STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 22, 2000

• 1109

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Perhaps we could begin. I understand that's a 30-minute bell, so let's say we have 20 minutes.

As you know, the order of the day is future business. This is a planning meeting. It's the sort of meeting that we could have of course handled with the steering committee, but I think we all agreed it was much more appropriate to deal with it in an open meeting.

There are two or three things I would like to say to you.

First, as you know, the large sets of lists of grants and contributions were deposited with the committee yesterday. I'd like to explain to you what happened.

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You saw the truckload of documentation, the thousands of pages. Six sets were deposited with the committee. I sent one set to each party through their whips, so every party now has one. That disposes of five; the sixth set the committee has. I'll give it to the committee for documentation purposes. There is in fact a seventh set, which I understand is in the Library of Parliament. I didn't know about that; it wasn't deposited with us. In addition, those lists are on the HRDC website and they are available to all members—and, by the way, I assume all members of the public—through the website.

There are 18 members of this committee. We could have had 18 sets, but it seemed to me that it would have been an absolute mountain of documentation. So that's where the documents are. If any of you have any problems, you can obviously consult the committee copy, which the clerk has, or your whip's copy. I don't know what each whip is doing with his or her documentation.

Is that okay?

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Ref.): They're sitting up nights looking at it.

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): You can just go on the Internet.

The Chair: Absolutely. That is the most obvious thing to do. But I wanted to explain, John, where the hard copies had gone.

Just for your information, and I know you will have noticed it, Bill C-12, the labour bill, has now been referred to the natural resources and government operations committee, so it was previously something we were contemplating addressing sometime later on.

Judy, I know this is of particular significance to you.

Just so you know, colleagues, it's no longer our business in the sense of its passage through the House of Commons. Obviously it's an area we should interest ourselves in, but it's not coming to us at the present time.

I would like to suggest that we have a look at the notes that our staff, Kevin Kerr and Bill Young, have prepared for us.

I'm in your hands, as usual, as to how the committee proceeds, but perhaps I could explain these notes very briefly to you. You already have them; they were in your office.

[Translation]

I have a copy in English and we have some in French.

[English]

Did members bring them with them? I have a spare one and there are copies coming around for everyone.

First of all, it indicates how many meetings we have until the end of the year, and I actually have a chart here with those days on them through to the end. It says 14 sitting weeks, 28 meetings, and so on... some discussion of that. We should think in terms of a maximum of between 20 and 28 meetings left, unless of course we care to have extraordinary extra meetings.

Section (a) gives an indication of what we would be doing were we not considering this matter of grants and contributions, which we have to consider. We have to consider the estimates, the social insurance number matter, which we've already followed up on a little but we need to follow up on again.

On our subcommittees on children and youth at risk and on persons with disabilities, we have to occupy ourselves with their agendas. They will be doing the work, but we need to know what's going on.

We have the one meeting with the delegation from Sweden. It's a fixed day, it's on a Wednesday, so we have plans for that.

In section (b) it's the same thing, what we would have been doing. First of all, we had this study, which we'll be considering in a moment, and then the study of lifelong learning and skill development. The overarching purpose of our committee was to look at the workforce of the 21st century and the access to it by people in all parts of our society.

I would urge you to try to keep that in mind as we think about what we're going to do with these 20 to 28 meetings we have left. Whatever we do, we should try to tie them in with our objective, which is to make the workforce more open to all Canadians and more effective for all Canadians.

• 1115

So those are the things we would have been doing.

We are now engaged with the matter of the study of HRDC grants and contributions, which is on page 2 of our notes. These are suggestions of ways to proceed. You'll see in there the list of witnesses we have agreed to call, the list of some other witnesses we might call. In paragraph (a), under the suggested outline for the study, the idea there is that we get some understanding of which programs, of what they're like, of how they're administered at the national level, at the regional level.

Paragraph (b) deals with the internal audit that the minister published dealing with the grants and contributions mentioned under (a). What is the nature of that audit, for example? Was it properly carried out? Do other auditors think it was a good audit?

Paragraph (c) is self-evident. The delivery end of these grants and programs are the people sponsoring the programs and the participants. Will they be involved in our study?

Paragraph (d) is the six-point action plan presented by the minister.

Paragraph (e) is self-evident. That's the consideration of what we've done.

