Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration entitled Annual Report on Parliamentary Associations’ Activities and Expenditures for 2022-23.

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That the following documents, which form part of the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration from the Second Session of the Forty‑first Parliament, be referred to the Committee so that it may then authorize their disclosure for the purposes of an adjudication under the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act:

1.email from the Honourable David Wells to the Honourable Leo Housakos dated November 30, 2015, at 11:17 a.m.; and

2.email from the Honourable George Furey, K.C., to the Honourable Leo Housakos dated November 30, 2015, at 1:55 p.m.

[English]

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Thank you for the question, Senator Dupuis. You referred to Critical Mention, whose services are now used by the Senate’s communications service. What I can do is to take your request one step further to determine whether we can extend coverage of the media review to all regions of Canada. There was a challenge with access, but we can see how far we can go with this research, and then try to further accommodate all the senators from the regions.

Senator Moncion: Thank you for the supplementary question. Thank you for your suggestions. I will bring them to the attention of the communications service to ask it to expand access and check capabilities. I will then come back to you with an answer. I sincerely thank you for the question.

[English]

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, in light of the adoption of the Financial Policy for Senate Committees by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration on June 1, 2023, the Senate Administrative Rules be amended in Chapter 3:05

(a)by repealing the heading before section 1, section 1, subsections 10(2) and (3) and section 11; and

(b)by replacing the heading before section 2 and subsections 2(1) and (2) with the following:

“Committee Budgets

(a) adopted by the committee;

(b) submitted by the committee to the Internal Economy Committee for its consideration; and

(c) presented to the Senate by committee report, with the budget and a report of the Internal Economy Committee attached.

(2) A budget prepared for the purposes of subsection (1) must contain a detailed estimate of the committee’s special expenses for the fiscal year.”; and

That the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any necessary technical, editorial, grammatical, or other required, non-substantive changes to the Senate Administrative Rules as a result of these amendments, including the updating of cross-references and the renumbering of provisions.

[English]

Hon. Lucie Moncion moved the adoption of the report.

She said: Honourable senators, this report contains a recommendation of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration to amend a section of the Senate Administrative Rules.

The provision in question, section 11 of Chapter 3:03, currently states that the consent of the Internal Economy steering committee is required for any commercial use of the Senate’s intellectual property, except by way of fair dealing, an exception set out in the Copyright Act.

The committee recommends that this provision be amended such that the steering committee’s consent is no longer required when the commercial use is insignificant in nature or when a statutory exception other than fair dealing applies.

[English]

The Senate of Canada creates and owns a variety of intellectual property, from the recordings of debates in the chamber or in committee to the material we make available on our website to communicate our work to Canadians. Per the Senate Administrative Rules, requests from members of the public to use this intellectual property are addressed by the Administration, specifically by the Communications Directorate, with the support of the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. As is currently required by the section at issue in this report, whenever a request has a commercial element to it, no matter how incidental, insignificant or improbable, the Administration will bring it to the steering committee for direction.

By adopting this report, the Senate will simplify the process by which requests from the public are addressed, as it will reduce the number of requests that must be considered by the steering committee while preserving its role in approving or rejecting significant commercial uses of intellectual property.

I would add here that the Administration will provide quarterly reports on the requests it receives and how they have been handled.

Finally, this report will also add reference to statutory exceptions to intellectual property generally and confirm the Administration’s current practice, which is to comply with Canadian law and any exceptions that might apply.

Thank you. With this, if there are no questions or debate, I move the adoption of the report.

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.”

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. Lucie Moncion, Chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, presented the following report:

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration has the honour to present its

EIGHTH REPORT

Your committee, which is authorized by the Rules of the Senate to consider financial and administrative matters, now reports that it has reviewed the Senate Administrative Rules to streamline the Senate’s intellectual property permissions process and recommends as follows:

1.That the Senate Administration Rules be amended, in Chapter 3:03 by adding the following after subsection 11(a):

(a) by way of fair dealing or any other statutory exception to the scope of intellectual property protection;

(b) if the commercial use is insignificant in nature; or

(c) with the consent of the Steering Committee.

2.That the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any necessary technical, editorial, grammatical, or other required, non-substantive changes to the Senate Administrative Rules as a result of this amendment, including the updating of cross-references and the renumbering of provisions.

Respectfully submitted,

LUCIE MONCION

Chair

She said: Madam Speaker, my warmest congratulations.

Hon. Lucie Moncion moved the adoption of the report.

She said: Honourable senators, I am sure that you read this report religiously. For those who may have missed the opportunity, I would like to highlight some of the main points.

[English]

The Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, or CIBA, has carefully reviewed the Senate Administrative Rules in light of the creation of the new Standing Committee on Audit and Oversight, or AOVS, and recommends a few non-substantive changes to the Senate Administrative Rules. Simply put, this report is about housekeeping to align the Senate Administrative Rules with the mandate and role of AOVS. It is therefore my pleasure to propose the adoption of the sixth report of CIBA.

Hon. Lucie Moncion moved the adoption of the report.

