PRHA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 11, 1999

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): If we could begin, the order of the day is the order of reference from the House of Commons of Monday, March 1, 1999: main estimates 1999-2000, vote 5 under Parliament, House of Commons.

We have witnesses today. Appearing is the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we welcome you once again most heartily to this committee. With the Speaker is Robert Marleau, Clerk of the House; Major-General Cloutier, Sergeant-at-Arms; and Luc Desroches, Director General, Financial Services and Human Resources Directorate. Gentlemen, we welcome you all.

Mr. Speaker, we're in your hands.

Hon. Gilbert Parent (Speaker of the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, I will remember this time to always address my remarks to you.

The Chair: Thank you for that.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: It's good to be with you again. I'm here with you this year to discuss two separate but related items. One is the main estimates for the House of Commons and the other is the Report on Plans and Priorities for the year 1999-2000.

As you know, each year the House of Commons prepares and submits to Parliament its spending estimates for the coming fiscal year. For the past two years, the Board of Internal Economy has also tabled its annual Report on Plans and Priorities in keeping with the federal government's new planning and performance reporting cycle.

So together the estimates and the Report on Plans and Priorities provide detailed information on not only the amount of money that will be required to keep this institution running smoothly, but more importantly, I believe, an explanation of how and why that money will be spent.

[Translation]

The Report on Plans and Priorities lays out the strategic direction that the Board has set for the organization. It defines the key results and priorities that the administration will work to achieve to ensure that Members of Parliament are well served this year and well into the future.

The report I am presenting to you today is more than nice ideas and good intentions. It represents a number of commitments—very serious ones—that the Board will be following up on as part of its ongoing planning and reporting activities.

[English]

Getting back to the two items before us today, I'd like to take a few minutes to go over some of the highlights of both the Report on Plans and Priorities and of course the main estimates. Knowing you always have a few questions to put to me and to the officials who are here with me today, I propose to be as brief as possible and to leave as much time for discussion as we can.

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Let's start with the estimates. As you're probably aware, the House has asked for $243.3 million for 1999-2000. This is a 3% increase over the 1998-99 main estimates and represents very much a stay-the-course approach as we emerge from several years of downsizing and restraint. You'll recall that our estimates last year were $235 million, and we added another $8.5 million in supplementary estimates for a total of $243.5 million.

A significant portion of the $8.5 million in supplementary estimates covered items that changed our base budget. I'm referring here to the provisions of Bill C-47, as well as salary increases for the administration's employees, which have been negotiated over the past year, among other items. These amounts, which we couldn't anticipate a year ago, have now been built into our main estimates for 1999-2000.

[Translation]

In addition to these non-discretionary items, there have been some changes—both increases and decreases—that I would like to draw to your attention today. We are requesting an increase of just over a half-million dollars to cover a number of relatively small items. These include such things as increased cable vision and satellite costs, householder production, food services, and information services.

That total also reflects the Board's decision to eliminate the barber and hairdresser services which will generate savings of just over $50,000 annually.

[English]

A few somewhat more significant items have necessitated modest increases to the main estimates this year, and $678,000 will go to operate the long-term architectural planning office. We have a small group of people working as special advisers to the Sergeant-at-Arms on all matters pertaining to the renovations here on Parliament Hill. As you're aware, the rehabilitation of the Parliament buildings is a multi-year project being carried out and funded by Public Works and Government Services Canada.

The role of the long-term architectural planning office is to act as a liaison between the House and the Department of Public Works. In consultation with members and House officials, they work to determine the House's requirements and effective delivery of these requirements, while ensuring that the House continues to function through all the construction with as little disruption as possible.

[Translation]

The Estimates also provide for the $383,000 requested by the Joint Inter-parliamentary Council to pay membership fees and to fund the activities of parliamentary associations.

[English]

In what I consider to be a very wise decision, the board has recommended the House set aside $250,000 as a year 2000 contingency fund and $400,000 to support parliamentary precinct services computer applications.

As the dawn of the year 2000 draws nearer, we're all becoming quite knowledgeable about the potential impact of the “millennium bug”. Our technology experts here at the House have been working for some time to ensure this place continues to run smoothly into the next calendar year, and our state of readiness has been highly rated by external experts. However, the board felt it prudent to build some cushion into our budget for the coming year.

The main estimates for 1999-2000 also include close to $4 million in reductions. These are related to the removal of one-time budgets approved in previous years. The major component of this decrease is attributable to the new Integrated Resource Management Information System, or IRMS, which is being implemented on April 1, just a few weeks from now.

[Translation]

I'll turn now to the Report on Plans and Priorities and give you a quick overview of what lies ahead in the coming year.

The House administration will, as always, focus first and foremost on providing Members of Parliament with the high quality services and products they need in order to serve the Canadians they represent.

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This year's priorities include the continued improvement of information resources for Members, playing a central role in the renovations on Parliament Hill, and providing appropriate security for Members, their staff and their information assets.

[English]

A further priority relates to the people who keep this place running. The House administration recognizes, as do all members, that an organization like ours relies heavily on its employees, their knowledge, their expertise, and their experience at the House. I believe investing in our people and ensuring that the House of Commons continues to attract and retain a workforce that possesses the skills and knowledge required to sustain this institution is a high priority for all of us.

[Translation]

A number of undertakings are being pursued this year to ensure the long-term viability of this most precious resource. These include looking at the whole issue of succession planning—that is, anticipating the future needs of the institution and developing plans to ensure that we continue to have a workforce that can meet those needs.

[English]

We also continue to work with the Senate, the Library, and employee unions to deliver “The Many Facets of Parliament Hill” employee training programs, modelled on the rather successful Teachers' Institute initiative. In the spring, another 80 employees of the three institutions will have a chance to spend a little more than three days learning about Parliament and the work of the members and senators they serve.

As you know, I was a former educator and I believe very firmly in the value of employee development and workplace training. There is no better investment we can make to safeguard this institution for future generations of parliamentarians, and indeed for all Canadians.

