[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, April 23, 1997
.1537 
[Translation]
The Chairman (Mr. François Langlois (Bellechasse, B.Q.): Order!
Mr. Speaker raised a question at the last meeting on the confidentiality of the questionnaires. I can assure you that only the clerk and the researcher will have access to the names of the people who respond to the questionnaire. So you can reassure our colleagues. These questionnaires are being filled out solely for administrative purposes and to apprise the subcommittee on members' services of these issues, and for no other purpose. I think that can conclude this part. We can count on Ms Carrière's and Mr. Robertson's discretion.
Mr. Robertson, I will let you present the documents you have distributed.
[English]
Mr. James R. Robertson (Committee Researcher): These are things that came up at the earlier meetings. Of the first two, which I believe were circulated yesterday, one is a short paper that explains what allowances the provinces make, primarily for accommodation in the capital, and to some extent also what allowances are available for provincial legislators who travel away from their homes within the province.
There is a chart at the back of that briefing note. It's a fairly complicated thing because you're comparing apples and oranges in some cases, but it would appear from my review of it that members of the House of Commons are probably receiving a fairly low accommodation allowance; and the $6,000 is not only for accommodation but also for travel status expenses. It's something that should perhaps be reviewed by this committee in the next parliament and hopefully by the board at some point.
.1540
The other matter that was suggested or requested at the first meeting was a comparison of housing costs in the national capital region compared with those in other centres across Canada. That is the briefing note entitled ``Housing Costs in the National Capital Region'', primarily the second page.
The first page of that briefing note also shows hotel rates for the national capital region - from the government phone book. Again, this would need to be used for some analysis and survey of various costs. Again, this is just something we put together so we would at least have it on file.
Two briefing notes were distributed today -
Ms Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West, Lib.): Jamie, just before you get into that, have we yet had a chance to look at what other legislatures provide in the way of housing accommodation? Is that in there?
Mr. James R. Robertson: That's in the first paper, ``Accommodation Allowances and Reimbursements''. This was distributed to your office yesterday, I think.
Ms Marlene Catterall: My apologies.
Mr. James R. Robertson: That's the one where it's a bit hard to do a total comparison because some of them take it out of their office budget and some of them don't. A lot of the provincial legislatures do it on the basis of per sitting day, because they don't sit nearly as frequently as the House of Commons. Certainly in the province of Quebec it's $11,000 per year for most members, with an additional $3,000 in accommodation for other members. Ontario is between $14,600 and $15,600. The more active or larger legislatures do seem to be paying a lot more; and that is exclusively, as I understand it, for accommodation in the capital. There's an additional budget for things such as travelling elsewhere in the province.
[Translation]
The Chairman: If I may, Ms Catterall, I will step in to comment on Quebec, which I know more about. The $1000 amount that is granted for housing includes roughly $1000 per month for travel outside the budget. It is a separate amount and does not affect the riding's budget. That is not our case, as we are always dipping into our riding's budget.
[English]
Mr. James R. Robertson: The other two briefing notes distributed today were more for the record, since the subcommittee hasn't really had a chance to get started. The first one is the notes of the working lunch held last week with the Clerk of the House, just a summary of my notes on that meeting so there is a record of it. That's a confidential document, since the meeting was not a public meeting.
Secondly, I went through that meeting as well as the previous meetings of this subcommittee and tried to do up a fairly comprehensive list of the issues raised so that if this subcommittee is re-established in the next parliament we can at least give them a copy of the issues that were discussed and this committee didn't have time to deal with.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Mr. Frazer.
[English]
Mr. Jack Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I'm new to the committee, so I don't know the background on this. Has the possibility been discussed of having someone other than parliamentarians consider remuneration for parliamentarians and make recommendations thereto? One of the criticisms we have as politicians is that we set our own pay. People rather resent that and they question how unbiased or objective we are on that.
We had a private study done some time ago by people at arm's length, and they recommended that in fact there should be a pay raise for parliamentarians. Obviously it won't come into being now.
I wonder if we really are being appropriate in considering our own allowances. Should we just give evidence to somebody who can deal with this question at arm's length and make recommendations, which can then be instituted?
Ms Marlene Catterall: After every election an arm's length group is set up to provide a report on the remuneration of members of Parliament. I've forgotten the details of what they include in that report, but yes, they have consistently recommended that the pay needs to be increased. That will happen after this election as well.
Secondly, our pay increases were subject to legislation. I think they were increased according to the average industrial wage increase in the national capital region, or nationally.
