

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    Mr. Ken Epp: So in the last four years, your increase in budget of over 70% hasn't been questioned by anyone.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Annually, any of these increases when we go forward are challenged by the board and when we're going through PCO. So it's not a rubber-stamp exercise.

    At the end of the year, on the public accounts side as well, when they are filed, our colleagues—well, they're arm's length—over at the OAG's office go over our books.

    Mr. Ken Epp: In other words, in the end, the cabinet approved it and it's gone.

    We need to move on.

    The Chair: I think it's arguable that we have failed in our responsibilities. It's we who have dropped the ball on this one.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, we'll do our job better from now on.

    The Chair: Mr. Epp, one final question.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I just have one more quick question.

    There has been so much controversy about this trip. I would like to know who made the decision to take so many representative Canadians on this trip instead of having a small group, having the same impact with a small number at, say, one-third the cost, because the cost is horrendous.

    In my office I've had a lot of people say, “What's going on here? That's my money. I'm having trouble making ends meet, and you're spending it as if it just doesn't matter.”

    So I would like to know who made the decision to have so large a contingent go on this trip, with the ensuing huge costs.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Mr. Epp, it's the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade that recommends state visits to the Prime Minister. State visits by Governors General have traditionally included an accompanying delegation. In the same way the Prime Minister takes business leaders on his Team Canada missions to promote trade, the Governor General takes an accompanying delegation of a variety of Canadians—scientists, academics, artists, northerners, and aboriginal people—to represent the full diversity of Canada and to engage in people-to-people diplomacy, which opens many doors in the countries with whom we wish to build relations.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Mr. Chairman, that's an answer I expected. But my question is, who made the decision?

    The Chair: Mr. Epp, whoa, whoa.

    Mr. Ken Epp: I want to know.

    The Chair: I understand that you wish to know, Mr. Epp, and I would love to sit here and listen, but your time is actually up. And I do have two other people who have not yet had a chance to ask a question, because I avoided Madam Bennett on my way round there. I do think it's worth taking the time to get through each one of these questions.

    I appreciate, Ms. Uteck, the fulsomeness of your answers—and yours, too, Ms. Mackenzie. I thought that last one was excellent.

    Madam Bennett.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): I just have to comment on the irony of this line of questioning in a week when we should be celebrating that The Economist actually said that “Canadian writers and other cultural figures enjoy unprecedented international success”. So we are doing something right. And I have to say that most of my constituents have been amazed at the fabulous job the Governor General has done, and have welcomed the fact that a lot of things have been done in a hugely different and better way.

    I'd like to know what money we're saving on the Governor General writing her own speeches, actually.

    I think there are some wonderful things we've enjoyed with this Governor General, including opening up the facilities. I'm lucky in St. Paul's, because we have been able to bring a busload of constituents down once a year and to see the building and the new welcome centre. The fact that it is their place is a very important message, and I thank you for that.

    Regarding value for money, I think I do feel better hearing that there is a challenge function at Treasury Board. I want to know, really, what you've ever thought about. And since I initially thought of my question, maybe you've answered it around IT or various other things... But also, there is the need to discuss with PCO the increased budget requirement. So I guess it's a process thing more than the numbers.

    I actually had a constituent say “How the hell did they take all those people for only $1 million?”

    Is it not true that the host countries do pay for most of the meals and all of that? How much does the host country pay when you go abroad?

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    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I'm not really in a position to answer that.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Is that for DFAIT...

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Yes, for DFAIT.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: But we pay a bunch when they come to visit us, right?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Absolutely.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: So there's a certain tit-for-tat in all of this. Okay.

    So tell me just a little bit about the process, both at the Treasury Board and the PCO level, for expanding a budget. Just explain that it's not a rubber-stamp statement.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I'll ask Ms. Mackenzie to answer that.

    Ms. JoAnn Mackenzie: Our office follows the same process as our colleagues in other government departments do. We receive the same call letters, the same requirements for the schedules, and the same dialogue goes on. We have a Treasury Board analyst, just like anyone else who comes in here. We have to go over what our requirements are. When we're going through the Treasury Board submission, we have to find a funding source, which we know in this town is not always easy.

    Even when we're going through the Treasury Board process and all of the technical requirements, assuming now that we have our Treasury Board submission prepared, we would be talking to the machinery of government at PCO.

    Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Can I interrupt? One of the things we keep talking to Treasury Board about is the results-based management. A lot of the questions are surrounding value for money. What are the metrics or how do we know about the value for money in this office?

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: One of the ways we measure is by the public response we have. For example, when I've talked about what we've done in terms of visitor services, as I said in my statement, we have had over a million visitors in the last eight years. I can tell you that in the past year we had 160,000 people visit the grounds, and we had 44,000 people attend special public events. The Governor General received 4,000 invitations and letters. We've sent out over 25,000 anniversary messages. This is one of the ways in which we measure the success of what we're doing.

    The Chair: Thank you, Madam Uteck.

    Mr. Lee, do you wish to take advantage of your opportunity?

    Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you.

    I would like to follow along the same line as Ms. Bennett. I'm one of those who think we probably did get very good value from the Governor General's expenditures.

    Ms. Mackenzie mentioned that the process occurs and your budget gets approved by somebody.

    At the end of the day, what we're grappling with in this committee, Mr. Chairman, is that they don't approve the appropriation—none of them do. We do, here in Parliament. So we're grappling with the appropriation procedure, with what we should be doing with an office where we haven't done this with the Crown, with the King, perhaps forever. Perhaps this is the first time we're actually looking at the King and saying, could we talk about how you generate your spending needs?

    The Auditor General, Ms. Mackenzie, looks at things after you spend it. He looks at accounting procedures. That's too late for us. We want to look at this before we close the barn door after the horse has left. We have to appropriate. And I'm curious about how adversarial that Treasury Board process is. This is adversarial in this room. Who puts the Governor General to the test, from time to time, in justifying expenditures and expenditure increases and programs?

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    Ms. Barbara Uteck: Mr. Lee, the process with Treasury Board ministers is such that if the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General seeks additional funding, it's within the purview, obviously, of Treasury Board ministers to refuse, to not make a recommendation to Parliament that you would then approve. That's fully within the purview of Treasury Board ministers.

    Mr. Derek Lee: You think we could refuse the royal recommendation of the King. I'm confused. There's some humour buried in there. It's constitutional.

    The Chair: It is an interesting point, Mr. Lee, which I'm sure we'll debate at some length.

    Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Forseth, did you have a final question?

    Mr. Paul Forseth: You mention the Prime Minister's Team Canada approach in business leaders going abroad, which seems to serve Canada's interest, but business leaders pay their own way. In this last trip, the 60 individuals went at the taxpayers' tab. I was wondering who decided that the nature of the trip would be like that.

    Ms. Barbara Uteck: I would say that it's the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in keeping with a long-established tradition of Governors General taking an accompanying delegation with them. In terms of who the actual people are who are on that delegation, our office works very closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to research who would be appropriate to represent Canada in the cultural, scientific, and academic fields with a view to advancing our foreign policy objectives on the trip.

    There were a number of conversations.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Forseth and members.

    I simply want to end with a couple of comments.

    Today is extraordinary only in that we have not been doing it every year. And that, I think, arises in part because of the unique relationship between the Governor General's office and the House of Commons. It is no different from what occurs with the Queen and the calling of the civil list in London. It is our goal to regularize these processes so that every time there is a main estimate, a supplementary estimate, etc., we do engage in these kinds of conversations for exactly the reasons that Ms. Mackenzie welcomes.

    I simply want to thank you very much for being here. I want to thank you for being so forthright and open about it. I think the more we normalize these processes the better we'll all be served.

    With that, members, I am going to take a pause while we get the next group to the table and then we'll keep on going. Thank you very much.

º  (1644)  

---

º  (1646)  

    The Chair: Okay, we're back into business.

    Perhaps I could have the attention of all concerned for a moment.

    Mr. Wright, perhaps you can help me walk my way through this next bit.

    The principle we're establishing here is simply that estimates don't pass without review. Rather than get into a great deal of depth on all of the estimates, because most of them are fairly straightforward, we try to afford the group that has the estimate before us an opportunity to explain it. Members can ask some questions and then probably on Wednesday we will convene a brief meeting to look at whether or not there's any particular one we wish to go into in more detail.

    Now, I have to take some responsibility for this dilemma here. When I went through the book I noticed the Privy Council Office and I said, well, let's call the Privy Council Office, forgetting that I have five separate entities within that. Normally we provide an hour to each group, because by the time we make an opening comment and we get a round of questions, an hour's gone.

    I'm saying this as much to the members as I am saying it to anyone else. I don't want to prevent any discussion of any particular estimate. Given that we put everybody on notice that this whole process would take about an hour and a half, that we'd be done by seven o'clock, I want to make sure we get everybody through it.

    Mr. Wright, you're at the table, and you're with the Privy Council Office directly, the associate secretary to the cabinet, deputy minister to the Deputy Prime Minister. Mr. Séguin is there. And Mr. MacDonald is also in the back there somewhere. Good. We have the heads of the various... We have all four of you at the table.

    Mr. Robert Wright (Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Deputy Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister and Security and Intelligence Coordinator, Privy Council Office): All four of us are here.

    The Chair: Have you thought through some sort of process for at least giving us an introductory comment on each one?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I think that would be the best bet, Mr. Chair, if we all give an overview. I'm open to my colleagues. Perhaps if they give their overview and you ask them questions that would be best.

    The Chair: Excellent. That way perhaps I could ask you to keep your remarks concise and to the point and then we'll open it up. I think that's the most efficient way to do it. Thank you very much.

    Perhaps each one of you, then, could situate yourself in terms of the group you're with here.

    Mr. Wright, take it away.

    Mr. Robert Wright: My name is Rob Wright, and I'm the associate secretary of the cabinet and deputy minister to the Deputy Prime Minister.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte (Chairperson, Public Service Staff Relations Board): I'm Yvon Tarte, chairperson of the Public Service Staff Relations Board.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon (Secretary, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat): I'm Stuart MacKinnon, secretary, the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias (Senior Vice-President, Learning and Leadership Centres, Canadian Centre for Management Development): And I'm Denise Boudrias from Centre canadien de gestion.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Perhaps I'll commence.

[Translation]

    Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure for me to come and meet the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. As you mentioned, I'm accompanied by Mr. Gérard Séguin.

[English]

    As I indicated in French, I'm very pleased to appear before this committee today to talk about supplementary estimates (A), funding for the Privy Council Office.

    Our last appearance before this committee was in March 2003, regarding supplementary estimates (B) of the 2002-03 fiscal year. All requests before you today have received prior approval by the Treasury Board and they are fully consistent with the spending projections for 2003-04 set out by the finance minister in the budget 2003, which was tabled on February 18, 2003.

[Translation]

    Supplementary Estimates (A) of Vote 1 of the Privy Council Office is for $26,285,562.

[English]

    I would now like to summarize very briefly the supplementary estimates (A) resource requirements for you. These supplementary estimates were for the following items: $11.96 million for funding of the urban aboriginal strategy and the federal interlocutor; $6.209 million for the operation of the Indian Specific Claims Commission in this fiscal year; $2.651 million for the action plan for official languages, being managed by Monsieur Dion; $1.357 million for the continued operation of the task force on modernizing human resources management in the public service, for preparatory work associated with human resource modernization this fiscal year; and finally, $4.109 million for additional operating costs related to workload increases in the Privy Council Office.

º  (1650)  

[Translation]

    In closing, I would like to thank you for allowing me these few minutes to inform you about the initiatives contained in Supplementary Estimates (A) for the 2003-2004 fiscal year.

[English]

    I'd be very pleased to answer any questions you have on these estimates after my colleagues have a chance to open.

    Monsieur Tarte.

[Translation]

    M. Yvon Tarte: Mr. Chair, committee members,

[English]

the amount of $1.8 million included in the 2003-2004 supplementary estimates (A) for the PSSRB is required to ensure an adequate and appropriate transition from the existing labour relations and human resources regimes to the new structures and processes envisaged by the Public Service Modernization Act, Bill C-25, which is presently at third reading in the Senate. This transitional funding is conditional on royal assent being given to Bill C-25.

