Senator Moncion: Thank you again for the question. There are a lot of things that are within the rules of the Parliament of Canada Act, and that motion, I don’t think, brings changes to the Parliament of Canada Act on this hiring process.

[Translation]

Hon. Scott Tannas: My question is for Senator Moncion, Chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.

Senator Moncion, some months ago, the Senate agreed to conditionally support a return to what is sometimes called the “one-clerk model,” where the Prime Minister would appoint the Clerk of the Senate through a hiring process under his or her control — as has been the tradition for more than 100 years — and that concurrent with the appointment, the Clerk of the Senate would have ultimate executive leadership and responsibility for both the legislative and the administrative operations of the Senate. The condition expressed by the Senate was that we retain the right in the future to remove the administration chief executive function from the Clerk and place that responsibility with someone else of our choosing if we so desire.

I’m wondering if you’ve been consulted or been given an opportunity to review the proposed job description for the new Clerk of the Senate and Clerk of the Parliaments. If so, are you satisfied that the Senate’s right to unilaterally remove the role of administration leadership is sufficiently clear to all participants in the recruiting and hiring process?

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Thank you, Senator Tannas, for the question. The second part of your question is a little bit more difficult to answer because of the rules and the act which that particular position is under the purview of.

The recruitment and hiring process is not under the purview of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. Under subsection 130(b) of the Public Service Employment Act, the Clerk is appointed by the Governor-in-Council. Therefore, I cannot comment on the second part where we don’t yet have the powers that you are enumerating about with respect to removing that person from office.

As to the first part regarding the job description of the new Clerk, I am confident in the process that is under way to ensure proper functioning of our institution. As you know, much of the Clerk’s job description is statutory in nature and described in our Rules. I will refer you to the Rules of the Senate, under the Clerk position. So far, we have received the proposed job description, which is aligned with its counterpart in the House of Commons. This review took place a few months ago and also comprised salary scales, which were part of the review.

The other portion that I worked on was asking our former Speaker, before he left the Senate, to communicate with the Privy Council Office on a few pending matters, one of which is the appointment of the Clerk of the Senate. The Speaker did put in the request and informed me that the process would be enacted in due course. We still have to define “due course.”