She said: Honourable senators, it is my pleasure to speak on this report, which deals with the Senate’s budget for the financial year 2023-24.

In summary, the anticipated budget is estimated at $126.7 million, which is $4.9 million or 4% over the 2022-23 budget.

The process of arriving at the budget is based on the recommendations of the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates and Committee Budgets. The subcommittee is comprised of myself as chair; Senator Marshall as deputy chair; and Senators Bovey, Moodie and Tannas. I thank them for the substantial time and effort they spent on reviewing the estimates.

The members of the subcommittee met with the Senate Administration Executive Committee and most of the directors on many occasions. Detailed presentations were made by the directorates to the subcommittee. The members had the opportunity to discuss and question funding, staffing and expense requirements during this process.

Throughout its consideration of the 2023-24 Main Estimates, the committee took into consideration not only the changes in the Senate, but also the effects of the new economic and operational realities resulting from two years of the pandemic that has had a significant impact on the Senate’s operation. The committee was also very mindful of the Canadian economic environment and the importance of balancing operational needs with proper stewardship of public funds.

Moving to the detail of the expenditures, I would remind senators that there are two parts to the budget: statutory funding and voted funding. The statutory portion deals with money allocated by legislation. This includes senators’ basic and additional allowances, pensions, senators’ travel and living expenses, telecommunications and employee benefit plans. Any shortfalls in these categories at the end of the year are covered by the Treasury Board. Conversely, surpluses are automatically returned to the Treasury Board as they cannot be reallocated. The second part of the budget is the voted budget, which is for the workings of the Senate. They cover senators’ office budgets and Senate Administration.

Moving to the numbers, the total amount of the statutory budget is $38.1 million, an increase of $800,000, or 2.2%, from last year. The main reason for the increase is the senators’ travel budget, which is increasing by $418,000 to reflect the recent increase in travel costs. The other increase is the contribution to the employee benefit plan, which rose by $391,000 due to the increase of 0.2% of the Treasury Board rate from 15% to 15.2%.

Moving to the second part of the voted budget, this portion is $88.6 million, an increase of $4.1 million or 4.8%. The major components of the voted budget growth are the International and Interparliamentary Affairs Directorate, which increased by $201,000 to cover the cost of the 47th annual session of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie and the 31st annual session of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly. There was an increase of $100,000 for the diversity, equity and inclusion program and additional funding of $2.5 million to maintain and renew the IT infrastructure and technologies, for new resources to support human resources activities and for services and funding for the East Block and the Senate of Canada building’s cafeteria.

[Translation]

The new requests for funding approved by the Internal Economy Committee over the course of the year represent $1.1 million, mainly because of economic increases for the Senate Executive Group and the Middle Management Group for two additional resources for the new enhanced security measure for senators and staff, which the Parliamentary Security Department will be responsible for, and for two additional resources for the Committees Directorate.

An amount of $146,00 was included mainly to cover position reclassifications. The following two budget transfers were approved. The first is a reallocation of $179,000 from the Senate committees budget to the Senate Administration to cover the salaries of two resources to support witnesses who appear virtually. The second is a reallocation of $178,000 from the Audit and Oversight Committee’s budget to the Senate Administration to cover the salary of a new chief audit executive.

Initiatives requiring one-time funding will be self-funded up to $924,000, particularly for strategic planning of human resources for the employment participation study and the review of compensation, maintenance and the ongoing renewal of the Senate network, and the renewal of two resources to support the renewal of the network and the redesign of many processes.

As a result of the decision made by the members of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration on December 15, there is a temporary hiring freeze, which means that the employee threshold is 441.2 full‑time equivalents. A review of operational efficiency is currently being conducted by the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates and Committee Budgets. This committee is responsible for evaluating the expenditures and performance of the Senate Administration in key areas in order to identify opportunities for savings and for the streamlining of services. It should be noted that any proposed amendment will be presented and have to be approved by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.

Before concluding, I want to once again thank the members of the subcommittee, staff of the Senate Administration and members of the Executive Committee. They all considered the budget in a thoughtful and prudent manner.

At this point, I’d also like to provide some clarification respecting certain recent newspaper articles on the financial situation of the Senate. This information was confusing and painted an inaccurate picture of the Senate’s real expenditures.

[English]

Actual expenses and budgets are often used to explain the cost of operating the Senate. Colleagues, there is a difference between “budget” and “actual expenses.” The budget is the overall amount allocated for the functioning of the Senate during a year, whereas the expenses are the amount that is actually spent. Here are the figures for both budget and expenses.

If you remember, in the newspapers, we had comparison from 2015-16. The budget at that time was $88.8 million. The 2023-24 budget is $126.7 million. The increase in the budget between 2023-24 and 2015-16 is $37.9 million, or 42.6%, representing an annual budget increase of 5.3%. If you compare the actual expenses — so I’m talking about expenses now, not about the budget — they were $74.6 million in 2015-16 and $96.4 million for the year 2021-22. That represents an increase of $21.8 million, or 4.9% a year over six years.