[Translation]

    Under the terms of the authorization submitted for inclusion in the 2003-2004 Supplementary Estimates (A), the power to allocate all or part of the amounts required is delegated to the Treasury Board Secretary on the condition that he meet all conditions and requirements.

[English]

    The amount of $1.84 million can be divided into two parts. The first $940,000 is to ensure the transition of the PSSRB, the institution that I chair, to the new Public Service Labour Relations Board under Bill C-25.

    The new legislation, the PSLRA, provides for a restructured board with new responsibilities. A new regulatory and operational framework will have to be developed, in close consultation with our clients, the employers, and the unions in the federal public sector.

[Translation]

    In addition, the act and regulations which we administer respecting labour relations in Parliament will have to be amended to reflect the Commission's new structure.

[English]

    Significant changes in the area of conflict resolution and labour management cooperation under the new legislation will require additional resources to cope with increased training, interventions, and system design assistance to the parties, our clients.

    The compensation, research, and analysis function of the new board will require the creation of a new small research analysis unit, as well as the setting up of the statutory advisory committee. The board's case management system, its Internet-Intranet sites, as well as its forms, stationery, signs, and so on, will all have to be changed. Needless to say, this work will be carried out while continuing to administer the current legislation during the proposed one-year transition period leading to proclamation. The PSSRB will therefore require additional resources during this period.

[Translation]

    Those then are the main reasons why the Commission has made this request for authorization of an amount of $940,000.

[English]

    The second $900,000 was attributed to us by the Treasury Board to ensure the necessary funding and administrative support for the new Public Service Staffing Tribunal, which will be completely independent of our board. This was done in part to enable preparatory spending until the establishment of a financial authority for the Public Service Staffing Tribunal, and in part because of the possibility that our tribunal would provide all administrative services to the new staffing tribunal.

[Translation]

    I'll be pleased to answer any question there may be.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: Mr. Chair, committee members,

[English]

we're here today, six months after the previous appearance, to look at the funding for 2003-04, which had been previously approved by Treasury Board.

    The question for us is really a matter of bringing the actual funding up to the level of conference activity that has been necessary to support. For the past five years we've been operating on a budget of approximately 90 conferences a year, when in fact we have been serving an average of 100. This year just ended, we had 117 conferences. So this is really fixing the funding gap for us so that in future years we won't have to come back for supplementary estimates, which we've had to do for many years.

    We came before you in March for the supplementary estimates, $1.3 million, and we are now here dealing with the amount that would be sufficient to deal with the ongoing conferences for this year. We've already served, since we met with you, over 70 conferences dealing with many issues of interest and importance to Canada and Canadians.

º  (1655)  

[Translation]

    I believe that's all for the moment. I'll be very pleased to answer members' questions, Mr. Chair.

    Mme Denise Boudrias : Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen members of the committee,

[English]

CCMD was created in 1991 and given a $10 million appropriation to serve training and development needs. We've seen an increasing demand. From 3,000 people in classrooms in 1998-99, we're now up to 18,000 participants in classroom events, e-learning, people from the national level, as well as regional or territorial.

    We have now a cost-recovery reliance to go through. From 31% in 1998-99 that justified our prices, we now have to cost-recover 44%, through our courses and through the delivery everywhere in the country.

[Translation]

    In 2001, in the context of Program Integrity, we were given a two-year allowance to provide new programs to managers and to offer a modern and technological approach in our information sessions everywhere.

[English]

    This money has made it possible to reduce our prices by 50% in regions and territories, because of the travelling. So now we go into regions and we can offer that. It has made it possible, as well, to upgrade our offerings in French, where sometimes there are not enough people for the cost recovery but we don't want to discriminate against any group or any region or sector.

    What we would do as well with the money, if Parliament agrees, is to continue initiatives for deputy ministers, associate deputy ministers, and assistant deputy ministers for the orientation program. We will pursue answering learning needs for middle managers, in consultation with the employer.

    Few courses have been done, but we have new courses that we want to put forward. One is about managing public funds. And I think it's a good opportunity, as well as good labour-management relations, with all the changes if Bill C-25 passes third reading in the Senate, that we build new ways of co-developing, with the unions and with management, courses about principles and practices that should be the way to go in labour management.

    As well, we have round tables and advanced seminars. We now have special seminars on a new North American relationship between Canada and the U.S., and we want to pursue those seminars because it's very good to know how we build collaboration with other countries.

[Translation]

    We're here to support deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers. We're now working with agency heads as well; we determine needs for the agency heads. We even handle requests for parliamentarians, that is to say what we could do in addition. But without additional funds, we can't take on new duties.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Let's begin our round. I will start with Mr. Forseth.

»  (1700)  

    Mr. Paul Forseth: I would like further explanation from the representatives of the Public Service Staff Relations Board about their current appropriations and their ability to plan for the future if, as we get into Bill C-25, there's going to be a world of uncertainty and it's going to be difficult to financially plan. I would also like to talk about whether they're sufficiently resourced or if there is really a wish list that's not really represented in the current estimates.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: We are sufficiently, albeit just sufficiently, financed to conduct our affairs as they stand now. The transitional funding we've requested is contingent on Bill C-25 passing. If Bill C-25 does pass, we will need those finances to increase our resources to do what's required during the transition period to make sure we are ready to operate when the proclamation comes in. That would include many of the things I've mentioned and more.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: When the legislation was written, obviously, there would have been some ballpark costing—crystal ball gazing, anyway—and some projections. Do you have an idea of what it has been estimated your cost will be once the full Bill C-25 transition period is over and you're fully in gear with that new legislation in a couple of years?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: Without our having made any detailed estimate, it is certain that once the new legislation is in place—if it is put in place—our reference levels will have to be readjusted and our annual budget will reflect that fact. Our staff will probably grow from what it is now at about 55 employees to 85 to 90 employees to take into account many of the new functions in conflict resolution, in collective bargaining, in adjudication of human rights issues, in pay research data analysis, etc. Our financial resources will probably double from the $6.2 million they are now to $12 million, most of which will go to research and analysis.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay, that's a good idea.

    With respect to the Canadian Centre for Management Development, there are great plans, but one of my concerns is about enabling sufficient lower-level public servants to attend and receive your services across the country. Often training units have had a problem in that they can get staff, hire contract people, design courses, consider needs, and do needs analysis and all that, but they get really tight when it comes to say class or seminar size, because where the student or individual comes from, they cannot get the leave, they cannot get the backfill money.

    I want to know about the backfill money when someone goes on a course or takes leave or whatever, because it relates to the success of your organization. Is that going to come from your organization or is it going to have to come from the particular departments? If it comes from the particular departments, there will probably be quite a salesmanship-PR role for you in that you're going to have to compete for dollars with other departmental priorities. I just want you to address that whole side of the funding. You obviously have plans for your own core operations, but it's this backfill funding to spring loose especially lower- and middle-level managers to access your organization I have a concern about.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I would say that the transition year we're asking for is really to prepare for Bill C-25. In the meantime, we've been working with deputy ministers, the employers, and different committees of ADMs to see what the Canadian school should be. We have channels across the country and have met with 750 people, and certainly the situation about money and travel came up everywhere. That is why we're working with employers to see, if there are mandatory programs for middle managers or senior managers, how the employer will give us the funding.

    On the other hand, departments have their own programs and we're not there to replace them. We are really there to complement what's being done by departments and agencies for corporate learning needs, and we are preparing for that with the professional development regional infrastructure. I would say the success of the school will be the partnership, how we will work all together to reduce our costs using technology, e-learning, ETV, teleconferencing across the country, and satellites so people can have access wherever they are.

    When we were in Moncton, people told us, Canada doesn't stop here, there's also Newfoundland. When we were in Montreal, people told us Quebec is not Montreal only, it's about Sherbrooke and it's about Abitibi. In Saskatchewan we heard the same thing. So there's really good comprehension about the situation, but because Bill C-25 has not been approved, we need that transition money to be ready on day one after royal assent to say we're operational; we're national, regional, or territorial, but we need that transition to make it happen. But it's for sure that everybody will have to compensate.

»  (1705)  

[Translation]

    We should all get together, if we want to succeed.

[English]

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

    The Chair: Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt : Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The first question I would like to raise with you concerns Vote 1a, Privy Council—Program and Expenditures and Contributions. With respect to those contributions, are issues such as housing allowances, which we saw in the Radwanski affair, part of this section?

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: Which vote is it, sir?

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: It's Vote 1a, Privy Council—Program Expenditures and Contributions. I would like to know whether housing allowance contracts such as those we saw in the Radwanski case are part of this kind of contribution?

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: Well, of the additional operating costs, the $4.1 million, none of that is for housing, in answer to the honourable member's question. That is for general workload increases in the Privy Council Office.

    It's been about six years since there was an adjustment for the overall workload increase of PCO, so it's for people and it's particularly to respond to increased legal counsel requirements for some of the processes that were underway vis-à-vis recent electoral reforms and judicial challenges. There have been significant increases in workload in some areas of the program, including almost a 60% increase in correspondence this year.

    So it's generally a catch-up after six years of no increase for general workload, and it's generally to cover off people and related expenses. To my understanding--and I can confirm with the chairman that this is the case--there's no allowance for housing in this vote, sir.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: All right, there's none of that. Under what vote are the housing allowances that were granted to officials, Mr. Radwanski in particular and others, where applicable? Is that included under Vote 1a, 5a? Vote 5a is the Canadian Centre for Management Development, so it must absolutely be under Vote 1a.

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: I understand, and I've confirmed with Monsieur Séguin that there's no allowance of any sort for housing under vote 1a, sir.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Can it be found under another vote?

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: It must be under another vote. In terms of what these supplementary estimates are for, none of this relates to the sort of issue you're raising. But the question you're asking is where would that allowance—

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Under what vote is this kind of contract found?

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: It's not covered under our vote, sir, so I'd have to get back with a specific response to your question, but it's not in any of these votes.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: You don't know what vote we're talking about?

    M. Robert Wright : No, I don't know now.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: When those contracts are extended, is it you or someone else who grants those housing allowance contracts?

»  (1710)  

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: It's not me directly on any of those issues, again. And I regret if I'm not being helpful to you, but literally these are not covered in any way by these supplementary estimates, so I haven't been prepared to respond. And no, I personally do not get involved in authorizing such expenses.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Who usually approves them, if it isn't you?

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Wright, just for your information, I think the reason there may be a little confusion here is in the earlier discussion with Treasury Board—or no, I guess it was PWGSC—this issue did come up, and it was suggested that those questions would be more appropriately put to the PCO. So you have inherited that. But what we may do is if it does get into a policy area that you're not prepared to speak on, we could have Alex come and do it also.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Monsieur Tarte could maybe come in.

[Translation]

    M. Yvon Tarte: Mr. Chair, each agency is responsible for the relocation expenses of the members of its board. For example, at the Commission, when a member is appointed to sit on the Public Service Staff Relations Board, relocation expenses are covered by the Commission out of its budgets, in accordance with Treasury Board policies. At least, in our case, we comply with Treasury Board policies.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Thank you, Yvon. I have a question related to that. Was anyone besides Mr. Radwanski able to obtain contracts? We see that the policy or criteria are different. Someone just told us that they're different. Did anyone else have these kinds of contracts? Are you aware of that?

[English]

    The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr. Lanctôt, to keep... I should be a witness on this. We do have a letter from the Clerk of the Privy Council, because we asked that question directly to him, and he said no, that Mr. Radwanski was the only one as far as parliamentary officers go.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: But that's not the answer we got from the House. So I'm trying to determine whether those people are aware. They are financial management directors, so they should be able to tell me if they pay other people, if there are other contracts like this. There are people telling us there's only one contract, but the House leader told us that there are others and that that's been the case for a long time, even for a number of years. Financially, that must go through someone's hands, and I believe you're in a good position to tell us if there are others.