The clerk and his officials may have additional remarks to make on some of the specific initiatives we will be seeing in the coming year, so I'll end my remarks here. Whatever questions you have, Mr. Chairman, I'll be happy to field.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Marleau.

Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): I'll be very brief because I think the Speaker has really covered the highlights of both the estimates and the plans and priorities report before you.

I'll be a little more graphic, if I can put it that way, and take you through some of the slides that have been distributed.

The first one is the 1999-2000 evolution chart of the House of Commons budget, the main estimates, which shows you from 1987 through to this year both the curve in current dollars and the curve in adjusted dollars for inflation.

Obviously, the period between 1993 and 1997 was our downsizing period. Most of you are quite familiar with that, where almost $26 million was deducted from the budget through cost savings and staff departure incentive programs. In that period, 25% of the staff of the House left.

Beginning in 1997-98, the curve started to go up again and with just this set of estimates slightly exceeded the 1994-95 base.

The next slide is again a bar chart comparison of year over year in terms of the ups and downs, and it really is a chart of ups and downs if you compare from 1994 to 1995. The left-hand side of the chart from your position represents the growth or reductions year over year in terms of members and House officers—allocations of funds. On the right-hand side is the allocation as per global House services.

As you can see, we're looking at a 4.3% increase in House officers and budgets, mostly attributable to Bill C-47, and a 0.9% increase on the administrative side.

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The next slide I'd like to draw to your attention is the one that is broken down by line object, that is, the activities that members are involved in, the four lines that the Board of Internal Economy adopted as the model for the representation of the institutional spending in 1995. I would like to point out as a matter of explanation that the activities under “constituencies” represent 62% of the entire budget. That is because we roll up into that all of the members' salaries, members' operating budgets, and members' staff. So it does represent a very large portion of this pie chart, but it is largely salary based.

Finally, there's the distribution of the main estimates. Again, along the two traditional pie charts the committee has seen, both members' and House officers', you can see there the point I was just making that 69% of the pie chart is represented by salaries, the operating side being slightly less than 30%.

Again, the same sort of configuration appears almost in identical terms under House administration, 76%. I mentioned last year that this was on the rise since the downsizing in terms of percentage of budget. Seventy-six percent is salary oriented, which speaks to the point the Speaker is making about investing in people, as they are the biggest commodity we have in the service of members at the House.

Finally, I would like to relist the six priorities, which the Speaker has woven into his remarks, that have been set by the board last year. We are staying the course again this year with this Report on Plans and Priorities.

[Translation]

We will pursue the same goals, namely, improving information resources for Members. We will also move ahead with renovations, which represent a large component of the House administration's activities in the next decade. Third, we will provide appropriate security in the parliamentary precinct. We will also start studying Members' security needs in their ridings.

As I was just saying, we will be investing in people. This may be one of the most critical items, not just for the administration, but also for Members. We must also think very carefully about Members' staff, particularly since their wages represent 80% of your operating budget. It may be time to consider a program similar to the Many Facets of Parliament Hill program that would allow MPs' staff to meet in a neutral, non-partisan environment and share the experience they have gained by working for a Member, either on Parliament Hill or in the riding office. They could share their knowledge and know-how, which are unique in the workplace.

Fifth, we must improve communications at the House. We set this objective for ourselves a while ago, and Internal Economy supports it. The employees will not be able to respond to the expectations we set if they do not receive performance appraisals and if they are not aware of the expectations of their main customers.

Finally, we have to look at reviewing and reporting on performance.

[English]

That is the performance report we hope to be able to table with you, the first performance report tabled with this committee, early in the fall of this year, whereby based on a results framework we have developed we will be able to demonstrate measurables as well as feedback from you, as those we serve, on how we are doing against these priorities.

That's essentially it, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Major-General Cloutier or Mr. Desroches.

Major-General G. Cloutier (Sergeant-at-Arms, House of Commons): No, thank you.

The Chair: Again, I thank you for the coverage of the main estimates and the Report on Plans and Priorities. Colleagues, we have a considerable list already. I know there's great interest in this. I'm going to try to keep it moving if I can. I have Marlene Catterall, John Solomon, Peter Stoffer, and Joe Fontana.

Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): First, one of the themes in this and previous years has been looking at more efficient ways of delivering services to the House of Commons—alternative service delivery it's being called in government—and I'd be interested in knowing what progress has been made on that. Secondly, I'd also be interested in knowing, with respect to the food services, whether the House is interested in entertaining proposal calls for the delivery of those services. I'm especially noting the comments about the East Block cafeteria right now.

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Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Mr. Chairman, as you know, for a number of years we have struggled with the costs and service of the restaurants. We find that over the years, although we have brought down the deficit we've been running substantially, it's still a struggle for us on a year-to-year basis. Like many of you, I've received letters with regard to the privatization of these services. We have not closed the door on that for ever and ever.

I don't have any specific information about the opening of the “restaurant” in the East Block; that's the Senate and they're going to be dealing with it. But I understand they were gathering some information about delivering service there under a privatization contract generally. There were some discussions taking place. We don't preclude that possibility here, and perhaps the Board of Internal Economy could once again have a run at that and at some early date get back to you with some ideas we might have.

As for proposals, it never hurts for us to receive proposals, although at this point at least we have not put out for these proposals. We have not asked for them. But it's best not to say that we're not going to do that.

With regard to the services on the Hill, do you want to add anything? Did you just want to know about the restaurants?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Particularly, yes.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: All right. I hope that will answer your question.

The Chair: Marlene, is that it?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: You have a big list. If you get to a second round I'll come back.

The Chair: So it's John Solomon, Peter Stoffer, Joe Fontana, Stéphane Bergeron, Lynn Myers, Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, and André Harvey.

John Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have three questions. One relates to the allocation of office space for caucuses. In most jurisdictions in Canada, the Speaker or the department in charge will allocate a geographic area of the precinct for a caucus. The House of Commons is the only one I'm aware of where the governing party gets first choice, the second party gets second choice, and the third party and so on.... What we end up with, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Chair, is a conglomeration, a hodgepodge of offices. There's no opportunity to coordinate our resources and to use our resources more efficiently.