Mr. James R. Robertson: The national one, less 1% or something like that.
.1545
Ms Marlene Catterall: So members weren't in a position of increasing their own salaries, which I think is a good idea. But we abandoned that when we froze salaries. I don't know what we'll do now that we're out of the general freeze for the public service, whether we would go back to that legislation or we would want to look at the base again. That might create a bit of a problem, in that the public service, which has been frozen for the same period, would then say, well, you had darn well better look at our base. I guess that's in fact what they would be doing in negotiations.
Those are the two things that have been at arm's length from members of Parliament and that have kept members of Parliament from having to deal with that issue. The problem comes when the base is out of whack. You may have this recommendation from a totally non-parliamentary, arm's length committee. As I recall, the last one was chaired by a former Tory member. But even then Parliament is going to have to act on it, and obviously in the current fiscal climate Parliament was not prepared, quite rightly, to act on increasing salaries.
The Chairman: Mr. Fontana.
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East, Lib.): The short answer - and I think that is what Jack was alluding to - is that in legislation an independent body has to be set up in order to look not only at remuneration but at everything else too, including these so-called perks or non-perks or allowances. It's just that this committee decided to look at members' services as they relate to a whole host of issues apart from the remuneration. We haven't even talked about them, nor do I think we should. Therefore that will be dealt with in another venue and in another way. We are looking only at members' services now: travel, equipment in one's office, the MOB budget, and so on.
We know full well, Jack, we're not going to be able to do anything in this parliament anyway. We would construct this piece of work and then move it to the next subcommittee on members' services when a new parliament convenes.
You may not know this, but for three and a half years this committee never met and hence we've never been able to deal with some of the issues. But I think it was quite appropriate to ask the members at the end of a parliament what they thought about their members' services. That's why we put out that confidential questionnaire. It's better to ask the people who have finished one term than to ask people at the very beginning. They may very well be a little different and therefore don't have the experience you, I, Marlene, Mr. Langlois, and all the others have had. We want to learn from their experience. Then we hope the new committee will be able to look at all these issues and make proposals in some form to the Board of Internal Economy.
I think there was a clear consensus that this committee should be something ongoing; it should not be ad hoc. In other words, it shouldn't meet only every three and a half years to discuss certain things, because there are things that come up on a daily basis and that either the whips' offices are trying to handle or the clerks or the House of Commons officers or the chairs of caucuses, who are trying to deal with a whole host of different concerns from different members as they relate to their services.
Mr. Jack Frazer: It just occurred to me that when we're comparing the remuneration we get for accommodation or for travel with that of the provincial legislatures we are in fact ascertaining what we should be receiving. If that's not the case, then I drop my case. If it is the case, then perhaps we should consider ensuring that any recommendations on remuneration are made by an arm's length body, to take the criticism away from us.
Mr. Joe Fontana: I should point out that Mr. Speaker, your permanent member here, in those kinds of discussions... But we wanted to make sure also that whenever you start looking at members' services, you do a proper comparison of other legislatures, to see exactly how they treat their members as compared with ourselves, and then to move on, not with a view to making any particular decisions at this point, because I don't think it would be appropriate, but at least to start the dialogue for the next parliament on what those services should be or shouldn't be.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Ms Carrière, the clerk, has just pointed out that to date she has received 77 responses. Given the circumstances at the end of the session, where our priorities lie elsewhere, this is a very high rate of response in my view. I sat on the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business which had also sent out a questionnaire. Even after waiting several weeks, the responses came in much more slowly. I think that in the next few days, many more may come in. We have already got an interesting working base for members who will be here in the 36th Parliament.
Mr. Fontana.
[English]
Mr. Joe Fontana: Mr. Robertson has identified the key issues raised at the meetings, and we have the questionnaires. Of course, as you said, some questionnaires will come to the Clerk's office. Having received all of this information, it would seem to me a motion would be appropriate, because if we don't have a motion of some sort, I'm not sure we can present a report to the House. That might not be possible.
I think in our discussions with the Clerk of the House during our informal meeting over lunch, we determined that the most appropriate way to continue is to direct the Clerk of the House of Commons or the administration to report back on all of the issues that have been raised by this committee, including a financial impact analysis, and to submit this information to the new Sub-committee on Members' Services when it is constituted when Parliament comes back. In that way, we don't lose sight of the initiative we've started. As we all know, committees will in fact fold when Parliament folds, and the only way to make sure a report does come back in a timely fashion is to direct the administration to do some of that work.