[English]

    Mr. Robert Wright: I'm afraid I don't have a response that I could be factual on at this point. I'm not aware of any other arrangement.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt : Mr. Wright, who could give us an answer?

    Mr. Robert Wright: It's possible for us, as Privy Council Office officials, to get an answer, but I'm here this evening to answer questions on the Supplement Estimates (A). So I'm sorry, but I don't have all the necessary information to answer your question.

    If you wish, I'd like to write a letter in response to that; that would suit me better. I've only been in this position for three months. It's a very specific question, and I would like to be accurate in my reply.

    M. Robert Lanctôt: Now I like your answer. If you tell me who can answer my question, that's already something.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Lanctôt.

    Mr. Wright, thank you also. Mr. Wright, when you write to us with that information, could you also include the specific Treasury Board guidelines, particularly when it involves public servants who may come here for an extended period of time, coming to town for three or four or five months when they may be essentially in travel status, prior to either settling here, or coming in for an extended assignment and then going back to their home region. I know there are guidelines for that, but we were a little unclear on that one point.

    Mr. Clark.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark (Calgary Centre, PC): Just to add to matters that aren't under these votes, which I think is the basis of the confusion here, it would be interesting to know if the guidelines normally limit compensation to one year, and if there has been any exception in the case of Mr. Radwanski, which I think is part of the issue here.

    Unless you're going to tell me that the $4 million in workload increases has to do with intelligence and security activities, I presume that those are questions that you put under another vote as well, are they?

    Mr. Robert Wright: In terms of what, Mr. Clark?

»  (1715)  

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Briefly, I'm interested in what appears to be an increase in the intelligence and security activity of Privy Council. I'm also interested in the degree to which there is an oversight capacity. SIRC exists for CSIS. There is no parallel activity, I think, for security information that might be gathered in other departments—DND, DFAIT, whatever, independent operations in PCO. We may not be able to pursue that here, but I'd like to know—

    Mr. Robert Wright: Actually, I am the security and intelligence coordinator, Mr. Clark, so really there is appropriate oversight, as you mentioned, for CSIS and for any equivalent process. CSE, which is an affiliate of DND, has an oversight and a commission to track what happens to make sure it's in accordance with its mandate. The RCMP, of course, has an oversight for its criminal and overall processes. But those are really the only direct security intelligence processes under way.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Maybe I could flag this for future discussion. My recollection of the establishment of SIRC was that it was put in place instead of going the route that other jurisdictions have taken of having parliamentary or congressional oversight. I in this committee and others members I think are interested in knowing how effective that oversight is and to whom SIRC is responsible. Their estimates come before some other committee.

    I'm also interested in the establishment of special responsibility with the Deputy Prime Minister, your own responsibilities in PCO. I think the field has changed, not simply because the issues have changed but because the response has, and I don't think that the parliamentary capacity to follow what is going on has changed commensurately. I'm interested in having that happen. I don't think that is under these estimates.

    Can I quickly come to funding for both the management centre and the intergovernmental conferences? Is there funding provided by provincial governments in either case? No?

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: In the case of the conference secretariat, there was a formula worked out at the beginning that the provinces would pay half the operating costs of the secretariat.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Then how is the province's interest expressed in establishing your priorities? I should remember this, but I don't.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: We have a group of representatives of the premiers; deputy ministers of intergovernmental affairs are considered to be our principals, our board of directors, as it were, and I am in frequent consultation with them. The information that is placed before Parliament very quickly goes to the provincial governments as well for their comments.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: You referred to a number of conferences that you undertake. The reason for the supplementary estimate, in fact, is that your activity outpaces your budgetary authority at this stage. What is the decision-making process, federal-provincial, as to what conferences the intergovernmental affairs secretariat sponsors?

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: From the very beginning it was the first ministers and those conferences that reported to first ministers, the Prime Minister and the premiers. The cut-off really is at the deputy minister level. We serve deputies, ministers, and first ministers. And—

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Has the growth... I'm sorry.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: We really do not have any discretion. If governments decide they're going to meet, we will serve that conference. We had some questions last time as well, “If you have run out of your money, why don't you stop serving?” I guess we'd give the same answer today. This was in March, just after the first ministers conference. I don't think that any government is going to want to hear that we're not going to serve you, Prime Minister and premiers, because we have run out of money.

    We have operated on that basis, with the approval of governments, over our 30 years of existence.

»  (1720)  

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Just so I am clear on this, the conferences that you hold would be mandated directly by first ministers, or is there a class of conference that is mandated by deputy ministers and by people who are acting in a delegated role from first ministers?

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: It would include any multilateral intergovernmental conference at the ministerial level or at the deputy ministerial level. Usually, these are clustered so that the deputy ministers are reporting to ministers, then possibly that ministerial conference will eventually report to the first ministers.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Okay, thanks.

    The Chair: Mr. Pacetti.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    There's a lot of information here. I guess my question is for Mr. Wright, first. On the breakdowns for the explanation, most of the money is coming in, in terms of the $26 million—most of it—but $9.6 million of that is going out. I see at the bottom it says “Transfer Payments”, contributions for the federal interlocutor's contribution program. What is left over? Why is it not all being transferred? How does that work?

    Mr. Robert Wright: The interlocutor funding is about $3 million. I'm trying to find the document you're referring to.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: In my book, the—

    The Chair: The supplementary estimates.

    Mr. Robert Wright: The money for the federal interlocutor and the urban aboriginal strategy is $11.9 million in total.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: That's right, $11.9 million, and the transfer is $9.6 million.

    Mr. Robert Wright: The transfer.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: At the bottom of the page.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Okay, I see what you're referring to, the total contributions. These are the contributions in total that are built into that estimate of $11.9 million. The federal interlocutor's contribution is $2.9 million. The urban aboriginal strategy is $6.7 million, plus the administrative costs of managing those contributions. If you add the administrative costs to those contributions of $9.6 million, you get to the total spending of $11.9 million.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Your department would absorb the administration costs, would it?

    Mr. Robert Wright: We are covering the administration costs in the vote, in the total of $11.959 million. So we receive enough money to grant the funds, but also to administer those grants, consistent with Treasury Board and other guidelines. In effect, we don't administer it; we seek others to support administering that in the regions, through the housing program, for example. That's where most of this money is spent; it's in the field, particularly, of course, for the housing program for the urban aboriginal strategy that is focused on eight cities, principally in western Canada, but also including Toronto.

»  (1725)  

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Why wouldn't it go to Indian Affairs, the whole...

    Mr. Robert Wright: Well, there are a number of programs that are managed out of the Privy Council Office related to Indian Affairs. You'll see that is the case with Indian specific land claims as well, in terms of issues that were managed at the centre. Given the unique nature of them, given the fact they're not into a stable program yet, the last federal budget provided $25 million to help the homeless and innovate for new programming on the aboriginal strategy. It's being managed out of an aboriginal strategy secretariat within our intergovernmental affairs and Privy Council Office. So it's unique, and I suppose until we get a stable program, the people should be put out into a department on an ongoing basis. It's being innovated outside of our secretariat on intergovernmental affairs.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Is that subject to overlapping, or is it a different program in itself? Would it not overlap with some of the other programs we have?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I guess you could question whether it overlaps with other programs, but since it's not for status Indians—it's for urban aboriginals—it was something that was really caught between the cracks in other administrations. So the government chose to innovate for that group, which isn't covered typically by programming out of status native programs in DIAND.

    We've had this urban aboriginal strategy since 1988, but the innovation since that time has led the secretariat to create some programs to innovate with some pilot projects to see whether we can really make a difference, as I say, in eight key cities, principally in western Canada. It's largely because it doesn't fit the key mandates that exist for status natives and aboriginal groups.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: This question is for everybody.

    What is the acquisition of machinery and equipment in all the departments? I see that in the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, the Public Service, they all have machinery and equipment.

    Mr. Robert Wright: In our case in PCO, a considerable portion of it relates to IT investments and infrastructure; that's the large part of it, telecommunications and other infrastructure, leading to upgrading. We're all trying to take part in the government online initiatives for our websites and for our equipment for our colleagues.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: And for the conference secretariat it's virtually all computer-related information, technology-related.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: In the case of the PSSRB for the transition period, and this will carry over beyond that point, it's also desks, chairs, and computers.

[Translation]

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: It's the same thing with us: computers, servers, electronic equipment, technological upgrades.

[English]

    The Chair: Madam Sgro.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Thank you very much.

    My questions are to Mr. Wright. In the going through the... Let me tell you which book I have, so you know: Privy Council Office estimates, report on plans and priorities. In looking at page 17, the strategic outcomes and business lines, and at the commissions of inquiry, task forces, and others, here you're looking at an increase of $4.5 million, to bring that total area up to $11 million. Could you explain what that is, so that I understand it better?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I don't have our report on plans and priorities in front of me.

    In terms of the specific funding for commissions, the only thing before us today would be the supplementary estimates (A) to provide the Indian Specific Claims Commission with $6.2 million, which is the only commission funding. It is a commission within the Privy Council and it's managing specific land claims. This is renewed every year.

    It was anticipated that with the legislation before the House the specific claims would be managed as part of a DIAND program, as one of your colleagues just brought up. Until that bill gets through, we need to ensure the work of this commission goes on. It's been active for at least ten years. Its workload is up. So that's the only commission. It's for the Indian specific land claims program, which has been running within the Privy Council umbrella for the last ten years, and it's $6.2 million.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: In here, when you talk about policy development, is that an area you're planning to do more work on in PCO, policy development areas?

    Mr. Robert Wright: It's an extremely busy and important function in the Privy Council Office to provide policy advice to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and cabinet, and to engage the public service as a whole in terms of the key renewal questions on policy. So it's important, and it's always been important. Workload is up somewhat. There's not a large spike in activity for that; it's just regular business.

»  (1730)  

    Ms. Judy Sgro: It would be included in that policy development area. What are your staffing numbers in that department, do you know?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Actually, the way PCO is organized, it's a secretariat function where I would say probably about 40% of the staff are in operational secretariats that serve committees of cabinet and ministers in terms of managing issues as they proceed through cabinet and get ready for parliamentary approval. Really, we double-load on the functions of that.

    We build up some expertise with particular issues in line departments and we basically try to capture that expertise and generate our own policy functions horizontally. The vast bulk of the work on policy development is done with other departments: we create teams, get the right ideas coming forward, a challenge function. So it's not something whereby we just close the door and go away and get a policy. We learn from the experience of the cabinet process and we engage very much departments and agencies of the crown to get to apply a collection of expertise.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: It would be within that department that the director general for the urban communities group would be as well?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Director general for urban communities? Do you mean for managing this...

    Ms. Judy Sgro: As part of something included in your estimates and in that policy division, I'm assuming that this would be where the director general who is working on the urban file would be.

    Mr. Robert Wright: I don't know that we have a director general working on that urban file.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: I can give you his name. It's a big department, I know.

    Mr. Robert Wright: But again, there would certainly be policy capacity within our federal-provincial relations group, that interdepartmental group, and the aboriginal strategy group, to provide some application.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Madam Sgro.

    Mr. Benoit.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you all for coming this afternoon.

    I have a couple of general questions, then I want to get into a little bit of a narrower area.

    When I see the new appropriations at $26 million, when the initial estimates were $102 million, I become a little bit concerned. That's a huge jump in spending. Even comparing to the main estimates of last year, which were roughly $113 million, it's a huge increase in spending, and I've become concerned about that. You already have said, Mr. Wright, that there's been an increase in the workload, but could you quickly give me an explanation of why there was that huge increase?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I'd be very happy to, sir.

    First, I've talked about five of the basic categories of spending here, and $11.9 million of that relates to the urban aboriginal strategy and the federal interlocutor. The federal interlocutor funding is about $3 million a year, and it's actually been at that level for quite a few years. It typically gets funded through the supplementary estimates. So that's not going up.

