LIPA Committee Meeting
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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Thursday, April 10, 2003
| ¿ | 0910 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin (Lauzon, Lib.)) |
| ¿ | 0925 |
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Mr. Richard Paré (Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament) |
| ¿ | 0930 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Canadian Alliance) |
| ¿ | 0935 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
| ¿ | 0940 |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Roland Bonnaventure (Director, Human Resources Division, Library of Parliament) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Roland Bonnaventure |
| ¿ | 0945 |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Roland Bonnaventure |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
| ¿ | 0950 |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
| ¿ | 0955 |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.) |
| À | 1000 |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten (Associate Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament) |
| À | 1005 |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)) |
| À | 1010 |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
| À | 1015 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
| À | 1020 |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
| À | 1025 |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Ms. Lynn Brodie (Director, Collections Division, Library of Parliament) |
| À | 1030 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Ms. Lynn Brodie |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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Ms. Lynn Brodie |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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Ms. Lynn Brodie |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Hugh Finsten |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
| À | 1035 |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Grant Hill |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett) |
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Mr. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
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Mr. Jerry Pickard |
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M. Richard Paré |
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The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin) |
CANADA
Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament |
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l |
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EVIDENCE
Thursday, April 10, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¿ 
(0910)
[Translation]
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin (Lauzon, Lib.)) : Good morning. You've received the agenda for today's meeting. Today I should point out that we have a quorum. The quorum for hearing members is four, including one opposition member, and that's what we have right now.
According to today's agenda, we will be hearing from Mr. Richard Paré, who is the Parliamentary Librarian. He is accompanied by Mr. Hugh Finsten, Ms. Lynn Brodie and Ms. Monique Boutin. I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Paré, who, as you know, has held this position for a few years now. I think that the Library of Parliament is truly an institution that is recognized not only on Parliament Hill but throughout the country. I think this is in large part due to the work accomplished by Mr. Paré.
So Mr. Paré, once again, welcome. We'll be pleased to hear from you.
¿ 
(0925)
Mr. Richard Paré (Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament): Thank you, Senator.
[English]
Thank for your patience in looking at this video. I thought it was better than having a presentation on the library's functions and activities.
I would like to add a few notes on that to talk in the context of 2003. The environment Parliament and its library have operated in over the past 10 to 12 years has been in constant transition or mutation due to the continuing evolution in information technology. In 1992 electronic mail and the Internet were in a state of infancy, if I can use that analogy, in comparison with today. In 2003 we cannot plan for the future without considering these two electronic tools.
Today basic societal concepts like democracy, governance, consultation, and commerce are all doubled up with a version of e-democracy, e-governance, e-consultation, and e-commerce. In addition, in this new world of information and knowledge the change has been more radical with the fast development of the World Wide Web.
With regard to the main estimates of 2003-04, which is the item on the agenda today, they were prepared and submitted to the two Speakers for their approval. They were then included in the blue books under the vote “Parliament”, which includes the Senate, the House of Commons, and your library.
Following the model implemented by Treasury Board several years ago, the library annually prepares a report on plans and priorities in the spring and a performance report in the late fall. The report on plans and priorities for 2003-04 will be ready in May.
This report is divided into the five functions of the library, which are services to parliamentarians, services to other authorized clients, the collections, services to the public, and infrastructure and administration together. We have established key priorities for each of these functions. For instance, the priorities for the services to parliamentarians are to enhance and expand the services and products provided to parliamentarians by supporting current services, undertaking new initiatives, and planning and developing more efficient service delivery mechanisms.
For the collections the priority is to develop and strengthen the library collections, to access information sources, and to develop analytical capacity according to the needs of parliamentarians.
In terms of initiatives and projects we achieved in the fiscal year 2002-03, I would mention LEGISINFO, a new electronic product that provides electronic links to all information on bills before both houses. It includes the bill, its legislative summary, and relevant press releases and news articles, as well as its progress, debates, and other relevant information. A version of LEGISINFO is now available on the Parliamentary Intranet site. Another initiative was a round table seminar series on globalization and governance, which was also achieved in 2002-03.
During the winter of 2003 a survey was conducted with senators and members of the House and their staff to better grasp and understand their expectations in terms of information and research services from the library. The firm COMPAS was mandated to conduct interviews with parliamentarians and to circulate an electronic questionnaire to their staff.
We have circulated this morning, through the clerks of the committee, the executive summary of the report based on the results of the survey, in both official language. The final report should be available in a few weeks.