So my first question is whether in the plans we're following up in terms of building offices in the Justice Building for MPs and whether in future renovations to the Hill you will make a recommendation to allocate certain spaces to parties so that there's not this hodgepodge and we can more effectively use the resources we have available to us.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: As you know, it always has been the tradition over the years here that the party with the most votes gets first choice. It's like that even in the House of Commons. The tradition has built up over the years where the government, or the party with the most seats, gets the choice of where they want to sit in the House...the second, third, fourth and fifth down the line.

If this committee wishes to make a recommendation to us, we'll be happy to pass it on to the House leaders. I myself do not have any strong feelings about it. It's like the House of Commons; I don't think there's a bad seat in the House of Commons. When you get there it's a pretty good seat wherever you are. I'm not being facetious about this, Mr. Chairman.

For the office space, maybe some parties would love to have one building that says this is the NDP building, or floor, I don't know. I would counter with a question. Has this ever been discussed by the whips or House leaders?

Mr. John Solomon: Yes, it was initially after the last election, and the conclusion was that there would be consultations and there might be some recommendations. But there has been no follow-up on that, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, you have your architects and your planners. The planners would have a much better insight as to how it could be done than politicians would. Every other jurisdiction, Mr. Speaker, does have allocated space. Yes, the government gets the largest space and the second largest party gets the second largest space, but they have some flexibility.

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If all the offices here were the same distance from the Centre Block, it wouldn't be so bad, but they're all over the place and the office sizes are different, and you can't effectively and efficiently husband your resources and pool them. It's all independent, and maybe that's the way it should be, but my sense is and our caucus preference would be to have an opportunity to be more efficient in terms of having caucuses in the same districts at least.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: If you're asking for my opinion, again I have no problem with that. If this committee would like to make a recommendation with regard to that, we'll surely turn it over to the House leaders and/or the whips for consultation. You said they already said they were going to do that.

The Chair: Thank you for your confidence.

Mr. John Solomon: I need your help, Mr. Speaker.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: John, be very brief. The next questioner is a member of your party.

Mr. John Solomon: I have two quick questions. One relates to security, which you've made reference to in your presentation, at the constituency office level. My office has been broken into once and thefts have occurred, and it has been vandalized three more times in a matter of a year or so. We have no protection. Our insurance policy is covering part of it, but it's getting more expensive as the vandals continue to break windows. A survey was submitted to all members to see if we could get cheaper insurance rates. What's the status of that? Secondly, what is the plan for providing better security for constituency offices in general?

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Is that yours, Gus?

MGen G. Cloutier: Yes, I can do that.

I appreciate the problems you have on the security of the riding offices. I'm looking forward to my appearance in committee when we're going to discuss some of it relating to picketing. At the moment the security of your riding office really comes under the local police forces. I know that has caused you problems. Some members feel that provincial police are not reacting as quickly as they ought to. We have had many meetings with the RCMP, which has acted as a liaison between us and the local police forces across the nation. We're trying to develop a more sensitive system. Whether or not we can achieve it while we're relating to the local police and municipal forces still remains to be seen.

We had a member in the last two days whose office was taken over by picketers. The question to me was, what do I do? You call the local police force and get them out. That's the first thing you have to do. I'm sitting in Ottawa, and I certainly cannot give him better advice than that.

So in our discussion of the issue you have in front of the committee, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to pursue that. In fact, I'm looking forward to your recommendation on that and assistance.

The Chair: We're looking forward to having you before the committee.

John, can we move on, because Peter—

Mr. John Solomon: I want a response on the insurance question. There was a survey done and I've not seen any results, whether it was our committee or the clerk or whomever.

The Chair: Very briefly.

Mr. Luc Desroches (Director General, Financial Services and Human Resources Directorate, House of Commons): We have the results of the survey. A lot of members are already covered by their existing leases, and the survey didn't really show there is a need to bring this further.

The Chair: Next is Peter Stoffer, and then Joe Fontana and Stéphane Bergeron.

Peter, if we could keep it moving, I'd be grateful.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I really appreciate your comments to the Speaker and Mr. Marleau on the workers of the House of Commons.

I have two very quick questions. One, is there a pay difference between the Senate employees and the House of Common employees? If there is, is there anything in the estimates to correct that deficiency? I'm thinking of the drivers, for example.

Mr. Robert Marleau: We're still involved in some collective bargaining negotiations for some of those groups. I gather some of it is has culminated as late as this week, Monday or Tuesday.

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I'd say there is general salary parity between the two institutions, although there has been some growth on the Senate side in, I believe, security and those groups represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The drivers?

Mr. Robert Marleau: That's right.

Unfortunately, these are separate negotiation tables. We have not been able to come to a general agreement to negotiate for all three institutions under the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, although there is some very close collaboration between the Library and ourselves in terms of positions taken and with what the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons has taken. It has been more difficult to achieve on the Senate side. The Senate negotiated its own terms. We have negotiated ours. So far we've successfully negotiated every table without having to resort to arbitration or outside intervention. We trust that we will be successful with all five unions.

The Chair: Thank you for the brevity, Peter.

I'll go to Joe Fontana with the same instruction, and then Stéphane Bergeron.

Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me applaud the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, and all who work here. I think we get first class service around this place, but there are two or three issues that I want to ask about.

One issue relates to communications, householder production, printing, and so on. As you know, it's a big funnel. There are deadlines, but there's only a certain capacity in the system. I'm just wondering if there was a view as to whether or not one should be able to look at the efficiency of being able to do those ourselves, in our own ridings, in terms of outsourcing printing requirements on our own.

To tell you the truth, I remember having been given the opportunity once. I think it was during the Charlottetown accord. Because there was a necessary timeframe, we were all asked to go out on our own to produce our householders and even some additional communications, and there were great efficiencies. I don't know if that's something you might want to take a look at, or if it's something you have taken a look at, but I think there may be some positive things that could happen there.