    In the urban aboriginal strategy we have $9 million in spending that is new. That's an increase in spending and it's a brand-new program. It builds on eight years of learning about how best to handle and pilot the very important projects to deal with very important problems, particularly in western Canada, but also in urban centres. So that's a new program, a new $9-million program.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Why is that program handled through the Privy Council rather than through the Department of Indian Affairs?

    Mr. Robert Wright: We had a brief discussion of that earlier, sir, and it runs in part because this is for non-status aboriginal people, off the reserve, in cities where typically you can fall between the cracks of support. What we've been looking for during the past several years is to develop a program expertise of what can really make a difference there, to help those urban centres and those individuals. So it's also piloting some innovative new approaches. Depending on how they work and depending on whether that's the sort of initiative the government wishes to sustain, then it might be appropriate to have it funded on an ongoing basis somewhere else.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: But you would acknowledge that money spent through PCO is let's say closer to cabinet and to cabinet scrutiny. Why handle that as a special program, rather than in one of the departments? If Indian Affairs isn't the appropriate one, then find another department.

    Mr. Robert Wright: It's not an unfair point. I think we have funding ongoing for Indian specific land claims. We've said quite openly that once legislation comes through the House, which is now before the House, we'd be looking at moving that responsibility to DIAND, and conceivably if there's a responsibility centre that develops for this issue, we could see moving it there. But there is an expertise within the federal-provincial relations group on managing relationships with aboriginal leadership and non-status leadership, and that's what we're building on, that expertise.

»  (1735)  

    Mr. Leon Benoit: So you don't trust that, for example, HRDC could perform that function just as well? Is that department not capable of handling that?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I think, as I mentioned, we have some real outstanding expertise in this area. We've developed the programs on that basis. I'm not suggesting somebody else at some point couldn't develop it.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: I want to go to a narrower area, that of who does the security checks for cabinet ministers. Is that done from within the Privy Council?

    Mr. Robert Wright: The Privy Council contacts the RCMP to engage with other agencies of the crown to ensure that the proper security checks are done.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Is there the same level of security check done on each and every person who is being considered for cabinet?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Yes.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: The same level?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Yes.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: The same process?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Yes.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: So when the Prime Minister is considering appointing a new cabinet minister, if that person hasn't been in cabinet before, he would initiate that security check process.

    Mr. Robert Wright: That's correct.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: What is the cost of doing the security checks, roughly, if I could get an idea? I don't know much about how it's done, what it involves. Could you give a quick outline of what's involved in those security checks and then what the cost might be to do a particular security check?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I think the check is merely to confirm that there isn't an active investigation in key agencies, so it's not a very demanding check at all. The Privy Council contacts the Commissioner of the RCMP, and the Commissioner of the RCMP checks with colleagues and reports back on whether there is an active investigation or not. It's very easy.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: How would you rate the level of the thoroughness of a security check for a cabinet minister as compared to a security check for hiring someone else within the federal civil service?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I would have to speculate, and I think I'd be reluctant to do that, but I would say Governor in Council appointees for certainly heads of agencies, deputy ministers, and ministers are all accorded the similar type of scrutiny.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: So the level of a check done for a cabinet minister would be similar to that done, for example, to appoint a Privacy Commissioner.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Correct.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Benoit.

    Mr. Epp, I'm going to go to you in a minute, but I do have a couple of little questions for clarification here.

    Actually, Mr. Wright, I have to apologize, because as I get older my memory just doesn't work at all. Are you not the former deputy minister of CCRA?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Commissioner of CCRA.

    The Chair: Commissioner, yes. We've met on other occasions.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Yes, sir, we have.

    The Chair: It shows you how limited my memory is. You were in charge of it when they did that wonderful net file implementation, which I think is a stunning example of how government can do things right.

    You've only been at PCO a little while.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Three months.

    The Chair: Yes.

    You made a comment about the lack of growth in PCO. This is not so much for these estimates, but it is a concern, in that—and the information will be here in a moment—I believe they've had the highest proportional growth in government. When all other departments have been shrinking, PCO has been growing. That's up until recently, when everybody has been growing, but PCO has been growing faster. And I'll give you those numbers in a minute, just to help you when you go through this in the future.

    I have a question here, though, for Mr. Tarte on the Public Service Staff Relations Board. Let me see if I understand, first, your supplementary estimate here. You're asking for what is detailed as $1,045,000 for personnel. Am I reading this right?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: Most of the amount would go to salary.

    The Chair: Right, salary. That would be new salaries, new staff, right.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: That would be new staff, yes. Included in that is the new Public Service Staffing Tribunal. Half of that amount would be for the new tribunal.

    The Chair: Right, but I want to figure something out here. In your main estimates you don't mention this, because of course the bill hasn't passed yet. It's just been presented to the House and we're still working on it. You know it's coming, but you wait now until the supplementary estimates before you come in and make the specific request for the additional staffing to begin the implementation of a bill that may pass in another few months. The proclamation is two years from now, but you have to do some preparatory work. I understand that.

    You're asking for $1,045,000 for salaries here. When do you expect to have those people on staff?

»  (1740)  

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: Assuming royal assent in October, half of that amount would be used up by the Public Service Staff Relations Board in staffing processes fairly quickly, particularly on the data analysis, research analysis function.

    There would be very quick increases in our legal services, in some instances on a term basis, to draft the new regulations, etc.

    The Chair: If I can narrow the question, is the $1,045,000 a full-year cost, or is this a final quarter cost? Is it really a $4 million figure?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: This figure would be for a half-year.

    The Chair: So the total increase you're asking for is $2,090,000 for staffing on an annual basis.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: You're right, if we continued with the staffing required during the transition period. We haven't really looked at the full figures for ongoing funding.

    This is our best estimate to make sure that following that transition year, we are in position to—

    The Chair: I just want to be clear about what we're being asked to approve here. You're asking for additional authority for $1,045,000 to be spent in this fiscal year, not next fiscal year. Right?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: Yes.

    The Chair: We're in October now. Mind you, we heard that it took six months to staff a position when we did see 25. It's a little hard to understand why you need anything—but I don't want to be sarcastic about this. Realistically, you need to have additional staffing to build the processes you need.

    But this would then presumably come forward as a $2 million increase to your base next year—or it would actually be another $1 million, because you have to blow it out for the full year.

    Mr. Robert Wright: It might very well, but one must remember that when the request for authorization was made, we were under the assumption that it would be longer than six months. But more importantly, the moneys will be given to the board on the basis of subsequent approval by the Treasury Board and on the basis of actual need. I can assure you that most of that will not be required.

    The Chair: Okay, so it's an estimate.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: It was an estimate at a point in time.

    The Chair: I understand.

    Roughly how long ago would you have presented this and received Treasury Board approval in order for this number to appear here? How long ago did you put this forward or generate this number?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: In June, July.

    The Chair: Okay.

    What is $196,000 in additional professional and special services for? It's number 4, right here.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: To a great extent, it is for translation services and staffing consultants, etc., to enable us to move quickly on the staffing issues with contract positions and legal...

    The Chair: So they'd be contract positions.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: Right.

    The Chair: In the staffing line, did you say you were going to fill those with term positions? How are you going to staff them?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: It depends. Some of the work will be contracted out...

    The Chair: Can you contract out against a staff line? Can you contract out against the personnel?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: No, I'm talking about the professional services, which I thought you were looking at.

    The Chair: No, I'm sorry. I had jumped back up to the... I understand with that one it's strictly contract. You can bring in...

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: No, no, the personnel we can do on a term basis, and not contract out.

    The Chair: How long does it take you to staff a term position?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: It can be done very quickly.

    The Chair: From outside?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: We can use pre-approved lists from the Public Service Commission. Staffing can be done quickly... It can be done quickly.

»  (1745)  

    The Chair: Okay, thank you.

    Mr. Epp.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Thank you.

    First of all, to the Public Service Staff Relations Board, with the new bill coming into effect, is the transition going to involve a whole bunch of layoffs, payouts, and packages, and then rehiring? Or is it going to be a smooth transition in terms of personnel?

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: I'm hoping it will be a smooth transition. The legislation specifically states that the old board will continue as the new board. The only persons who may be out of a job when the proclamation occurs are the three deputy chairs of the board. That's it. Everybody else, or all other employees, are put into place in the new system from the old system.

    Mr. Ken Epp: The reason I asked that is I went through such a transition at one stage when I worked with the provincial government in Alberta. All we did was change governance. We all lost our jobs; a whole lot of guys got packages, and they rehired them. It was just a rip-off, really.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: I think the legislation itself stipulates quite properly that the board will basically continue and assume its new functions, and that it will also take care of whatever old caseload exists, and continue with that. So there will be no layoff; there will no packages; there will be no situation like you've mentioned.

    Mr. Ken Epp: So even though they're going through a new authority, there won't be those things. Okay, that was my question there.

    Then I have a question for the Privy Council Office. This is from the report on plans and priorities, that little blue book. On page 20, it indicates that the spending forecast for 2003, in the contributions line, is about $4.7 million. Then beginning in 2003-2004, planned spending goes up to $12 million, and it's projected to continue in that range for the next three years.

    Would you explain that huge increase, please?

    Mr. Robert Wright: That would be almost entirely accounted for by the new program in the urban aboriginal strategy to provide innovative housing support for homeless aboriginals in eight large cities in Canada, seven of which are in western Canada. That's a new contribution. As you can see at the bottom of the supplementary A, we're looking at $6.7 million in contributions for that program in the current fiscal year, and it's a new program. There was $25 million put forward in the last federal budget for three years to pilot in this area, and that's what the increase relates to.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Okay.

    I'll repeat the question of my colleague. Could this not have been done directly through a department, rather than through your office?

    Mr. Robert Wright: Again, I have a similar response, sir. It's not covered by us; these are non-status aboriginals. And there is an expertise in the Privy Council Office. It's not delivered by them; it's delivered in cooperation with other homelessness strategy issues. But it's something that at the end of the three-year pilot I'm sure we'll take stock of.

    Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, that's it. Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Epp.

    Mr. Clark, did you have an additional question?

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Yes, thank you.

    I think the issue that's been raised by a couple of my colleagues is quite interesting. Obviously, in the question of the interlocutor and urban aboriginals, there is a question of status, which rules out DIAND. But you are supposed to be a central agency. I presume there's nothing that would inhibit the PCO from transferring these activities to some other department at some point.

    Mr. Robert Wright: I think that's a fair point, Mr. Clark. That is indeed what we look forward to doing on the Indian-specific land claim, which was managed at PCO for a decade. We're looking at moving it under that new legislative authority and that process.

    But you're absolutely right. As a central agency, it's ideal if we focus on oversight. In these areas where expertise grows up, sometimes there are exceptions, and this is one of them.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Okay.

    What is the role of the Public Service Staff Relations Board in setting guidelines for contract employment?

    A related question is whether the issue of an increasing recourse to contract employment is problematic in the activities of the staff relations board or in employee-employer relations within the public service.

    Mr. Yvon Tarte: As a quasi-judicial tribunal we have absolutely no authority to set policy, of course. The principal employer in the federal public sector and separate employers set their own policies in this regard. If they become part of the collective agreement through collective bargaining or are incorporated into it by reference, then the matter can come before the board on an adjudication. That is when we would determine the issue that's presented to the board.

    But to answer your question, we have absolutely no say in crafting policy. We will eventually, when matters are referred to the board, interpret them, but that's it.

»  (1750)  

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Who in the government does establish policy with respect to contract employment? Is there a concern about the increasing recourse to contract employment, some of which could follow the kind of example federally that Mr. Epp referred to in Alberta?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I think the policy for that would be with the Treasury Board Secretariat. In that process, deputy heads who follow the example Mr. Epp gave would be accountable for their actions.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: To the Centre for Management Development, are there provincial equivalents in Canada?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: Yes, there are some provincial equivalents. We're working with some provinces, like Ontario and some others. In some regions, the province works very well with the municipal and the federal levels. I would say in Manitoba there is a lot of work being done together.