¿ (0930)
Upon request from the standing committee, we will be pleased to ask the consultant to come and make a presentation to the members of the committee.
[Translation]
In order to evaluate our administrative processes, we made a commitment to follow the precepts of modern comptrollership as proposed by Treasury Board. With the support of Treasury Board, Deloitte & Touche recently delivered to us the results of the consultation that it conducted with Library managers.
The results indicate that we must improve certain aspects of our management if we want to meet the objectives set out by modern comptrollership.
We fully intend to achieve this. Our first objective to do so is to develop an action plan. This work is already underway and should be completed by late June 2003.
[English]
Finally, the renovations of the library building are proceeding as planned. Should the members of the committee be interested in additional information concerning this major project, I am sure that Public Works and Government Services Canada would be pleased to provide the members of the committee with the most up-to-date information and to organize a visit of the construction site if so desired.
That completes my notes, and we will be pleased to answer any questions.
I just want to note the presence in the room, in case we need their expertise, of Mr. Mike Graham, who is the director of the Public Service Division;
[Translation]
Mr. Alain Guimont, who is Director of Corporate Planning, Mr. Daniel Brassard, who is the Director of the Science and Technology Division in the Research Branch, Ms. Dianne Brydon, Director of the Parliamentary Public Programs, and Mr. Roland Bonnaventure, who is our Director of Human Resources.
Thank you.
[English]
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin):
Merci, Monsieur Paré.
I'll start with questions. Dr. Hill.
Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much.
This is one of the nicer committees because it's so non-partisan. I think we have a very common interest in this issue.
¿ (0935)
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): And physicians are in the majority on this committee right now.
Mr. Grant Hill: That's very harmful.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Grant Hill: The issue of independence of the library is one I've always wondered about, so let me ask you the question, are you independent enough?
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, we are independent if you mean that in the library we provide service in a non-partisan and confidential way all the time. We are independent in that sense.
As for the selection of staff, we follow a selection process, and we always select the best candidate available for a position when it's open; otherwise, for contracts we follow the guidelines of Treasury Board. We also have a partnership with the House of Commons when we deal with most new technology because they are responsible for the infrastructure on the Hill. We have a contractual partnership with the House in that area.
For the rest, I would say we are always independent.
Mr. Grant Hill: You mentioned 1992 as being the infancy of the e-component of Parliament. I remember that when I arrived here in 1993, quite often I came to the library and looked things up personally and my staff did the same. That just never happens anymore. It's virtually all done with the computer.
I see the lovely facility there and the huge renovations taking place and almost foresee a time when this will be like a museum, if you will, with lovely manuscripts and not the old use of the library. Could you just comment on that perception.
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, and this is not the first time I've heard comments in that way about the library building.
It's true that the main building of the library will be--I wouldn't say a museum, but it will certainly be more for the historical collections of Parliament, and we will also enhance facilities for visitors and for some exhibits. But in our plans we still will be a functional library, where parliamentarians can go and have their work done if they so choose. The two functions will be there, but I would say we will enhance the functions--again, I won't use the word “museum”--for exhibits, visitors, and so on.
Mr. Grant Hill: If I could draw your attention to your sheets on the financial issues, on page 2 of your financial data I see, right at the top, that “Services to Parliamentarians” went up in 2002-03 almost 20% over 2001-02 and for 2003-04 this went up 6.4% over the time period before. Could you just explain why there was a very large increase in that one span and a relatively small one in the other.
Mr. Richard Paré: It was because in the Speech from the Throne in 2001 there was an announcement that the government wanted to increase the number of researchers in the library. So that year we had an increase of 11 research analyst positions in order to better support the committees. This is why you see that jump in the estimates.
All these positions have been filled now.
Mr. Grant Hill: So it wasn't a great increase in usage, it was an increase in resources available for use.
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, it was in human resources, analysts.
Mr. Grant Hill: If you could flip over one more page--and these are the main estimates--I see there were economic increases in salaries and wages of $516,000 in 2001-02. Coming down to 2002-03, I see there's a special pay adjustment in supplementary (A) of $600,000 and then another increase in salaries and wages of $500,000 below that.
Could you delineate those things for me. First off, how many employees are there who would be referred to in those increases?
¿ (0940)
Mr. Richard Paré: Increases? Well, it depends. For the special pay adjustment I would have to refer you to the director of Human Resources to give you the right number, but I can give you the reason we have this special pay adjustment. It was due to a pay equity settlement that was given to the support staff; that was the reason.