As you know, unfortunately we're all trying to get our householders printed at essentially the same time. It's the same for cards and ten-percenters, and there's only a certain amount of capacity. All I hear are complaints that we're having to wait 30, 40 or 45 days. As you know, though, in politics you had better be able to talk about the issue that's front and centre today, because if you're talking about 60 days thereafter, it just doesn't make any sense. That's my first question.

Second, with regard to caucus, as a chair, I've had some discussion on this with other caucus chairs in other parties. There is a provision in here as to how much money is allocated to caucus, and maybe you could explain that to me. In my opinion, there is a deficiency of funds. Caucuses are becoming much more involved in policy-making, in travelling, and in wanting to do a lot of work on behalf of the various caucuses, yet there are no resources whatsoever for caucuses to undertake even to pay for coffee or room rentals when they want to go out and do things. I've discussed this with the other parties, and they feel that while there are allocations through the research bureau or through the various components, perhaps this could be addressed in these supplementary estimates. Perhaps there is a provision whereby caucuses can do a lot more work and hence cover some of those expenses that are absolutely necessary. I'm not talking about travel expenses or any of that; I'm talking about some infrastructural expenses.

Third, my favourite topic is technology. We all know it's changing. There was some talk about creating the virtual office by way of computers, especially in the House of Commons. Now that our constituency offices and our Ottawa offices are going to be connected, the House of Commons should also perhaps look at being connected to this virtual office, so that some of us will be able to do our work on behalf of our constituents, perhaps even with a laptop computer as we're travelling. I wonder if you could cover that issue.

I won't get into electronic voting today, but perhaps another—

The Chair: You have four minutes.

Mr. Joe Fontana: Yes, okay.

In terms of service technology, I want you to review OASIS. Again, I'll use the same analogy as I have with regard to the householder. Sometimes we're all looking for service for our technology requirements in our offices, and sometimes it's taking much too long in order to deal with those particular technology issues. I'm just wondering whether or not there are other alternative delivery services available to us as MPs, so that we can source our own service contracts for the purposes of technology or what have you.

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Thank you.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Let me take a crack at a few of them.

First of all, on the technology, it's ironic that George Baker and I were just discussing at the beginning of the meeting that we will have been here 25 years. Rest assured that 25 years ago we didn't have the tools that we now have at our disposal.

Do you know the IRMIS program that we have put in place? We are talking now about limiting—I don't know if that's the right word—or giving a choice of four fax machines, for example, so that we can get people who can service those machines. We're told that there are as many as over 140 different fax machines that you can purchase. We're trying to limit the choice to four here, so that we can get people in to service our machines if and when they do break down.

The caucus funding is one thing I have not been privy to discussions on, at least not up until this time. We've been mostly dealing with the allocation of funds for the research bureaus. We came to an agreement with the House leaders over the years, but it surely is something that should be brought to the Board of Internal Economy, because I believe that's where some of those decisions will be made.

The householders are another thing we have a great deal of experience with. As a blanket statement, it doesn't hold true all the time. We have found that by being able to do the householders collectively here on the Hill, it seems we can get better service and a better price. Through you, Mr. Chairman, I must tell Joe that I'm a little surprised it would take 30 to 45 days—I believe that's what you said—for turnaround time.

I'd like my officials to also comment on those three areas.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On the whole printing issue, a subcommittee of the Board of Internal Economy has just been struck—it has not yet met—to look at the whole issue of printing and printing services available to members, including householders, ten-percenters, stationery, the whole works. That too is evolving in a technological way. Things are getting cheaper, but volumes are on the increase. Your demands as members to communicate with your constituencies seems to be growing, particularly on the ten-percenter side. So we're looking at all of that, and we'll be making recommendations to the board from the staff level. No doubt there will also be consultations with the caucuses on strategies and products, not just more of the same.

Members are still using householders extensively, at 3.2 a year. We've flattened the curve a little bit, particularly on marketing our down time to members. A lot of Christmas cards were done during the summer period. Members were very cooperative. I think better than 200 planned their Christmas output in the summer in terms of Christmas cards, which allowed us more capacity to deal with the Christmas householder.

So we're aware of those issues, but as the Speaker just said, our market study still shows that we still provide a better price for the same product by doing them in-house, as well as a better guaranteed turnaround time. When we get over our internal capacity, we do farm it out to local printers here, who then simultaneously produce it.

Allowing MPs to produce their householders in their own ridings is still an option that will be part of this package that we look at. What you have a problem with there, Mr. Fontana, is the bundling and distribution of it. You can likely find a printer who can do it in your own riding. You may be very privileged in that maybe he will do it for free for you, I don't know.

Mr. Joe Fontana: I wish.

Mr. Robert Marleau: But we have a major problem when it comes to bundling them according to the routes of Canada Post, in order to get them out. In essence, that would mean bringing them back from the riding to bundle them accordingly. The costs then go up in that kind of context.

In terms of services to caucuses, the Speaker has covered them effectively. What we would need there are specific recommendations from caucus chairs to the board in terms of what your expectations are. The current caucus budgets essentially cover House officers, additional salaries, a budget for the research officers and the party leaders, and some minor personnel costs. There isn't a lot of operating budget there. There's some for technology and some for communications.

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Finally on the technology side for the House of Commons—and I will also avoid the subject of electronic voting—part of the presentation we made on that subject, which we don't want to talk about today to this committee, was that you should look at it as a package; look at a backbone first and then electronic voting as an add-on capacity.

In the planning we are doing, through the long-term architectural planning office under the jurisdiction of the Sergeant, for the next ten years of renovations on Parliament Hill we have identified a $20 million expenditure to provide these renovated buildings—be it the West Block or this building, when we're finally back into this building, including Justice, which will be available within a year or so—simply backbone-type of technology support. This includes routers, drops—the entire backbone that is required for the future in terms of wiring the place and making sure that when we move an office to another office, everything will be compatible.