    What we do is discuss partnerships. For example, if we go into the regions and offer some courses, the public servants from the provincial or municipal governments are invited. The federal would pay for their share--it's cost recovery--but then if we have some seats left, we would invite them to participate.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Do people who are involved in what are called arm's-length foundations take part in the programs of the Canadian Centre for Management Development--for example, Genome Canada or the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I'm quite new to those issues.

    On the arm's-length organizations, I would say with agencies, sister organizations around the world, we have some agreements. We're part of CAPAM, which is a group of countries talking about learning and training. But I would like to have a chance to come back with the full answer on the arm's-length organizations.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Let me then tell you what I'm interested in. I'm interested in whether there is cost-recovery charged to arm's-length foundations. My real interest with respect to their activities is if there are times when they are treated as being part of government and times when they are treated as being at arm's length, if you could address that.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I will follow up on the question, Monsieur le Président.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Okay, thank you.

    You're having a special seminar on Canada-U.S. relations. Why? Why would that be done under the Centre for Management Development?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: Well, as you know, it's part of a continual initiative. We constantly talk to deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers, and heads of agencies to know what their needs are. It's not the kinds of learning needs or job skills at that level, it's mostly about international relations, what people at the same level are thinking about some issues. It was at the request of many of our senior-level people that we organized those seminars.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: You were established 12 years ago, roughly?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: In 1991.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Has there been a decennial review of the purpose of the Centre for Management Development?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: Yes, we had a review, but I'll have to ask my colleague... Five years? Five years is the report.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Okay. Thank you.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Clark.

    Mr. Benoit.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes, thanks again, Mr. Chair.

    I just want to ask a very basic question to start off. What was the budget of the PCO ten years ago, or do any of you know what it was for another year around that time? I'm just trying to get an idea of growth in budget.

    Mr. Robert Wright: It was about $90 million.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Mr. Wright, in response to a question earlier about why the budget has increased—I don't remember the exact question—you said there had been an increase in workload. One of the things you referred to, I believe, was an increase in correspondence. Is that right?

»  (1755)  

    Mr. Robert Wright: Yes.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: What type of correspondence is that? For example, would it be a letter to my mother--she's gotten several of these in the past few years from the Prime Minister's Office, or at least it was from the Prime Minister. Would that go through the Prime Minister's Office or through the Privy Council Office?

    Mr. Robert Wright: No, it wouldn't.

    The Privy Council would respond to letters on non-partisan issues that came to the Prime Minister, and last year we received over a million items of correspondence. This last year there was an increase of 65%. It was quite a substantial increase, and that was the reason I raised it.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: What do you think contributed to that increase in correspondence? It's an interesting phenomenon.

    Mr. Robert Wright: It is. I think the situation in Iraq and other related issues did, but I haven't done an analysis of it.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: I'd be interested in finding out, actually, just what the breakdown in correspondence is, how it arrives—letters, e-mails, both? I'd be quite interested in that, actually. It seems like it would be more a role for elected officials, but... There'd be some of both.

    Mr. Robert Wright: That number relates to the correspondence managed by the Privy Council Office, which would be non-partisan.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: I have one other question, on the urban aboriginal strategy. Is the timing of that related at all to the recent court ruling on rights for Métis? Was that anticipated by the government, and, as a result, this program initiated? Because it seems to me there could be a lot of overlap. Or could the result of this hearing on Métis having some of the rights of status Indians lead to another program down the road, in the near future?

    Mr. Robert Wright: I wouldn't care to speculate on that, sir, at this point. The urban aboriginal strategy has been active for a number of years, I think since 1998. It was created to look for solutions to some very serious problems in urban centres that had more than 5% aboriginal residents. It was after several years of work that this last budget set aside $25 million over three years to actually start delivering programs. So it was done in the last budget, and I can't provide any further context than would be in the budget itself for it.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Maybe I didn't hear all of that, but it's a big increase in budget this year. It seems like an awful coincidence, to me.

    Mr. Robert Wright: It had been under study for five years. That takes some time. In fact, it still is in a period of study. We're talking about pilot projects, but we are going to deliver—you're right—a serious increase in funding for the first time this year and for the next two years. I don't think you can over-interpret what that might be for.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Have there been any discussions inside the Privy Council Office that you're aware of—any at all—that will require an increase in budget to deal with this recent court ruling on Métis having some of the same rights as status Indians?

    Mr. Robert Wright: None that I'm aware of.

    Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Pacetti, do you have a question?

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Yes, Mr. Chair. Is the Canadian Centre for Management Development a cost-recovery item for the department?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: Yes, for 40% of our operations presently.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Would that be 40% also for the supplementary estimates?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: For the new portions?

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Yes, the new $2.4 million.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: The new money we're asking for is really to support new programs.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Will we get some money back from that?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I think it's either cost recovery or, if the employer so decides, it's going to be mandatory. During the transition, since Bill C-25 is not there yet, we have to go on, and if we don't get the money, it means we're reducing regional presence, reducing French offerings, and cannot any more give the 50% reduction for people in the regions and territories.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: I have the same question concerning the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat. I note you were mentioning you get some money from the provinces.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: Yes. The formula is based on the population of the provinces; they provide half of the operating cost. The initial funding comes through this process—the federal government's estimates—and during the course of the year we then send invoices out to each province according to their share of the half of the operating costs, on a per capita basis.

¼  (1800)  

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Would we still be able to get back 50% of the $2.197 million you're requesting in the supplementary estimates?

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: It would be subject to the same formula, yes.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: I have one more quick question concerning the number of events. Who determines how many events you're going to have? I see the number of events actually did go up, from 99 to 117. Back a couple of years ago there were, I think, 81.

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: It's determined by the chair of the particular body: for the first ministers, the Prime Minister; or the minister or the deputy minister who is chairing whatever the sectoral committee is—mines or justice—

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: So you're—

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: They make the request for our services. It's within our mandate. It may be held on Quadra Island or it may be in Corner Brook. That's their choice. We have no discretion.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: So you can't say “We've gone over our limit, and I'm sorry, the—”

    Mr. Stuart MacKinnon: That is not the message we have received from governments over the years, no.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Pacetti.

    Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt : I have a question for the representatives of the Canadian Centre for Management Development. Were you recently given a mandate to give more courses for senior civil servants in order to verify or teach them required skills? We know that Bill C-25 is coming and, with it, the concept of merit. But we saw what happened in the Radwanski affair, once again. Did you receive a specific training mandate? I thought that merit meant the best, but, as we saw in the Auditor General's report, he apparently lacked skills or qualities to manage a commissioner's officer or a department. Did you receive a specific mandate in that regard?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: We are definitely in constant talks with the Privy Council, the employer and deputy ministers, to see what the next mandates should be and what the needs are. Obviously, as you said, we're concerned with everything relating to comptrollership, values and ethics. So these are round tables, and it's definitely part of the mandate of the Canadian Centre for Management Development to meet the government's current major needs. The Auditor General's notes, as well as all the reports we receive, are indicators, and that's how we prepare courses, in partnership with the Privy Council, the employer and the deputy ministers.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: You recently received a new mandate, or is it just like that, up in the air?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I'd say that our Board of Governors reinforces all these responsibilities for accountability, values and ethics every year. So once again this year, we see that reinforcement from the Board of Governors.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: When those people are appointed, do they automatically take development courses, or do they only do so if they see fit?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: All the deputy ministers are strongly encouraged to come to the orientation course for deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and agency heads. It's very, very popular and very well attended. The deputy ministers consider it a duty to attend those orientation courses.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: But there's no obligation.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: Ultimately, I think they all come.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: No, not all. Some apparently didn't go.

    Thank you.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: Are there courses for ministers?

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I find your question interesting because, with our Privy Council colleagues, we've recently received a request to see if we could offer courses.

[English]

    We have recently received some requests from the Privy Council to look at what could be offered to new members of Parliament, and assistance to ministers or members of Parliament who might be interested. We would not deliver that without talking to the right clients and members of Parliament to see whether they would be interested in having such offerings.

    The Chair: But they have at least observed, Mr. Clark, that we may require training.

    Ms. Denise Boudrias: I didn't say that, sir.

    The Chair: Your predecessor was somewhat less diplomatic.

    Okay, I think we've covered most of the territory here. There are a couple of general policy issues that come up, which perhaps would better be discussed with the clerk himself. I must say, we've been rather impressed with the new clerk. He's been very accessible, very open, very willing to share information. He's been here twice already himself.

    Mr. Lanctôt, did you want to make a comment?

¼  (1805)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Mr. Chair, I would like to know what time limit will be set for answers to my questions on the appointments and so on. Mr. Wright is supposed to give us that information. Do we give him a week, three days?

[English]

    The Chair: Do you mean the question about housing allowances upon appointment and those matters? Is that the question you're referring to?

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Yes.

    The Chair: I suspect Mr. Wright will work expeditiously to get a letter to me, which I will share with the entire committee—on the two issues, is that right?—specifically on the issue of extraordinary agreements concerning people appointed to boards and commissions, and the second issue, the standard policy.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: And the names of those who have received this kind of allowance, either for one year or for more than one year.

[English]

    The Chair: I'm sure Mr. Wright will do what he feels he can and should. Then we'll see where we go from there. Is that okay?

    Mr. Paul Forseth: We're asking—

    The Chair: Yes, you were asking. Mr. Wright has undertaken to provide the information. Let's at least give him the courtesy of reading it before we make a judgment on it, all right?

    Mr. Paul Forseth: The point is this has been raised in the House repeatedly, and the government has responded in the House. We're asking for supplementary specifics, so this is nothing new, but I think it's quite an important point for us as parliamentarians to get specific information.

    The Chair: I understand. As I witnessed what went on here rather than in the House, I did not hear Mr. Wright say no; I heard him say he will endeavour to get that information for you and send it to you.

    Am I correct, Mr. Wright?

    Mr. Robert Wright: You are correct. I regret I came here uninformed of those particulars. I'd like to inform myself and get advice and form a letter as to how best to respond to the chair.

    The Chair: And we accept the fact that you're a rookie.

    Mr. Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: That's all well and good, Mr. Chair, but let's not have anyone tell us it's confidential because it's a contract with a person. The names and the list of those contracts, that's not confidential. I don't want the content of the contracts; I want the names of those people. That's public, and we need to know.

[English]

    The Chair: Monsieur Lanctôt, I think in fairness we at least have to let Mr. Wright respond to us before we start chastising him for his response. Certainly it has been the attitude of the current clerk to be as forthcoming as he possibly can. I am confident we will receive a response; then we will decide where we go from there.

    The only and final comment I would make, Mr. Wright, and I guess that I would say it to everybody at the Privy Council Office right now, is that there is an issue. You hear the questions about size, and that. From time to time, you hear from Privy Council members criticisms of the Treasury Board, because the Treasury Board is supposed to be a central management agency and should only be doing that central management comptroller function, and it should not be delivering any programs.

    We see exactly the same development over here. There's an operational arm of the PCO that is growing. The PCO has increased 55% in the last seven years, the largest proportional increase of any department in the government. When the departments shrank during program review, I think PCO grew overall by some 24.7%. There is a concern about what this agency does, and how big and broad its reach is.

    Now, I don't expect you.... We came here to talk about these estimates, so I'm not even going to ask you for a response. But I'm going to suggest that we may want to have a more specific conversation with PCO in the future.

    Mr. Robert Wright: Could I just respond very briefly, sir?

    I do know that over that period, our federal-provincial relations office is now incorporated into the Privy Council Office.

    Secondly, two years ago, in December 2001, there was a very important budget that allocated $7.7 billion toward security. That had an important impact on the Privy Council Office. We are a secretariat on security; we include an intelligence assessment group, which is a secretariat for other departments and accounts for a large part of the increase since then.

    But I'll take this under advisement, and try to get a considered response for the committee's—

    The Chair: The same question comes up, though. You are also delivering off-reserve services to Indians, homeless programs, and the like. Your core mission is described as a policy coordination unit and support for the Prime Minister.

    Anway, I'm not seeing any fervent desire to go further.

    I thank you all for your time. I appreciate it.