In the case of the increases in salary and wages, they are all related to negotiations with the different groups we have, with the unions. We have four unions representing different groups in the library, and this is why you can see a difference.
As to the numbers, I would have to ask Mr. Bonnaventure to give us the exact numbers it represents because I don't have that in my--
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Mr. Bonnaventure, could you reply to the question posed.
Mr. Roland Bonnaventure (Director, Human Resources Division, Library of Parliament): My name is Roland Bonnaventure, and as I've been introduced just recently, I'm the director of Human Resources for the Library of Parliament.
If I understood your question correctly, you were asking about this difference involving the special pay adjustment.
Mr. Richard Paré: It's the difference between the economic increase in salary and wages and the numbers of people involved.
Mr. Roland Bonnaventure: Without having the actual figures right at hand, I'll try to give you a description of what happened during that period of time. The Library of Parliament has at the present time three groups of employees. First, there's the represented group of employees and there's the unrepresented group of employees. Now, in the represented group of employees there are two unions. There is the Public Service Alliance of Canada and there is SSEA, which represents the research officers. The rest of the library staff are unrepresented employees.
The reason I raise this particular point is that the contracts and the renewal of salaries do not all fall at the same time; they tend to overlap one other. What we have in some years is that certain collective agreements open up for certain groups and in other years for other groups, depending on whether it's a two- or three-year contract.
What I believe happened in this particular time period, the year 2001-02, is that we had collective agreements that opened up and were negotiated for our clerical and general services staff and that there was a certain degree of retroactivity that was involved in that particular contract. It was a two-year contract involved in that case.
The other thing that occurred during that period of time was that in the year 2002-03 we had one of our professional collective agreements that was also negotiated. That was with the research officers, and that was negotiated for a three-year contract. We're very happy to say that we have now obtained a three-year contract with that group. There was also a certain degree of retroactivity involved.
The third group's contract has just recently been negotiated, and I'm very happy to say this because we've been able to get a good working climate with our colleagues in the unionized area, where we negotiated a three-year collective agreement with the librarians and the alliance.
That's partly what's involved in here. The other aspect is that during that period of time the unrepresented employees were getting increases on almost an annual basis, starting on April 1. That would also have been included in that area.
These increases we're looking at, by the way, are normal market increases, and they range anywhere from 2.5% to 2.9% on a yearly basis. What we've been attempting to do in that is to follow the market trends in order not only to be competitive on Parliament Hill and in the public service but to maintain an average of under 3%.
¿ (0945)
Mr. Grant Hill: I'm still missing the number. How many employees? If you want to split it up by your represented and non-represented ones, how many do you have?
Mr. Roland Bonnaventure: I'll have to give you some round numbers because we don't have the specifics. For support staff we have approximately seventy employees, and for the research officers we're looking at around the same number. For librarians we're looking at around fifty employees. Then we have a heterogeneous group that is also around eighty employees. Researchers count for about seventy employees.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): So you had an increase of 11; you were at around sixty and you went from 60 to 70, is that it?
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, the 70 includes the 11 we added.
[Translation]
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Mr. Sauvageau.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Paré, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to meet with you officially for this committee this morning. On many occasions, when I had an opportunity to meet you, Mr. Paré, or the Library staff, I've told you in informal meetings how much I appreciated the work, and the level and quality of service offered to us. I'm pleased to repeat that here before the committee.
I also found your presentation very interesting. On that point, I agree with Mr. Hill; it's a good thing that we have a non-partisan committee, because the general rule is that it is rare that we hear such comments in committee. They are usually at another level. But I did very much appreciate your video presentation.
I haven't discussed this with my House leader or party leader, but I'm wondering if you would accept an invitation to present this to caucus, because I think that parliamentarians do not fully understand the services that are at their disposal through the Library of Parliament. We'll have to examine the logistics and politics of having this before caucus, but I can tell you that you would be more than welcome.
Let me now go on to my questions. In the reports on plans and priorities... Oh yes, I was reading the document. I always read the documents presented by the Library of Parliament before I go to committee, and I sit on many committees. I found it funny to read the questions that were prepared by the Library of Parliament for us to ask the Library of Parliament. This isn't a negative comment— it's just a quirky situation. I find it amusing.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): It's our researcher here who had to do this work; she dared to ask her boss some questions.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That's right. Generally we look at the questions that are proposed. But this time, I thought it was quite amusing to have questions for the Library of Parliament prepared by the Library of Parliament. But this is certainly not a negative comment.