The Chair: Next will be Stéphane Bergeron, Lynn Myers, Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, and André Harvey. Then we will go to a second round. I'm keeping a list.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I would like to join my colleagues who have spoken so far in recognizing and congratulating the Speaker and the staff of the House of Commons for the excellent service that they provide to parliamentarians, and by so doing, to the entire population.

I have two very quick questions. The first follows up on a question asked a few moments ago about insurance for riding offices. I would like to hear some more details about the survey that was done. I'm surprised to hear the preliminary results that you were telling us about a little bit earlier, considering what I had understood from the outside. I had the impression that if we proceeded individually, we would pay quite a bit and not get as much, but if we got group insurance, the costs would be lower and we would have more coverage. Could you tell us more about that?

My second question concerns something I've spoken about many times, namely the savings we could achieve if we negotiated with the Senate authorities. There is all sorts of duplication here on Parliament Hill, and it's costing taxpayers a fortune. I think we certainly could save large amounts of money by negotiating with the Senate authorities. I'm sure that we are acting in good faith—and of course, I suppose that any bad faith is not coming from us—and that we could negotiate with the Senate and thereby reduce costs, particularly for security, printing, messengers and so on. Where are we at on this particular issue? Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Will we be signing possible agreements with the Senate authorities? In the final analysis, I think that the best solution would be to abolish that institution, which costs taxpayers a fortune and is made up of non-elected people. That's quite a personal comment. But since this institution does exist, we have to live with it. What can we do right now to reduce costs?

Speaker Parent: I won't get into the issue of whether the Senate should or should not exist; it's up to you to do that. We continue to have discussions with the Senate. We would like to ensure that everyone who works on the hill works together more. We have already had some success at that level, and as Gus was saying the other day, things are going somewhat better with security services. It would be better if everyone who works on the hill got the same wages and benefits, if there were no differences between the two institutions. Senator Rompkey now chairs a board of internal economy that is similar to our own, and we talk to each other every six weeks. We are looking at the possibility of doing things together so as to benefit Parliament Hill.

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I'll ask Luc Desroches to answer your other question.

Mr. Luc Desroches: I don't have that information right here with me, but I would be pleased to forward it to the committee in writing.

Mr. Robert Marleau: Could I add something about insurance? We are giving you the results of the survey, but in the meantime, I can tell you that we have had some modest progress in our dealings with the Senate. Last year, I reported to you that we had signed an agreement with the Senate administration regarding the computer network. Since the Senate adopted the same network as us, we now have the same network serving the entire parliamentary precinct. This year, the Senate is looking at the possibility of broadcasting its committee meetings, and both institutions have signed an agreement for us to donate surplus equipment to them, equipment that we no longer needed and that we have just disposed of otherwise. We will sign an agreement to manage broadcasting if the Senate comes to an agreement with CPAC.

The Chairman: Stéphane Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I'm afraid we may be opening up a new Pandora's box, since we know perfectly well that the amount of air time will not be increased accordingly. Once the Senate arrives on the scene, there will be less air time for the House of Commons and members, who are elected by the people. It just makes me even madder, if you don't mind my saying so.

However, a few moments ago we were talking about the whole issue of security, printing and messengers. Not only is duplication very expensive for the taxpayers, it is also very, very inefficient. Let me give you just one example. All you have to do is try to enter the building from the east door, on the Senate side, and you'll see that it's not necessarily a piece of cake, because they don't know us. It would be much simpler to have a single security system, managed by the general, of course.

Mgen G. Cloutier: I'm awfully popular right now.

Some Hon. Members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: We'll now go to Mr. Lynn Myers, followed by Ms. Dalphond-Guiral.

[English]

Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to echo those who have thanked you for being here today, and I especially wanted to say how much I appreciate the outstanding work of the House of Commons staff who I believe serve us—and by extension, all Canadians—very well.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you could touch briefly on the Teachers' Institute. I know that's a very specific project of yours and one that you enjoy doing. How many participants have gone through that, and what's the general level of feedback as a result?

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Well, at the risk of seeming to be less than humble, it has been an excellent adventure, if you will. We've had it for three years now, and we have our fourth year coming up. If you count those who come back to help us the following year, there are approximately 75 in it, so we've had a little over 200 teachers.

These teachers were chosen by their peers. We didn't choose them. Their peers decide that these are the best and they send them to us. We then give those teachers a hands-on experience here with members of the House of Commons. The feedback has been excellent, and we're now into the fourth generation of teachers. We find that they not only use it for their own teaching, but they use it to teach teachers. We're into that mode now, and it's like a badge of honour for one of the chosen to come here. But you have no doubt heard that we are extending that to our own people on the Hill.

I know it's hard for us to get around the fact that there are people who have been working on the Hill for a number of years, some for as many as ten or fifteen years, and they have never been into the House of Commons. I spoke to a group just a short while ago in the House. They have other things to do and they're always busy, but we want them to find out what we do collectively as parliamentarians on the Hill. That's why they say charity begins at home. Well, yes, we've reached out to the teachers, and now we are reaching out to our own. If we have as much success with that as we have had with the teachers, it will be a good investment in time for our people to go through this same thing we have the teachers go through.

• 1155

Mr. Lynn Myers: It's an excellent program. Certainly people in my area appreciate it, and I wanted to pass that on.

Can somebody tell me what the status of the Justice Building is? I understand that renovations will be completed in the fall of 1999. What's the protocol and what's the process in terms of getting support up and going and transportation and moving and allocations and all that kind of stuff?

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: We're having a great deal of success. First of all, we have the Justice Building. The construction is coming along and it seems to be on time, but General Cloutier can give you specific information on it.

MGen G. Cloutier: Mr. Chairman, as far as the Justice Building is concerned, I do anticipate that the building will be turned over from the contractor to Public Works some time in the summer. From there Public Works has to fit up the building. We certainly have a great share of work to do there with our long-range planners. We have given them the requirements. Now they have to go to contract for the cabling of the building. This is a $10 million to 12 million job. Anyone of us around the table can appreciate that if you have a $10 million job to do in one building, it will not be ready for the fall of 1999. I would suggest to you that the summer of 2000 would be the time for occupancy in that building.