    We'll suspend for about three or four minutes, and then we'll get started again.

¼  (1811)  

---

¼  (1818)  

    The Chair: We are joined by the Public Service Commission of Canada. We have Scott Serson, who's of course well known to the committee; Mr. Raymond Crête, director general, resourcing services directorate; Greg Gauld, vice-president, merit policy and accountability; Michael Nelson, vice-president, learning and development programs branch; and Gilles Charron, finance and administration, who is going to get a lot of this.

    Scott, you know the process here; we're just ensuring that each estimate gets a look. If you have some brief opening comments to make about the supplementary request you've brought forward now, then we'll turn it over to members, and we'll see where we end up.

    Mr. Scott Serson (President, Public Service Commission of Canada): I am just going to give an abridged version of the notes that have been passed out, so I'll try to go through this fairly quickly, Mr. Chairman.

    Needless to say, we don't have a minister to champion our resource needs in cabinet, so we're grateful for any opportunity to discuss them with parliamentarians. I'll speak about the funds we are seeking through supplementary estimates, and then say just a few words about the resource challenges we foresee with the passage of Bill C-25. I'd like to point out that these supplementaries address some of our needs in our service role, as opposed to our oversight role. I'll come back to that later.

[Translation]

    As you know, one of the components of the Action Plan for Official Languages is an exemplary public service. Over the past 30 years, the Government of Canada has invested in creating a competent, bilingual public service. Language training remains a key element of that investment.

    In these Supplementary Estimates, the Public Service Commission is seeking $11 million for the following activities : to eliminate the waiting list of approximately 700 students; to respond to the increased demand for language training; to accommodate the needs of 10 people with learning disabilities; to develop electronic tools for developmental language training.

¼  (1820)  

[English]

    The second item in the supplementary estimate is $4.1 million—or $4.6 million if you include employee benefits plans and accommodation costs—in interim financing for the balance of 2003-2004 to continue the development of e-recruitment. This money will enable the Public Service Commission to carry on with the development of this while preparing its submission for longer-term funding of this work. This is identified in the supplementary estimates as prepatory work associated with human resource modernization.

    Development of a standardized government-wide approach to e-recruitment will introduce multiple benefits over the course of the four-year implementation period. It will provide enhanced access to federal jobs for all Canadians; provide candidates with timely information on the selection process; facilitate recruitment branding and improved service to the public; and put in place a reporting system to support effective oversight and reporting to parliamentarians.

[Translation]

    Our approach would allow us to expand our use of National Area of Selection in the immediate term. At the same time it will provide a platform to define requirements for a government-wide e-recruitment system.

    I would like to take a moment to provide you with a brief overview of our overall financial picture and the pressures we have before us in the context of Bill C-25.

    Although we have received some additional funding in the past few years, we have had to make difficult choices about internal reallocations in response to the areas that we were told needed attention. We reallocated in favour of recruitment and staffing, employment equity concerns and access by Canadians to federal government jobs.

[English]

    As you know from my testimony during consideration of Bill C-25, the proposed legislation will put additional resource pressure on the Public Service Commission and will continue to do so for a number of years to come. In particular, new frameworks for staffing policy will need to be developed, a stronger oversight and audit capacity will be needed, and the public service will need the capacity to respond to cases such as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner where we revoke staffing authority and undertake those responsibilities and related activities ourselves.

    I don't think we should be constrained in these situations by resource considerations, but the resource implications of the latter two of these were raised with the task force in the development of Bill C-25 and to our knowledge were never resolved.

    I conclude with two key concerns. First, I was pleased to hear the President of the Treasury Board, in recent testimony before the Senate, make mention of our budget challenges. However, I'm not confident. With the anticipated transfer of Training and Development Canada and Language Training Canada to the new Canada School of Public Service, the potential transfer of other Public Service Commission responsibilities to the Treasury Board Secretariat and the new Public Service Staffing Tribunal, I expect that significant funds will be transferred out of our base. In terms of our ability to reallocate funds to new priorities, this will leave us in a much more difficult situation than we are presently in, and I anticipate that restructuring our base budget will take some time.

    The second issue I'd like to raise in conclusion is that the new Public Service Commission established by Bill C-25 remains a hybrid organization. It has an oversight role, but it retains responsibility for providing certain services to departments and agencies. Consequently, there will remain tensions in the organization regarding, among others, allocation of resources. I feel strongly that a new commission will need to have a dialogue with this committee about that tension and what the priorities should be in finding a resolution.

    Those are my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman.

¼  (1825)  

    The Chair: Subtle, gentle.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I've been very subtle for the last four years.

    The Chair: Anyway, Scott, thank you very much.

    Mr. Forseth, do you wish to begin?

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

    Mr. Serson, you talked about managing ongoing tensions into the future, but do you anticipate being there to manage those tensions, or is your own career under review? Are you going somewhere else?

    Mr. Scott Serson: I'm not going anywhere else, except to retire, Mr. Forseth, as of November 19.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: I see. A well-earned retirement. I hope you—

    Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Forseth, I want to be clear about this.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Yes.

    Mr. Scott Serson: Bill C-25 amended the nature of the commission. Rather than three full-time commissioners, it called for a full-time president and part-time commissioners. The centre knew of my family circumstance, and they didn't change that proposal to something like the staffing tribunal, where the commission could have had some flexibility for full-time or part-time commissioners for the foreseeable future. So I had to start thinking about whether this was a job I could do and for how long.

    I have to tell you that I'm very concerned about the Public Service Commission at this stage, because in addition to the uncertainty we faced for the past two and a half years about whether we would exist and what our role would be, for the last year there has been uncertainty about the leadership of the commission. As soon as that clause was spotted by the staff, they realized we were lame ducks. So it's not a happy circumstance for me. It's a very tough circumstance for me. But it reinforces the importance of this committee taking some interest in the work of the commission.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you. Perhaps we may, in private, explore some more of that.

    I appreciate your passion, because of course leadership and leadership by example, especially from central agencies, is so fundamental, somewhat what the Auditor General has said and done. I was talking today in the House about transparency in government. The taxpayers don't know what they don't know unless there's a commitment to leadership by example of transparency.

    How many full-time equivalents--employees, in other words, in the common vernacular--how many employees does the commission have?

    Mr. Gilles Charron (Director General, Finance and Administration Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada): They number 1,433, as per our reports on plans and priorities.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Is that nationwide?

    Mr. Gilles Charron: Yes.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: You mentioned the language training aspect. Does the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu College on language training come under you or someone else?

    Mr. Michael Nelson (Vice-President, Learning and Development Programs Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada): No, that's under National Defence.

    Mr. Scott Serson: That's National Defence.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay, because the college is closed and there was a corporation created that rents space back to various agencies. On that campus is a language training school, but that doesn't....

    Mr. Scott Serson: It's not ours, no.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: When do you feel you'll be fully capable of responding to the concern that's been raised in the House about national advertising for selection for entry to the public service and for higher levels? This has really become a kind of political policy question that has always been answered by a resource-type answer. It certainly appears from the minister's answers policy-wise on behalf of the government that yes, they want to go there as quickly as possible. But then I have to ask you, when we come to budgets from that side, is that realistic? Are we going to get there?

    Mr. Scott Serson: I want to be fair. I'm going to ask Raymond to comment on this as well.

    There has in the past been a budget constraint. We asked three years ago for money to move on this issue under the government online initiative, and I think we received a total of $500,000 to split with HRDC. So we were set back. We have tried to sense the importance that parliamentarians and Canadians attach to this issue. We've responded, as I said, by reallocation. Now we have a commitment from the minister, so we're reasonably confident that the resources will be there for the next four years if we can do the right kind of Treasury Board submission.

    I want to underscore, though, that we're a small organization. There are certain front-end recruitment packages that one can buy on the open market, but then we have to adapt them to public service needs, and that's a challenge for us. So we've been very careful in any of our testimony to say that we're going to do this at a measured pace, because we know from experience that the government in general, the public service, seems to have problems managing these large-scale initiatives. So we'll look for partners, and we are going to try to be flexible within the public service about partnering with others to try to take advantage of their creativity as well.

    So a measured pace, if we get the resources that are necessary. Is that a fair answer?

¼  (1830)  

    Mr. Paul Forseth: One of the difficulties, I would take it, is that a lot of the competitions are in-service competitions, and of course if the competition is happening in the national capital region but there's some pretty qualified person in Edmonton who wants to apply, we have to pay the bill for them to come to that competition. I use that as a case example to illustrate the problem of funding in holding a competition. Is that what we're talking about? Am I on the right track there?

    Mr. Scott Serson: I don't think so. We had a suggestion from Mr. Williams that if we were clear in the advertisement of the position on the Canada government job-site that candidates would or might have to pay for their travel costs to an interview or to relocate for the job, we would drive down the number of applications and we could move to national area of selection immediately. We tested that, and the response was that it didn't drive down the number of applications, it just confused things even further. When we actually went to schedule and called people to say they had an interview tomorrow in Ottawa, they said “Oh, I'm not coming” or “Thank you very much” and they didn't show up.

    This is the kind of technical problem we're facing; it's more than simply paying. I think the kind of answer we got from most departments is if they have a substantially qualified candidate for a shortage position, they wouldn't mind paying for interview costs or relocation costs. If we're talking about a more generalist position, they are likely to decide not to pay it. If the candidate is really interested in the job in Ottawa and it's a general and we have a good pool of candidates in this area--the Ontario region--they might not pay for the travel costs.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Well, this is not astrophysics, it's purely a fairly simple management problem about setting appointments, scheduling, and so on. As a professional organization and being as that's your stock-in-trade, you should be able to accommodate that. I'm wondering, if that's not the issue, then, where is your big cost in truly running a national...?

    Mr. Scott Serson: The reason we're searching for an electronic means to deal with volumes of applications is that those volumes are extremely high. Once we have the applications in, be it a thousand applications, the act obligates us to treat every one of those applications fairly, to screen it manually and to ask, how do this person's qualifications stack up against the next person's? And when you get into those kinds of volumes, it is very labour-intensive activity.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Yes, but I thought I saw a sheet somewhere where there was some reporting on the number of applications you were getting, and you never got a thousand. At worst there were two or three hundred. Maybe you can answer me about what the report was on some of those tests.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I'd better be careful here. Raymond, what's the last average number of applications we've been getting?

¼  (1835)  

    Mr. Raymond Crête (Director General, Resourcing Services Directorate, Public Service Commission of Canada): For local area selections we're looking at 192. That's the average across Canada. But that does not include an open competitive process on a national basis. For instance, if we open a clerical inventory here in Ottawa for two days, we will get 8,000 applications. We have to screen those applications, and we have to be able to respond to Canadian citizens as to why they've been screened out.

    So doing it manually is not an answer. If you opened that same type of process across Canada and made access equal for all Canadian citizens, we don't know what those numbers would be. Would you get 20,000 or 30,000 applications for a position?

    We also note that Canadian citizens are taking what I call the shotgun approach, where they apply for jobs, but when we call them to say, for instance, are you interested in an interview in Moncton, people will say, “Oh, I didn't know the job was in Moncton”. Also, what we're recognizing is that when people apply for a job, they may only meet one of the four or five experience factors, but they will think, maybe they won't find anyone else so I'll apply for the job.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Yes, but law school is handled with the LSAT and grad school is handled with the GMAT, and there are all kinds of other things where they take the top score and they require people to take these pre-screening tests at their own cost. That's something Mr. Serson talked about, outside contracting for pre-screening. Certainly those tools have been available since time immemorial for even lower-level positions, so I'm wondering why you're not using some of those tools.

    The Chair: Perhaps, Paul, we'll just cut it off now, because we've gone substantially over time here.

    What I may do, Scott, is ask you to incorporate your response to that in your answer to the next question.

    Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Gentlemen, you know perfectly well that what you're requesting in the way of supplementary estimates makes me smile a little, particularly after what we've gone through and what we've learned about the lack of funding and resources. I believe it must have been enormous and that it must still be lacking. I believe that, with the oversight duties coming with the new Bill C-25, we will definitely be seeing you again with supplementary estimates.