The budget for the upcoming fiscal year of 2023-24 totals $126.7 million. This represents an increase of $4.9 million, or 4%, over the fiscal year from 2022-23. So we’re back to talking about budgets.

The annual average budget increase for the past three years is approximately $3.7 million per year, or 3.1%. The 2023-24 budget is based on the principles of maintaining high quality services to senators and some management of public funds in the context of the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery. It includes inflation, economic salary increases, increase in costs, investments in technology and new initiatives.

Some of the new initiatives are actually required by law. The Canada Labour Code, the Pay Equity Act and the Accessible Canada Act require the Senate to implement new programs with deadlines predefined by the regulation, including pay equity, accessibility and harassment prevention.

In addition to these regulatory requirements, the Senate is working to implement initiatives on diversity and inclusion, recruitment and audit and oversight. As a reminder, the Senate has actual expenses. In the last six years, all surplus amounts were returned to the government’s central funds.

My last remark will be on the amount of work done by staff just to keep this institution running. We have 18 permanent committees, 7 subcommittees and 4 joint committees. We have three Senate sittings a week and we have four groups and caucuses that meet on a weekly basis. Every time there is a committee meeting, there are at least 20 to 25 people who are involved. If you were to add up all of these committee meetings and the work done during the week, there is a lot of staff who are at our service in the Senate. I will say that the service we receive from our staff is excellent, and I have no complaints whatsoever. On this note, colleagues, I rest my case.

Hon. Lucie Moncion, Chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, presented the following report:

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration has the honour to present its

SEVENTH REPORT

Your committee, which is authorized by the Rules of the Senate to consider financial and administrative matters, pursuant to the Senate Administration Rules, to prepare estimates of the sum that will be required from Parliament for the services of the Senate, has approved the Senate Main Estimates for the fiscal year 2023-24 and recommends their adoption.

A summary of these Estimates is appended to this report. Your committee notes that the proposed total is $126,694,386.

Respectfully submitted,

LUCIE MONCION

Chair

(For text of budget, see today’s Journals of the Senate, p. 1225.)

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, which deals with amendments to the Senate Administrative Rules.

(For text of report, see today’s Journals of the Senate, p. 1097.)

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration entitled Financial Statements of the Senate of Canada for the year ended March 31, 2022.

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Thank you for the question, Senator Omidvar, and thank you for providing the question before I arrived at the Senate.

There are quite a few questions within your question, so I will start with the first thing about the headsets. The witnesses have a choice: They can either have headsets that are sent to them, or they can purchase the headsets. It depends upon when they are going to be appearing and how long it is going to take for the headsets to get to them. If they ask the Senate to ship the headsets, the headsets will be shipped to them as long as we have enough time for the shipment to get to the witness. If their appearance is within a limited time that does not give them enough time to receive the headsets, they will be asked to purchase headsets and the Senate will reimburse them.

For the House of Commons, they do not always provide headsets automatically. They do when they are asked, but it is not an automatic situation.

The Senate, right now, for all of the witnesses who are going to be appearing on every committee, there is a 48-hour timeline where they are called by Senate Information Services Directorate employees. They do the sound tests with the proper equipment. If they do not have the proper equipment, they are asked to get it or it is shipped. We do the testing before the witnesses will appear. We check internet connections to make sure that when they do appear at committees, it will be working properly for the interpreters.

One thing that is so important — including for all senators — is to be careful. Just a few minutes ago, we had a colleague asking questions and putting his hand over the microphone. You have to remember that these microphones are directly linked to the interpreters’ ears. We have to be careful. When we shuffle papers over the microphone, that is also going directly into the ears of our interpreters. We have to be very careful when we are using these systems, whether in committee or in the chamber.

Now, with committee chairs, the Internal Economy Committee is bringing forward a set of rules where, if witnesses are appearing and they do not have the proper headsets, they will not be allowed to testify. That is a rule that will be coming forward.

Sound levels are being monitored in every committee room, so we have to be extra careful, especially the committee chairs, to make sure we do not ask the technicians to raise the volume. There is a mandatory volume level that is safe for our interpreters. That level has to be kept in mind.

Also, regarding witnesses having proper equipment, that is going to be on the chairs of the committees to make sure that this happens.

The other portion of this is that we have been working with the interpreters for quite a while to understand all the problems. We are trying to work with the interpreters to make sure they work in a safe environment and that we, as senators, are able to do our work.

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration entitled Annual Report on Parliamentary Associations’ Activities and Expenditures for 2021-22.

Hon. Lucie Moncion, pursuant to notice of September 22, 2022, moved:

That the papers and evidence received and taken and the work accomplished by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration relating to the study of the Long Term Vision and Plan from previous parliamentary sessions, be referred to the Committee so that it may then authorize the disclosure of certain presentations prepared for the committee to Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That the papers and evidence received and taken and the work accomplished by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration relating to the study of the Long Term Vision and Plan from previous parliamentary sessions, be referred to the Committee so that it may then authorize the disclosure of certain presentations prepared for the committee to Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

[English]