Mr. Richard Paré: I'm not aware of them. I haven't seen them.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Although they're very good questions, I do have another one. In plans and priorities, and estimates, government departments and agencies generally plan ahead of time for growth in their human resources, what you call FTEs, I think. In addition, they compare this with the past. As is done with budgets, this can be compared with full-time equivalents and human resources.
Can you give us a brief growth plan for the past three or four years, let's say, and for the foreseeable future, that is, for the next three or four years? Did you have, do you have and do you think you'll continue to have sufficient staff to continue to fulfil your mandate?
¿ (0950)
Mr. Richard Paré: Thank you, Mr. Sauvageau. Of course, in answer to your first question, we'll be pleased to make a presentation to members of your caucus if you want us to. We'll be very happy to do so.
With regard to human resource planning, we do not do very long term planning. What we try to do is to identify situations and changes that occur in the way we deliver services. When we can proceed by reallocating staff, that's what we do. But sometimes, since we are in a field where change is virtually continuous, we do have to adjust and we do need more resources.
I believe that's what the government wanted to demonstrate when it granted us new resources to support committees. We intend to request more new resources, fewer this time, but still for committees and researchers. We realize that we need a higher level of expertise in certain sectors.
We don't have a long term plan. However, I did mention that we have had an evaluation of our management conducted by Treasury Board, which suggested improvements. One of them concerns long-term planning for our needs, which is not very easy in our field, but which is undoubtedly feasible.
Since then, we have added a director of planning—I mentioned that earlier—and a planning committee. We will have an action plan in which we do intend to have longer-term forecasts of our human resource needs.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: If I understand your answer correctly, you are saying that you obtained additional funds to hire people to provide service to committees and that you are asking for an additional, smaller amount of money to complement this.
Mr. Richard Paré: To complement it.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Therefore, a request was made and has been heard by the committee.
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I also sit a committee whose name escapes me—you must forgive me—which I believe allocates budgets to committees.
Mr. Richard Paré: The Liaison Committee?
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: The Liaison Committee. Thank you very much, that is helpful, because I sit on several committees. I was surprised to learn—we always learn; that is the beauty of life—that on some occasions, requests for budgets contain requests for external consultants, and employees from the Library were not used. So I asked what I thought was an obvious question, but it seems it was not. The question was this: Before asking for consultants, do committees ask the Library if it has the means to provide these services?
I am referring specifically to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. The consultant must be pretty darn good, because his services appear pretty costly. The committee is conducting a study on defence relations between Canada and the United States, or something like that. I asked if, before hiring this external consultant, the committee had gone to the Library to find out if it had the human resources available. I wanted to know if they had requested a consultant because they were turned down by the Library.
Are you satisfied with what is currently being done? Should these requests be channeled through you before committees turn to the outside?
¿ (0955)
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes. I can say that the channel already exists. In other words, that the chair of the committee, with the researchers that work for the committee... In the example you are giving, I believe that we have two researchers who work with the committee on a regular basis and that sometimes a third is added, depending on the issues. But it does happen sometimes, for a given topic, that they need a consultant or need to consult externally to support the committee researchers. That is how I would see these requests. They are additional requests, to obtain more specific expertise on a specific topic. But the researchers from the Library are also involved in the committee's work.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Is a request always made? Is there an official channel? Are these requests always made after the Library has turned a committee down or explained that it may not be able to meet all of the objectives outlined by the chair of the committee, or is this at the discretion of the committee chair?
Mr. Richard Paré: To answer that, I am going to have to go by what I think. I am not sure, because I do not attend meetings of steering committees, for example. Researchers from our service do attend those meetings, and that is probably where the decision is made to look for an external consultant to complement the required expertise. I would say that is probably when that decision is made and the request for resources goes to the Liaison Committee.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: My objective is to ensure they do not go over your head.
Now, I am going to put on my hat as official languages critic. I will tell you from the outset that I have never had a problem with the Library of Parliament, but I will nevertheless ask this question. How do you apply the Official Languages Act? First of all, you are covered by it. How do you apply it, and is it working well?