    But after what we've experienced in recent months, we're asking ourselves questions. I was surprised when I read the report to see that many things can slide as a result of the obvious lack of resources. It's no longer even a slide; even a bulldozer could pass through open doors. Today, we find ourselves with a Public Service Commission that will have very specific responsibility for conducting this oversight. As you mentioned in your remarks, the delegated power, for example, of the Privacy Commissioner has been revoked, so the responsibility is being taken back. Under the new act, virtually everything will be delegated because they will all have that delegation. So, in my view, you will have a completely different role.

    What resources will you need? Now we're obviously just talking about supplementary estimates for what you do and for what you think there will be. But in your view, in light of your vast experience, when we see supplementary estimates such as these, will that be enough for you to be effective? Because between you and me, they haven't been effective, and we can see it. It's too bad to be told that, but we've seen the result. Well, we've seen one! How many are there that we don't see? This is very disturbing. So I figure that, with your experience, you must be smiling, particularly if you're retiring on November 19, which, incidentally, is my birthday. What budget do you think you'll really need to do the work that will be delegated to you after Bill C-25 is passed?

    I think it's showing off a bit; we see it, it's a lack. You take a figure so that it's accepted, but, in your opinion, based on your experience, what's the figure? Should a zero be added? What resources should be allocated so that we have an effective Public Service Commission?

    M. Scott Serson: I want to be absolutely clear. That's why I underscore the importance of this committee to the president because you are going to see that these supplementary estimates are based on a political need. The Treasury Board President has a timetable for establishing the CBC language standard for EX positions. We use that reality to emphasize that we needed resources for second-language learning. It was the same thing for e-recruitment. It was as a result of the intervention of people like Mr. Casey and other parliamentarians that the Treasury Board President observed that we needed to solve the problem of tenses in Bill C-25.

    Now, as to auditing, we are preparing a submission to Treasury Board because we don't think that we'll have enough for auditing with the money for implementing Bill C-25.

    Perhaps Mr. Gauld can give us some idea of that.

¼  (1840)  

    Mr. Greg Gauld (Vice-President, Merit Policy and Accountability Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada): We're calculating the potential additional costs for a more substantial oversight system, with auditing and various other elements. In an initial estimate, we arrived at an additional figure of between $5 and $10 million. We're going to refine that when we prepare our file for the submission so that it's as economical as possible, but that's the order of magnitude.

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: That's not much; I thought it was worse than that. In that case, should there be additional investigators, or is that how things are done in the Public Service Commission that you have to change? You're going to have a major change.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I must admit that the case of Mr. Radwanski and his office was related to the fact that we had established an oversight philosophy based on the accountability of the deputy minister. We used a self-reporting system. After four years, I can say that deputy ministers usually respond with a sense of urgency when problems are raised. It's quite obvious that Mr. Radwanski and his management team did not respond. I think that shows us that we have to change our risk management and that we will have to have the resources to verify the situation, not after giving someone one chance, then another, but more immediately. Is that clear?

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: I have a lot of questions, but I'm going to ask one right away. How is it possible that there had been information since 2001 and that we were then told there was a lack of resources and that the problem in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was not taken “seriously”?

    Mr. Scott Serson: Mr. Lanctôt, I'm the first to admit that I can make mistakes.

[English]

I'm the first to admit this. But it is wrong to say we weren't acting. We were acting. We went in there and we did the thematic. We over-sampled. We sat down with Mr. Radwanski. I went to see him and I talked to him and said these are concerns that are coming up, and I want them resolved; I want you to sign a staffing and delegation agreement with me to make sure we understand each other. We reviewed that.

    My mistake was that I felt that I was dealing with a normal deputy minister. All my experience told me a normal deputy minister would respond in good time.

    We had an action plan with him. My staff went in there and talked to his management team about the action plan. They were reassured that things were happening.

¼  (1845)  

    The Chair: If I may, Mr. Lanctôt, shortly after we got involved with the case, Mr. Serson contacted me and told me they had concerns about the staffing there.

    Mr. Clark.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: I could tell by the force of Mr. Serson's presentation that there are factors around these issues a newcomer to the committee who has not followed Bill C-25 is not fully aware of, so I'll limit my questions.

    In the Radwanski case, he came from outside the public service, outside a public service tradition, and that is a good thing, theoretically. He's not the only one. What provisions are there either internally...not to make the assumption you made that he would respond as other deputy ministers might respond if a problem arose? What can be done that is not being done now to prevent that sort of thing with respect to appointments from outside the public service in the future, from outside the tradition of the public service?

    Mr. Scott Serson: Based on my experience, I think more has to be done to orient these individuals to the reality of the public service. I'm not even sure if today there is any basic kind of decent orientation program given to them.

    The reason I went to see Mr. Radwanski, in addition to the concerns that were being raised, is because I had decided to go and see every new deputy head who came in from outside the public service, because I had found two things.

    One, we started to get into problems, and not with the same kind of malevolence as Mr. Radwanski, but they would start to push around the HR. They came in from the private sector and wanted things done in private sector fashion, and if the HR professional wasn't strong enough to resist that, we would start to see problems. That was issue number one.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: That led you to Mr. Radwanski's office—

    Mr. Scott Serson: That was because I'd seen it in advance in others.

    There was a second part to your question that I wanted to get to, Mr. Clark, but I'm sorry, I've lost it.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: I wonder if I can remember it.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

    Mr. Scott Serson: The other thing is that you asked what can be done.

    From our point of view, what we tried to do with Mr. Radwanski and have tried to do with others... Again, it's this question of judging the nature of the risk that I want to underscore. We usually as well try to work with the human resource professional to provide training to the management team, if that becomes a problem. That was the second point I wanted to make.

    The problem is not always just about this lack of understanding of public service staffing. It is, I think, a lack of support for some of these agency heads who come into small organizations, and Mr. Alcock thinks this is too big, but they may have a one- or two- or three-person HR shop and get frustrated that they can't get things done. They then start turning to this system to say, well, I have all these expectations, and I don't know, maybe they have an accountability contract with the clerk or somebody; how do I get them done? They start to get frustrated, and you start to get tensions in the organization.

    So those are the two kinds of situations I've run across.

¼  (1850)  

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: You said when you came that you underlined in the written submission that you don't have a minister to defend you. Should you?

    Mr. Scott Serson: I don't think we should, but what I have tried to stres.... I don't know, Mr. Clark, whether I'm not saying it clearly enough.

    The chairman has made some comments about parliamentary officers and Parliament's need to hear from them. For four and a half years, no committee, except once with Senator Murray, has called us to even talk about our annual report.

    I'm not saying our annual report is great. I think it could be improved, and everywhere we've heard from parliamentarians, we have improved. Listening to their concerns about area of selection maybe got us ahead.

    I was complaining about never getting to parliamentary committees. Mr. Bélanger called us for the first time and said “Come to mine.” So we did weeks of work getting ready for that and realized in that discussion that, in terms of imperative and non-imperative staffing—and I hope that's not too much jargon—in terms of our use of the staffing system and our protection of our responsibilities in terms of official language status, we hadn't been auditing that. It came out of that discussion.

    So I've struggled with this issue of what reporting means. I have tried to talk to MPs. I've tried to say to committees, on the thematic in which Mr. Radwanski's case was audited.... I'm not saying we singled him out, that's not the style of things, but I sent that thematic to Mr. Alcock and to Mr. Williams, and I said we'd be happy to.... It's there on our website.

    I thought the big issue there was the absence of documentation on files in the context of Bill C-25. Everybody was saying the commission was going to audit, and I wanted people to be aware that in doing that there was going to be a major challenge, because through program review, and so on, there was a lot of work not being maintained adequately in departments.

    So that's the issue for me. As I say, we have the Public Service Commission there, which, at this crucial point in its history, is going to have a total change in leadership, and if members of Parliament don't take an interest in it, I worry about the future.

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: It's interesting, Mr. Chair. We heard from the Canadian Centre for Management Development of the existence of quite an elaborate system for preparing public servants to deal with some of these issues. Whether it works or not is another issue.

    Not to defend parliamentary committees on which I didn't serve, but one of the difficulties with parliamentary committees is...

    I've known you for some time. You usually speak plainly. You've just used a term of art that I have no idea what it means. I couldn't even repeat it to you. It was something about staffing relations.

    Mr. Scott Serson: [Inaudible—Editor]

    Right Hon. Joe Clark: No, that's fine, because it helps me make the point that most of us come here on the fly and without the preparation. I'm not sure systematically what we do about that. One doesn't want to get into a spiral of building up staff and research resources here, because that creates its own problems.

    That's a comment. I'll pass, Mr. Chair.

¼  (1855)  

    Mr. Scott Serson: [Inaudible—Editor]

    The Chair: I know you do, Mr. Serson.

    Let me throw my oar into this water, because I think, Mr. Clark, this is exactly the kind of conversation that this committee needs to have about this particular commission.

    In our report, after we had concluded the things with the privacy commission, our very first recommendation was that the House undertake a study of parliamentary officers. If you look right now in the supplementary estimates, where is the Public Service Commission? It's in Canadian Heritage. I couldn't even find it.

    There is this one-foot-in-each-camp kind of position that it's in right now: is it a member of the executive, or is it really a parliamentary officer?

    Mr. Cullen moved an amendment in Bill C-25 to try to pull it over toward the House in terms of the appointment processes and independence, but it still has a major accountability relationship. And I believe, Mr. Serson, your personal performance evaluation is signed by the clerk.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I'm sorry that I have not communicated this to you clearly, because this is how passionately I feel about the Public Service Commission being independent.

    When I came aboard, there were two things that disturbed me as a deputy minister. One was that I was going to have an accountability relationship with the clerk. I had two colleagues who, with me, formed a board on the future of the Public Service Commission, the policies, and so on. So how could I be accountable if I had the potential of being outvoted?

    But the second thing was that I looked at the authority given to me by Parliament. I knew there were some parliamentarians who were concerned about the degree of delegation that we'd already done, and I said “I cannot be on the deputy ministers performance pay”. So Mel Cappe shifted me, three years ago, to the judges performance pay, which is no performance pay at all; you just get a lump sum at the end of the year. There's no basis for it at all.

    I haven't crowed about that, but I was serious enough about the issue of ethics and impartiality that it cost my family money to be impartial and have nobody say, when I appeared before committees, “Mr. Serson, you're delegating this because you're worried that those deputy ministers who feed into the clerk's performance rating are going to tell him you're not doing a good job unless you delegate more.” It was a conflict of interest.

    I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I tried to get this across.

    The Chair: This is good information for the committee, because it lies at the heart of some of the concerns that members have had about Bill C-25 and how it plays out, the conversations we had about how much change had actually taken place as we moved through Bill C-25, and the terrible predicament the commission is in. We await a decision by the House on our recommendation. But clarifying this I think would be an important step forward in paying attention to what is one of our most important resources: the people who work for us.

    Now, Mr. Pacetti, you have some questions.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I don't want to hog the time, but the only comment I want to make to Mr. Clark is that I've tried not to be frustrated about this issue of not appearing before committees, because I've sat down with members of Parliament. That's why I don't like the cheap shots.

    I talked to Mr. Casey and said “Mr. Casey, if you want us to get some grease behind the national area of selection, get us before a committee.” He said “Mr. Serson, look, I have these portfolios. I'm struggling. I don't have a big staff. I'm not sure that I can help you.” I respect that. He sat down and helped us solve a problem in Atlantic Canada.

    So I've not taken this as frustration with members of Parliament not doing their jobs. I say to myself, “Where's the research staff? Where are the clerks, on a long-term basis, who are briefing...?”

    I'm worried that if there's an election, as I've said to you, Mr. Chairman, we get a new committee and we start this all over, unless you have a good research staff that can tell you that this is what we know about the commission and what they've been trying to do for the last five, six, or ten years.

    Anyway, I'm sorry.