The good news on that, and as a follow-up to your question, Mr. Fontana, is that the Minister of Public Works wrote to the Speaker two weeks ago and the department has agreed to pay for all the fit-up in the Justice Building, which means $10 million to 12 million of funding for which I won't have to come to you for approval. So at least that won't show up in our budget, and that's the good news.

We're a little bit late, I think, and I would suggest you should be cautious with your staff. I know in the Wellington Building some of the staff are saying they're going to move this summer. Let's be fair to them. I don't think it will happen.

The Chair: I'd like to add about the Teachers' Institute that all the feedback I've received on it simply could not have been better.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for you. In your opening remarks, you mentioned allocating $383,000 to the Joint Inter-parliamentary Council. I suppose this is an additional amount that you're asking for. It certainly can't be the total amount.

Speaker Parent: No, it's not the total amount, it's actually an additional amount that we would like to allocate to the Joint Inter-parliamentary Council, which includes several associations, including Canada-China and Canada-United Kingdom.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have another question about the 1999-2000 priorities, particularly the sixth priority, which has to do with reviewing performance. I was a teacher for many years, so I know that it is important to evaluate people so as to get an idea of what kind of competency they have and how it can be improved or perhaps shared with others. Are you planning to create tools that would allow Members of Parliament to carry out a systematic evaluation of their staff? I'm sure there are ways of doing that, ways that I'm not familiar with, and it would be useful to know more about them. It might also be useful for me to share some of my methods, so as to improve client services, problem solving and so on.

Speaker Parent: We can certainly show members the questions that we ask as managers. Members who would like to use this approach that we use with our own staff could do so. This could help members' staff do a better job, both in riding offices and in the hill offices.

• 1200

So you would like us to send you a copy of the questions that we will be using?

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: That could be useful, because obviously a questionnaire is a tool.

Speaker Parent: We certainly could do that.

Mr. Robert Marleau: I would like to say something about that, Mr. Chairman.

When we developed performance measurements for the sixth priority, we realized that we mustn't inundate members with all kinds of questionnaires. It might be a good idea to develop a generic questionnaire in order to asses the strengths and weaknesses in the four areas that you are working in or to ask you to fill it out perhaps once a year or every year and a half.

We will have to test these instruments with our clientele, that is to say, with you and your employees. We plan to develop these tools as part of our performance indicators so as to ensure that they mean the same thing for you as they do for us. We are doing an initial evaluation of these tools with members and their staff, and then we will have to ensure that the framework of results that we develop will also be relevant to the indicators that we have developed. After that, we will begin another phase of consultations.

Above all, I would like to assure you that we will maximize the contacts that we already have. For example, when Mr. Fontana's office calls the famous Help Desk, we track each one of the calls and we note whether it's to repair the same equipment as well as the number of times that we've repaired it, the time it took to respond to the request, the reasons for any possible delay and so on. For example, were these parts not available, or did the staff need training? Often the staff are not very familiar with the software and they need more specialized training. We keep track of all that data so we can provide you with better service, and that way we don't have to ask you what you think of the computer service. We get that information live. This information that we keep track of serves us well in that area.

As for the messengers, they have their contacts in all the offices and they can gather information by leaving little response cards to fill in, like the questionnaires that customers get in a restaurant, for example. However, we try not to inundate you with questionnaires.

Speaker Parent: Unless you would like us to, Ms. Dalphond- Guiral.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Unless I want to be inundated?

The Chairman: If you want to be.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Thanks a lot.

[English]

The Chairman: André Harvey, briefly, Bob Kilger, and then a second round.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, last year, you were involved in the teachers' forum on Canadian parliamentary democracy. I believe that the program was very successful, and I would like to ask you whether you plan on increasing the number of participants.

Speaker Parent: We believe that having more than 70 or 75 teachers could lead to certain problems. We want the experience to be intimate, if I can use that word, and we want teachers to have the opportunity to really take part in the discussions and share their own personal experiences. If there are too many participants, that may not be possible. Given the success of the program, perhaps we should look at the possibility of organizing it twice a year, inviting two different groups.

Mr. André Harvey: On two different occasions.

Speaker Parent: Naturally, we would need a little bit more money, but we certainly could look at the possibility. However, for the time being, we still plan on inviting roughly 75 teachers to Parliament Hill so that they can come and share their viewpoints and tell us what their needs are.

Mr. André Harvey: You were asked to increase the budget for the parliamentary associations by $400,000. As the Speaker of the House of Commons and as a veteran parliamentarian, how important do you think these associations are?

Speaker Parent: In my opinion, the associations are very important, because they allow us to see the world for ourselves, not through the eyes of a third party. Thanks to the experience we gain on the trips these associations organize, we can make more enlightened decisions. We could compare the benefits that we derive from these trips to those derived by the teachers who come here to Parliament Hill. We have an opportunity to see these countries, to speak to their parliamentarians, to get information on location, direct from the source, rather than through the media.

• 1205

I acknowledge that these associations are expensive. But if we want to be members of Parliament on the international level, not just domestically or federally, people who can discuss issues with others from throughout the entire world, it is important for us to have the opportunity to go out there and get that information ourselves.

Mr. André Harvey: You consider that an investment, not an expenditure.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Yes, absolutely.

Mr. André Harvey: I would like to raise the matter of the production of householders. I believe Members of Parliament are still entitled to three or four householders a year.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: They're entitled to four householders.

Mr. André Harvey: It might cost between $7,000 and $8,000 to produce a householder. I'm wondering whether it might not be advisable to encourage people in our own region or in our ridings by giving them the job of producing these householders. This might cut the costs in half, and would at the same time promote regional development.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: We have studied this possibility. The whips looked into this. The group consisted of Mr. Bergeron, Mr. Kilger and all the other whips; Mr. Strahl was there as well. I think Mr. Solomon participated too.