I welcome your thoughts on these and other matters related to how we proceed with this study.

Diane Ablonczy.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Mr. Chairman, it would be helpful if at the outset we decided what our goal, our objective was in this study, so that we're not studying a bunch of things, so that we know what we want to come out with at the end of the day. I've scratched something together that might be helpful. It is what I would like to get out of this exercise.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can put it forward in the form of a motion. If the committee could agree on that objective, then we could design our work plan more specifically to meet that objective. So I move that the committee's objective be the following: to satisfy ourselves and thereby the House and Canadians that HRDC grants and contributions program spending meets reasonable and prudent requirements to safeguards and controls, delivers demonstrated and measurable value in relation to public moneys spent, and meets high standards of transparency and accountability.

I'm sure that could be improved on, but that was the first cut.

The Chair: Diane, I listened to it, and it seemed very clear to me.

Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.): Could I get a written copy of it?

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I agree with Judi. Perhaps we could get it photocopied at the break while we're voting.

The Chair: All right.

John Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: I have no hostility to the concept contained. My first point is that I would have thought that was implicit in the work we were undertaking. Rather than voting on it now, my suggestion would be to have a general discussion about where we might want to go, and then, if need be, we can frame up something along those lines or some other lines once we've had a chance to talk about it informally. I would rather delay talking about that until we have a sense of where other people are coming from and where they find deficiencies in the plan that we might want to address possibly through that motion or possibly by some other motion.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Chairman, my feeling is that until we know where we're going, it's fairly hard to discuss how we're going to get there.

Mr. John Godfrey: Mr. Chair, it would be helpful to have a rather informal discussion about where we want to go, and then we'll be able to frame it up in an appropriate—

• 1120

The Chair: First we have to photocopy it, and then we have to translate it into French; there's very little. So I don't see any discrepancy here, for the moment anyway.

Judy Sgro.

Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): I'm glad I've been around here long enough that I no longer feel like a new person asking questions. But on the comment from the other member, is that not part of what we're already doing and had already discussed that we wanted to go through as a process, as a committee, in our last meeting? Isn't that what we've already said we were going to do, or is there something different there that I haven't picked up on?

The Chair: Mrs. Ablonczy.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: If I can respond to that, I think that's correct, Judy. What I thought would be helpful was if we made that explicit so that we know and can refer to what we're trying to achieve, and then we can test out our work plan against that objective. I think that would be prudent and helpful.

So I agree that it's nothing new from what we've already discussed. It just puts it down in a formal way.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Crête, Ms. Ablonzcy will re-read the motion.

[English]

Would you read it again very slowly in English, please.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Okay. It would be to satisfy ourselves and therefore the House and Canadians that HRDC grants and contributions program spending meets reasonable and prudent requirements for safeguards and controls, delivers demonstrated and measurable value in relation to public moneys spent, and meets high standards of transparency and accountability.

The Chair: Okay.

Bryon Wilfert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I certainly support the idea that we need specific terms of reference. I think we need to know what it is that we're going to evaluate, and certainly the idea of a six-point action plan is one of the better reference points to look at, obviously, in terms of how we make sure the right tools are in place to deal with the situation.

What outcomes are we looking at? The word Diane used, to “satisfy” ourselves, is a bit vague. Actually, it's quite vague.

“Satisfy” is very subjective. I may be satisfied, but Dale may not be satisfied. Dale may be satisfied, and I may not be satisfied. So obviously we look at that, but I would suggest that at the end of day, hopefully the objective is very clear.

We want to make sure the right tools are in place to make sure we don't have a repetition, but I would also suggest that we really should be trying to devise a plan to be on two tracks, one obviously to deal with the grants and contributions issue, but also being mindful of the fact that we have those other issues that we have to look at, that I think we're required to look at and should be looking at. So in terms of the schedule, how we devise a two-track plan to make sure we don't fall off the rails with the first part, particularly dealing with the main estimates and the EI monitoring and so on, has to be done, and I thought that was somewhat implicit in what we talked about the other day as well.

The Chair: Jean Dubé.

Mr. Jean Dubé (Madawaska—Restigouche, PC): I think Diane's recommendation is very good. I know Judy mentioned at the last meeting that we have other work to do also. That's important as well to this committee. If we want to move quickly, we have to be organized.