Do I have it right, Mr. Robertson?
Mr. James R. Robertson: I think essentially you do. I think the idea is that they can do some preliminary work. The concern that was expressed yesterday when we considered the draft report was that we didn't want the Clerk to take the results and start interpreting them without some direction from this subcommittee or its successor. I think the report that was tabled today by the procedure and House affairs committee authorizes us to send a copy of the summary of the questionnaire results to Mr. Marleau, and I expect he will, in anticipation of the new parliament, be preparing various things.
Mr. Joe Fontana: I was unaware of that draft report.
Mr. James R. Robertson: We adopted the report yesterday that told the committee what the subcommittee had been doing, that it had circulated the questionnaire. It recommended that the questionnaire results be summarized and a copy provided to Mr. Marleau and that the procedure and House affairs committee be encouraged to set up a new subcommittee in the new parliament. I think all those items have been handled.
Mr. Joe Fontana: So there's nothing else for us to do, then.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Are there any other items?
[English]
Mr. Joe Fontana: With regard to the questionnaires - and I can only tell you my experience, Mr. Chair, with our caucus - it has been done in a very hurried fashion. Our members know the deadline is April 23, which is today. They are just getting to some of their last paperwork and everything else. I wonder if we could direct a gentle reminder to our members that before they leave they should make every attempt, if they should wish to do so, to hand in their questionnaire.
I think you've reported that 80 have been received.
The Clerk of the Committee: We've received 77.
Mr. Joe Fontana: I think you will find that in the next day or two you will receive a lot more, because I know a lot of our members will be submitting them. But a gentle reminder from the clerk might be a good idea.
[Translation]
The Chairman: The clerk will send the members a reminder over the next few days.
Are there any other comments?
[English]
Mr. Jack Frazer: My question, François, is if this committee isn't going to make any decisions as to the remuneration, what is the point of ascertaining what the various comparisons are? I don't really understand where we're going with this. We submit it to whom, and what happens to it when we draw conclusions?
[Translation]
The Chairman: Mr. Frazer, the order of reference that created the committee set out a very specific way of operating. We need consensus to report. All members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs must agree and then the committee must adopt or reject our recommendations and sent them to the Board of Internal Economy, the House administration or the House itself if it deems it necessary. We have no decision-making power.
.1555
All we can do is formulate recommendations to the committee that we fall under, i.e. the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Our role is to obtain information and hold discussions among ourselves in order to reach a consensus. As members of the subcommittee, we have already shown at the end of this session that we were in a position to provide a quick update on specific issues.
Like Mr. Fontana, I too regret that we couldn't come into being until almost at the end of the 35th Parliament, but we have established the subcommittee, as members wanted during the first meeting, so that the next Parliament will be able to carry on. The questionnaire is one way of obtaining information.
There are so many issues that concern individual members. Those who are not members of Cabinet or Parliamentary secretaries and who experience problems do not know where to turn. This subcommittee can be the appropriate forum for people who have to deal with problems on a daily basis.
[English]
Ms Marlene Catterall: It's a thirty-minute bell on a Bloc motion that the House do now adjourn. Do you guys still want to debate anything any more?
[Translation]
The Chairman: Are there any other comments? If there are none, I would like to thank you, dear colleagues. It seems that Ms Catterall, Mr. Fontana and I will soon have to face our electorate and account for the work that we have done during this Parliament. They are the ones who will judge if our work has been appropriate.
[English]
Mr. Frazer, you have decided not to run again and to retire. Personally, for me it was a great privilege to work with you in this legislature. As a former member of the forces, you served Canada in a fashion that is a model for all people. I will always keep in my mind that I shared my work with you in many subcommittees. I think in the private members' business committee and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs we achieved altogether a great performance. Thank you.
[Translation]
And last but not least, I must thank Ms Carrière and Mr. Robertson. Succeeding, at the end of the 35th Parliament, in setting up this subcommittee required a certain amount of cooperation and a bipartite agreement, of course, but also the possibility of turning to probably the best staff available to us in the House. Ms Carrière and Mr. Robertson have enabled us, within the space of a few days, to hold four meetings and a working luncheon with the Clerk of the House. In other circumstances, I do not think it would have been possible to produce these documents to get this committee started in such an exemplary way.
So I would like to thank you, Ms Carrière and Mr. Robertson. The Parliament of Canada is without a doubt very happy to have you in its service. If not, we can say that it is very lucky. So thank you.
Having said that, we will now adjourn sine die. Thank you.