The Chairman: Normally, all the whips are here.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Yes: they were involved in this study and asked many questions. If it were possible to produce the householders for a lower cost, I would certainly like to know about that. If this can be done, we should certainly be looking into it.

[English]

The Chair: Bob Kilger, Yvon Charbonneau, and then the second round.

[Translation]

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): I would like to thank Mr. Speaker, the Clerk and their colleagues for appearing before us today.

I want to refer to a very sad incident, Ms. Cohen's death. I would like to know whether a study was done or an assessment made of the procedures already in place and those that could be added to help us respond better to such situations. I hope such a thing never happens again, but I would like to know whether any conclusions have been drawn or recommendations made.

[English]

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: I'm going to let Major-General Cloutier answer that, of course, because he's responsible for our collective security. To say it was a sad thing—I don't know if you can make an understatement in that kind of case. This was the first member of Parliament I know of who died on the floor of the House of Commons.

But even with that, it seemed to me our people reacted very quickly to the circumstance. That's from the professional side. But from our own side, the members' side, I was particularly touched by the members of Parliament who were there, not the least of whom was your chairman, Peter Adams, who was right there on the spot, along with Mr. Bachand and others. Those were the ones I saw immediately. We had a whole look at how to respond to that. Gus can bring us up to date on that.

MGen G. Cloutier: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I too felt a little disturbed at the time, particularly when we escorted the hon. member to the ambulance outside.

As a follow-up to this, I had a meeting with the executive of the Press Gallery. I brought a few suggestions to them, and I must admit they have not been returned yet, but I will follow up on that.

I think there is a requirement to have a much more streamlined procedure for them, albeit it was scrum time and all that. Some press people suggested we should clear them out and have one or two dedicated press in the room or whatever, if it ever happens again.

I will continue to follow up with them. I haven't received their recommendations formally.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Were you referring to the media or to us?

MGen G. Cloutier: I was referring to the media.

• 1210

Mr. Bob Kilger: Mr. Chairman, just to be a little more specific, of course that was a preoccupation, and I'm sure it will be pursued by the Sergeant-at-Arms and we'll get the recommendations on the specifics of it.

But I was wondering more specifically whether any consideration has been given to adding other equipment to respond to this type of incident and so on. My question was not in any way, shape or form to diminish the efforts that were made by anyone and everyone who responded to the best of their abilities under most difficult circumstances.

MGen G. Cloutier: Mr. Chairman, I omitted to say that we are acquiring a defibrillator, just like the Senate has. Our staff will have it there, and we have enough medical doctors in the House. We have the other first aid equipment pretty well in situ right now.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Yvon Charbonneau.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière des Prairies, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Speaker of the House whether the budget of the Parliamentary Centre appears anywhere, in whole or in part, in the Estimates of the Speaker of the House. Where does it appear?

Mr. Robert Marleau: The Parliamentary Centre is a non- governmental organization and its budget is totally independent of the House.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Totally independent.

I come now to my second question. We spoke earlier about the expected increase for parliamentary associations. As the President of the Canadian section of the Canada-France Parliamentary Association, I am pleased to hear that.

We also have a certain number of parliamentary friendship groups. Is there some place where we can find out how many such parliamentary groups exist? Are they recorded somewhere, or can we get information about the membership, the number of such groups or the bylaws they have passed?

Mr. Robert Marleau: The parliamentary friendship groups have non-official status and are neither recognized nor financed by the Board of Internal Economy. However, responsibility for administrative leadership lies almost solely within the office of the Member of Parliament or Senator elected president of the friendship group. When the Canada-Israel friendship group holds an event, for example, our Parliamentary Exchanges and Protocol Directorate helps the group organize the event. That is the only financial assistance we provide to the friendship groups. We don't have a complete list. Some of them are more official than others because they have been in existence for a very long time, but there are others—and I don't care to name them—who promote ties with parts of the world that are not necessarily recognized as countries by Canada.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's interesting.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: My question was not about financing specifically, but I was going to come to that. First of all, is there a list of these groups so that we can at least determine whether there are 12 or 48 of them and what their names are?

Mr. Robert Marleau: We could give you a list of those we know about.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I don't find it reassuring that you do not know about all of them. I want to know whether there is some mechanism for registering these groups.

Mr. Robert Marleau: No. There's no nerve centre serving the friendship groups.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: We could get a list of the groups, their executives and their members, as well as their by-laws. We could at least get a minimum amount of information.

Mr. Robert Marleau: We would have to get in touch with the presidents of the groups that we know about and try to compile the information for you.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: If it is acknowledged that these groups are of some use for the development of parliamentarians and for raising the profile of the Canadian Parliament, perhaps to a lesser extent than the recognized associations, could we not provide for some financing and some co-operation from the House services?

• 1215

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: That may be something that should be discussed by the Joint Inter-parliamentary Council. I think it would be up to this group.... Are you still on the JIC, Bob? Your colleague is...

Some Hon. Members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: They tell us that these groups are not their problem because they are not associations. So they close the door automatically. Where can we turn?

Mr. Robert Marleau: The Joint Inter-parliamentary Council of the two Chambers, which is made up of the whips and the presidents of the recognized association, is the group that makes recommendations to the two Boards regarding the recognition of friendship groups that could become parliamentary associations.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: That was not exactly my question. Of course, if a group becomes an association, they have access to the JIC, but they have to start by getting in the door.

I come now to my third question. Do the duties of the Speaker of the House of Commons include organizing the occasional reception for groups from abroad or organizing foreign missions for the parliamentarians who accompany him on these travels? If so, where does that appear in the budget?

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: I believe there is an amount for that. When I travel as the Speaker, I am sometimes accompanied by a delegation. We went to Poland last spring. From time to time, I ask some of my colleagues to come with us. There are funds earmarked for that purpose.

What was the other part of your question?