I think Diane's recommendation is good. It can be built upon. We can improve it if you want, but we have to be focused on where we're going if we want to move ahead carefully, because if we're not organized, we're just going to debate and debate this.

So, Diane, I think your recommendation is very good.

The Chair: Paul Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouta—Les Basques, BQ): I apologize for my absence during the first part of the meeting, but my presence was required in the House for the debate taking place.

On reading Ms. Ablonczy's motion and on looking at the proposed schedule for our proceedings, I take it we need to decide whether or not to give priority to the Human Resources Development Canada issue.

Mention is made of routine and follow-up business, and there is a suggested outline for a study of HRDC grants and contributions. However the latter item is not even included under the heading "Routine and Follow-Up Business".

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To my mind, it's clear that the committee's top priority should be...

The Chairman: I'm sorry to interrupt.

[English]

I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood. At the beginning, I explained that the first part of this, (a) and (b), gave an indication of all the various human resources things the committee should do. It wasn't suggesting, Paul, that they be dealt with before the study of grants and contributions. So what we're discussing now begins on page 2, which is the suggested outline for a study of HRDC grants and contributions.

I was simply pointing out that the first part was things the committee should be doing, and that simply introduced us to this. We are now, I think, all determined to follow through on the study of grants and contributions, unless I'm very much mistaken. Is that okay?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to delay these proceedings any further because I was late in arriving. However, have you discussed the order in which the ministers would be invited to testify?

Before I decide whether or not to support the Reform Party's motion, I need to have a clear understanding of how we intend to proceed.

We need some assurance that this matter will be dealt with in a forthright manner and thoroughly examined within the time frame we agreed on at the last meeting, at which time we discussed the interim and final reports. At the same time, we have to avoid skirting the issue as we did yesterday during our discussion on documents.

The Chairman: Understood.

[English]

We were beginning. I described what these notes meant in terms of a program, and we were beginning that discussion. But Diane's point—and it's far from me to rationalize it—with her motion is that we need these objectives in her motion first before we can do the plan. We're engaged in discussing whether that is in fact the case.

As chair, the only problem I have at the moment—this is a perfectly legitimate motion—is whether we vote on it sooner or later.

John Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I noticed that there are five folks over here and seven folks over there. If we could have an agreement that there were no votes taken in the next little while, and that five and five would stay behind and two would go over from our side, then the discussion could continue. But I...

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: What's the vote on?

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): What is the vote on?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: The first vote is on a resumption of the orders of the day. The second vote is on a motion of closure regarding Bill C-3, the Elections Act.

[English]

The Chair: I think we have to go over.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: The two votes are scheduled to take place in succession. The first is of a more technical nature, but the second is on a motion of closure.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

[English]

It's a very rational suggestion, but we don't work in a rational environment.

If I can go back to Diane, do you understand the point that has been made here? I see some interest in setting our objectives. I see some other interest in thinking of ways we can deal with it, and so on. If we want to get into a debate as to which is first...

Dale.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Ref.): I simply wanted to make the point, Mr. Chairman, that there was some reference to the committee “satisfying itself” as being vague. I don't think it's vague at all. As a matter of fact, I think that's the objective of the committee—to satisfy itself that the direction it's taking is the right one. So I think Madam Ablonczy's wording is right on the mark.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I should say—

Mr. Dale Johnston: I don't see it as being necessarily unanimous in anything, or that every member of the committee... I think what Mrs. Ablonczy's motion refers to is the fact that the committee has to be satisfied in the direction that we take.

The Chair: Okay. We have six minutes to get to the House, so, Diane, would you... We'll come back and we'll take up—

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Just so you know, I just scratched this out when I was sitting in the House today. It's not as if I sat up all night and laboured over every word. My point is that if we know clearly what we're trying to achieve, then our discussion will be much more focused and meaningful. I don't think we should try to edit this by committee, but I'm not married to every word either.

We have to have some objective here.

The Chair: Okay, Paul, very briefly.

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[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I merely wanted to say that I think it would be interesting for us to define our mandate. We have here a model. Perhaps we could go off and vote and ponder this. Our mandate will flow from our action plan.

[English]

The Chair: I'm going to suspend the meeting.

The meeting is suspended until after the vote. We will all return, I hope.