    The Chair: Mr. Epp and I are planning to be here. I can't speak for Mr. Clark.

    Mr. Pacetti.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wasn't here for the discussion, so I want to spend some time on the estimates.

    I have a quick question. In conclusion, do you think that you belong to Heritage Canada or the Treasury Board?

    Mr. Scott Serson: This is the problem, Mr. Chairman. Members of Parliament don't seem to understand that we're independent.

    The President of the Treasury Board wanted briefing notes on our audit report. My response to her staff was that we're an independent organization, it's our audit, and she does not need to get up and respond for us. In fact, she shouldn't. It implies that we're reporting to her.

    We come before this committee with our audit. The Auditor General has no minister; they go to the public accounts committee. They deal with public accounts. Their relationship in terms of setting priorities and other things is with public accounts.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Do you have a problem having to report to the minister?

½  (1900)  

    Mr. Scott Serson: I'm not too worried. We don't report to the minister.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Well, you do in your report.

    Mr. Scott Serson: Yes. Any literature on the Public Service Commission will point out—and I don't know whether my lawyer is here, but I say this—that it's a post office box. That's all it is. The Minister of Heritage has never interfered whatsoever in our business.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Okay. My second question is on something that you said earlier. What's wrong with trying to get private sector performance from your public sector employees?

    Mr. Scott Serson: I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but if you ask me honestly, at the end of my career, I'm having some second thoughts. If parliamentarians want to debate the benefits of a professional public service versus the American model, they should debate that. They shouldn't let a professional public service disappear through neglect.

    My concern is that one of the key things for a professional public service is to have the courage to speak truth to power. It's one of the things that disturbs me a little bit about this Office of the Privacy Commissioner issue. I worry that we built so much into the performance pay. Are our managers starting to hedge their bets? If I speak truth to power, I may not get the big lump sum at the end.

    I'm not drawing any conclusions here. I may be off-base, but I, like everybody else, am wondering what's happening in the public service. Why are we getting some of these ethical problems? Why aren't people coming forward? Why aren't we debating some of the issues more profoundly?

    I worry that it may be part of the issue that needs to be examined. Anyway, that's personal.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Okay. I have a question on the estimates.

    For the $14.5 million, I see that the breakdown is $4.891 million on the personnel and then another $8 million is going to professional special services. This is a two-part question. For the personnel, are additional staff going to be hired?

    Mr. Gilles Charron: Yes, the personnel costs are to cover additional people who will be hired.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: For what purpose, for the modernization and official languages or the two on top?

    Mr. Michael Nelson: For the part that has to do with official languages, part of what the money in the action plan was for was to reduce the waiting times for language training at Language Training Canada. In order to do that, we've had to hire a great number of additional professors.

    We have a space problem at Asticou, where the training takes place. We were able to hire a certain number of language professors on a term basis. The money is limited over three years. You don't bring in a whole bunch of people when in three years the money runs out and you have to continue with them. We brought in a number of language teachers on a temporary basis. We've also engaged six private sector schools in order to increase our capacity to bring the waiting lists down for language training.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Is the $8 million for new private sector schools, or mostly contract schools?

    Mr. Gilles Charron: That's mostly for contracts with the private sector schools, to help with the backlog. It's a two-pronged approach: doing in-house, and purchasing language training from the school.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Is there no other department that does official languages?

    Mr. Michael Nelson: Do you mean one that does official languages work?

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Yes, training and.... Is there not an overlap somewhere else?

    Mr. Scott Serson: No.

    Let me be fair. Mr. Forseth raised the issue that National Defence is doing its own language training. There's no overlap. Foreign Affairs has a language school that teaches more than just French, I believe, but there's no overlap.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Communications and Public Works have that, don't they?

    Mr. Scott Serson: Public Works has the Translation Bureau, which translates government documents.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Thanks.

    The Chair: Madam Sgro.

½  (1905)  

    Ms. Judy Sgro: On the professional and special services referred to here, what are they for?

    Mr. Michael Nelson: I can speak to the language training part—

    Ms. Judy Sgro: Other than the language training.

    Mr. Scott Serson: What else is in there? There's e-recruitment.

    Mr. Michael Nelson: There's some in e-recruitment for professional services.

    Mr. Raymond Crête: There's a small component for electronic recruitment, with regard to hiring consultants to be able to work on psychometric evaluations and things of that nature, but it's a small portion. There are about 200 psychometric evaluations.

    Mr. Michael Nelson: On the question on how much we're spending on the six private sector schools, $4.3 million is for the use of those six schools this year.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: When members of Parliament get official language training, does that come out of the Public Service Commission? Isn't that a separate part, or is it the same?

    Mr. Scott Serson: That's through the House of Commons.

    Ms. Judy Sgro: When we talk about following through, how many areas within government have separate language training? This is specifically for employees of the Public Service Commission.

    Mr. Scott Serson: No, it's specifically for public servants, with the exception of National Defence, Foreign Affairs, and the House of Commons staff perhaps. But I think those are the only exceptions.

    Mr. Michael Nelson: There are 72 different clients, departments, agencies, and small groups that Language Training Canada has within the Public Service Commission as our client base.

    The Chair: Mr. Cullen.

    Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Serson, and all the other people here tonight.

    I don't have the same excuse as Mr. Clark, as I was here for Bill C-25, but just refresh my memory. In terms of the pressures on your resources and budgets, what does Bill C-25 do to you? There are some of the obvious areas, like the school and the official languages, but are there any other elements of Bill C-25...

    I presume Bill C-25 will become law. I guess that's the scenario you're working on and we should all be working on. Could you describe, programmatically, the pressures that will impinge on you as a result of Bill C-25?

    Mr. Scott Serson: It has been announced that both the language school and the professional training will go to this new Canada school of public administration. There is the creation of the Public Service Staffing Tribunal, which is going to take over recourse, appeals on staffing, but will leave us with some continued capacity for investigation.

    One of the challenges we discussed at the briefing on our audit is that we have staff who are uncertain whether they are going to be hired by this new Public Service Staffing Tribunal. Do they go elsewhere? Members of Parliament were asking, “What about the time it takes to do these investigations and appeals on Mr. Radwanski?” One of the management issues we have is a resource issue. When we create uncertainty, people get jobs elsewhere, so we're trying to manage that.

    There are three other areas that we think will be transferred, because it's clearly stated in the act that the Treasury Board now wants to take over human resource planning. My predecessor was worried that no demographic planning analysis was being done. She reallocated to set up a small shop. They have decided they want to do that now.

    There are two other areas that I quite frankly don't even know if I am allowed to talk about. They were in a cabinet document, and I'm not sure whether the president has announced them.

    The Chair: Well, it won't go out of this room.

    Mr. Roy Cullen: We won't tell a soul.

    The Chair: No, be guided by your own....

    Mr. Scott Serson: I guess as a matter of honour, I'd better not. But I would allude to it in this way, Mr. Cullen. I think there's going to be continued pressure, and this is why I wanted to highlight it.

    Mr. Donald Savoie has commented on the kind of ambivalence of parliamentarians that we've never had a chance to debate, and that is, does the Public Service Commission stay in certain staffing services as an effort to pre-audit, as an effort to kind of turn back the named referrals and say no, you're going to do a competition, as an effort to look at the outside hiring and say no, you're not going to bring that person in without a solid competition? In other words, the way it was originally intended was in a pre-audit sense, rather than a service sense.

    Where we've slipped in our work over the last little while—and I admit this is because of the emphasis since the 2000 Auditor General's report, which said that speed of staffing was terribly slow—is we've been concentrating on speed. To my mind, if you concentrate on speed, you let down your guard on integrity. If you concentrate on integrity, you slow things down. Or you make the investments—unfortunately—that create a system that is both speedy and has some integrity to it. That's the additional pressure that's going to be on us now.

    The only other thing I'm alluding to, Mr. Cullen, is that we get the message. If we didn't get it through the discussion of Bill C-25, we do get the message out of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner affair. So we have to be ready, without thinking about resource considerations, to revoke. We can't be sitting there, even as we did with OPC, saying, well, if we ask the manager in the Ottawa region to do this, is that going to kill it? We have to have some capacity. And it's going to be delicate, because how are we going to forecast need? But we have to have some integrated capacity to revoke, and we have to be able to verify the self-reporting on a more regular basis.

½  (1910)  

    Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you.

    Now, the Public Service Commission was not involved in the decision to hire Mr. Radwanski, were you?

    Mr. Scott Serson: No, that was an order-in-council appointment.

    Mr. Roy Cullen: I'd like to turn to a more serious question now.

    I agree, Mr. Serson, with what you're saying in the sense that whatever resources are required, rather than sort of piecemeal nickel and diming, I think you're absolutely right that the government should look at your business case. I imagine there were no sorts of compensating budgetary pressures in the sense of more delegated authorities that would sort of... there would be some evening out. I think what you're saying is there might be some of that, but on balance, it's going to take more resources, more—

    Mr. Scott Serson: But again, I think a new president of the commission will want to talk to members of Parliament about, for instance, executive staffing. There are a couple of steps we could take now.

    I've really been pressing Greg and our staff in that area to download a lot of the kinds of basic services they provide to deputy ministers and senior managers—writing up reports, putting the evidence on file—saying to the departments, you do that. We're going to be there to challenge the process, make sure it's done properly, make sure those documents are done and are on file, and present them to the commission. We could go that far.

    We could also go further, and depending on the degree of comfort, a future commission could delegate all that to deputy ministers. I've noted before that in Australia they have delegated that to the senior managers, and the Australian public service commissioner asks for an attestation from a member of the board who is not a member of the department.

    I haven't investigated how well that works, but we know from our experience with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, where we had asked for attestations, that we now have to go back and reinvent that system. He was to attest to those reclassifications, and he didn't give us that attestation, so we didn't ask any questions about them. So our system failed there, and we need to invest more in doing it.

    Those are some of the kinds of options l think a future commission will have to think about.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

    I have one small question and a comment and then we will wrap it up.

    I was intrigued in the discussion that took place with the Auditor General on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to note that it is a 100-person office, a relatively stable professional office, a budget that really provides for the salaries of the employees who work there, some level of basic office support—paper, pencils—some travel and hospitality, and so on. Right?

    In that office, again, it's relatively stable and relatively limited. They're not buying tanks and they're not building airplanes; they're just managing that workforce. For that, they have five full-time staff. It is inconceivable to me that it needs to employ five people to do that job, particularly when you have all of the companion supports that come from Treasury Board, from yourself, from Public Works and Government Services Canada. They don't have a little bag of money that they're handing out. They're filling in forms and passing them on.

    I do see the commission as having a future more as a true parliamentary officer, because you have not been a parliamentary officer, no matter how you tend to see yourself, and that's been part of the reason we have that recommendation out there. In any large organization they will tell you there are two things: you have to take care of your finances, sure, but you have to take care of your people. You have to invest time and energy in making sure your people are not just well selected, but well cared for, well supported, well trained—pick the list of things. It seems to me there is a strong role for the Public Service Commission there, more fully in the audit mode, but then it has to make a decision.

    It's my personal opinion that the changes brought about by Bill C-25 were trivial, they didn't go far enough, and they were far too cautious in making those decisions.

    So we will wait and see what the House does with our recommendation relative to all parliamentary officers and try to clarify that. I think this committee may well want to engage in a longer discussion on this very function, given its importance.

    In the meantime, Mr. Serson, I want to thank you. It may be the last time we see you, at least in this capacity.

½  (1915)  

    Mr. Scott Serson: That's why I'm making a plea to leave an important organization in your capable hands.

    The Chair: Perhaps some time before you do wander out of the building, you'll come back and explain to me how it takes five people to support 95.

    Mr. Scott Serson: I think we'd be prepared to do a briefing note for you on that.

    The Chair: I would really like to see it, because the question it raises for me is this. If it takes that many people to do it, then your systems are too complex and you need to change your systems.

    I'll await the briefing note.

    Thank you very much. I appreciate the time and energy of all concerned.

    Members, we are adjourned until Wednesday at 3:30.