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I think that is useful, because you can open certain doors. At one time you received a group from Cameroon. There is no Canada-Cameroon friendship group or association, but as Speaker, you took the initiative to welcome a Cameroonian delegation. Activities of this type open the door to less structured types of co-operation than friendship groups or associations.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: That happens on occasion. We were also interested in something else regarding Cameroon. We had an opportunity to send doctors to that country. Their trip here was a separate event.

The Speaker of the Cameroonian House came to Canada. When speakers of legislative assemblies such as the House of Commons come here, I generally have a reception for them. When speakers of the Senate come from countries with a bicameral system come to Canada, Mr. Molgat receives them. Just let me know if you have some visitors coming from abroad. If I have time, I will certainly welcome them here on behalf of the Parliament of Canada.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I would like to stress that this has the advantage of providing an opportunity to explore, on the basis of the independence that the Speaker of the House is acknowledged to have, avenues for co-operation and new relations in areas where we have never ventured. Where do we find this budget?

Mr. Robert Marleau: It's included in the committee's envelope. You'll find it on page 26 of the Report on Plans and Priorities. There's an envelope of $16 million. Approximately $3.6 million of this envelope is allocated to this, including the salaries and operating expenses of parliamentary exchanges overseen by the Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: For both?

Mr. Robert Marleau: There is $3.6 million for the House of Commons. There's a 70-30 split for the total envelope. Approximately 95% of the operated and administrative costs on the House side are in this envelope.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, that's very helpful.

[English]

We will go to a very short second round. The Speaker is here and his colleagues, but we know the Speaker has a very tight agenda.

The list I have is Marlene Catterall, Peter Stoffer, and Stéphane Bergeron. They will each be very quick.

• 1220

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I notice the emphasis on staff development, the whole human resources, forward planning, training, and so on, and I'm very much in support of that, but I would like to know more specifically—if not today, then at some other time—what the plans are in terms of increasing the diversity of our human resources at the House of Commons, the advancement of women, the advancement of visible minorities, and so on, within our workforce.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: It's always at the forefront. Any time we have people to hire, there are so many considerations to be taken, but surely one of the more important things would be to have the talent to do that particular job. We're not going to hire a person with this talent here, if we need a lawyer, because he or she is from a visible minority, or from a women's group, or from a men's group, or whatever it is. We always have that in mind when we are making our selections. We have for the last number of years and will continue to be that way.

The Chairman: Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I wish to say to the Sergeant-at-Arms that he and his staff do a great job when it comes to the veterans, in getting information out on deceased loved ones from the book. You do an excellent job on that.

With the technology that Mr. Fontana asked about, do you ascertain how many hits the parliamentary Internet page gets on a weekly or monthly basis, and is it increasing as we go along? I encourage literally anyone I ever speak to, to go to the Internet and look up any information they need.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Do you want specific numbers? I know there has been an increase.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes.

Mr. Speaker Gilbert Parent: Do you have that, Bob?

Mr. Robert Marleau: I don't have the specific numbers here. We can certainly provide them to you. They're phenomenal.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: That's good.

Mr. Robert Marleau: They increase at an absolutely exponential rate. Also, we've rolled out the Intranet, and those hits are phenomenal as well.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Good.

Mr. Robert Marleau: We'll provide the committee with the details on that.

The Chair: That would be very interesting.

Stéphane Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chair, I was very interested to hear the clerk tell us, a few minutes ago, that we might consider using a system of reply or suggestion cards to evaluate the quality of services provided. Suggestion cards are already used for at least one service here, at the House of Commons, that is for restaurants and the parliamentary restaurant in particular. However, I must tell you that I stopped filling out the suggestion card about three years ago, when the maitre d' at the time informed me that there was no point filling in the suggestion card because nothing would come of it. And so I stopped filling in these cards and I dare to hope that, if we were to bring in such cards for other services, there would be assurances that the cards would not be filled out for nothing.

That having been said, we have received many interesting pieces of news today, including the bad news that the Senate will be encroaching on our air time. Another piece of bad news is that we will likely not move into the Justice building until the fall or spring of the year 2000. This news astonishes me, inasmuch as the most recent discussions I had with the Sergeant-at-Arm's office led me to believe that the anticipated move would take place in the fall of 1999.

I realize that a further ten or so million dollars' worth of work will have to be done after the building is handed over by the contractor to Public Works, but I imagine that this was already known some time ago. Why is it that the move is suddenly being postponed, not by three months, two months, or one month, but by a full year? I find this incredible.

[English]

MGen G. Cloutier: Mr. Chairman, you will recall that at the beginning of this project, Public Works, in 1995...[Editor's Note: Technical Difficulty]...to the Justice Building in the summer of 1997. It's a long time gone.

You may recall that I mentioned to the board that I could see it in 1999, but certainly not before that. The reason for this is that we're coming back to the long-range, long-term plan for the development of Parliament Hill. The minister, in his public meetings, has stated this, but this morning I'm told he has announced the formation of his advisory board, which is an independent group that will look at a long-range plan for the Hill and recommend to him a course of action.

• 1225

You might ask how this related to the closing date of Justice. The long-range architectural planners for the House submitted, six to eight months ago, all the requirements for the House of Commons, including IT and everything you want—it's all in there. But so far nothing has been done, as far as Public Works putting out submissions, because firms will have to bid through Public Works to get the contracts.

I think we all know the process is very slow and the bidding process is very slow. So having seen no bids publicly announced from the department, and knowing how long the process is, my best estimate for you is summer 2000, and that's the reason.

The Chair: Okay. Colleagues, before I thank our guests, and while we have some people here, we will deal with vote 5.

PARLIAMENT

House of Commons

Vote 5—Program expenditures ...... $159,715

(Vote 5 agreed to)

The Chair: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I want to thank you and your colleagues once again for taking the time to be with us. It was very interesting and we have been delighted to do this today. Thank you very much indeed.

Colleagues, our next meeting is here next Tuesday at 11 a.m. The orders of the day are the questions of privilege with respect to our colleagues in the Reform Party.

We are adjourned.