Mr. Richard Paré: We apply it, in other words we have criteria for our employees. We establish their skill levels, and based on criteria established using the same system that exists in the government—and we have levels CBC, CCC, and others for each division—we provide service and we require our employees to comply with the requirements of their position. As regards satisfaction, well, I have not received too many letters; it is going quite well.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I am just asking, but have you ever received any complaints?
Mr. Richard Paré: We may have received complaints on occasion, but very few if we consider the number of services that we provide in both languages. But the situation may occur. It is often a situational issue, but it does not happen very often.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Were you covered by Ms. Robillard's policy, which primarily concerned departments, but which strongly encouraged other government bodies to respect the deadline of March 31?
Mr. Richard Paré: At the Library, I think we can meet the objectives she set.
Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That is very good. Thank you very much.
[English]
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Alors, merci beaucoup.
Mr. Pickard.
Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Paré and staff. I think it's very good to have you here so we can have a better understanding of the services you provide.
What I've noticed, and you alluded to it somewhat in your initial comments, is that changes to the Library of Parliament are probably as great as any changes to any department that are happening within the federal government. As I see it, there are many, many common communications devices that are in place today and are...moving in the future.
As we look at the estimates, what goes through my mind is, where do you see the greatest need for experimentation, implementation, test programming, and types of things that are going to be required to meet future needs, and are we capable of satisfying those future needs in the most economical and efficient way? Are we doing enough in the programs or proposals you are carrying out on this year's base such that this is going to help us five or 10 years hence? At that time members of Parliament will probably be carrying a BlackBerry or some other device and be able to read “Quorum” with that rather than having a hard copy of “Quorum” circulated to everyone.
Are we able to put the programs on e-mail or on the net in order to make sure this research material is available directly to offices without their going through a research person? Furnishing a lot of general information on programs, I think, is going to be more and more the demand rather than having specific people research topics and provide answers.
I think you provide a tremendous service to committees and a tremendous service to members. At the same time, I see by the flow of information, just by the volumes coming through my office and each member's office, that we need faster access by the year. There's no question that if I tried to do things in my office the way I did them five years ago, there's absolutely no way I could manage to get back to those people who e-mail me, give me a question, and expect me to have the facts at my fingertips and pop an answer back to them quickly.
So I do see a tremendously changed role today, but I see it changing greatly in the future as well. What are you planning to do to cushion or deal with that change? I assume the estimates are the place to talk about that, so what are the resources you see you're going to need to move that agenda forward?
If I may, I'll just make a comment as well. The presentation you made on library services should probably be on the Internet. Then you'd send a quick e-mail to every member's office and say, by punching in this you can explore all the services we have at the library, and we'd like each member's staff to go through this and check it out. To me, that's the kind of communication we need in order to deliver the messages we need to deliver.
À (1000)
Mr. Richard Paré: I thank you for your question. It's a good one but it's not easy to answer because of the changing aspect I mentioned, which is continuing.
I would like to address it in relation to the budget and what we do in terms of new information technology. We spend approximately $1.5 million of our resources each year for information technology. We have a five-year plan; we had one in the late seventies, and we have a second one now.
My recollection is that it will go up to $2 million at the end of the second plan, which is 2004-05, I believe. Most of that money is spent in partnership with the House of Commons with regard to new developments in technology. We explain to them what our needs are, they also know the needs for the Parliament Hill infrastructure, and together we develop applications. This is the way we proceed in that area.
You mentioned having access to service at your fingertips. Of course, we have noticed the same things you have. We receive more and more requests, and the turnaround time has to be shorter because the majority of members receive those requests by electronic mail and the constituents expect quick answers. You can imagine that when it gets passed up the line for response it's the same; you want to have the answer right away, and we have to deal with that. We realize we don't have enough resources.
You mentioned the video. That could be made more readily available to the parliamentary community. We realize we don't do enough in training. We call it training, but it is to get members and their staff to know the library's services better. This is something we have to improve on because we already have a lot of those services you mentioned available. Sometimes the reflex is not to use them, so we have to work on that, and we realize we will have to do more.
Mr. Hugh Finsten (Associate Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament): If I can, I'll add a few words.
Obviously, we're very much aware of the electronic environment and the requirements of members, who want and require things immediately. We've put a lot of our material right on our website so you don't have to talk to anybody; you can go and find it. All research branch publications are on the website.
We have another program called “hot topics”, where librarians and researchers work together on new topics and provide links to other sites for users to get information. For example, we've recently put something up on SARS. We're very much aware of the requirements with the Internet and where you basically want things 24/7.
As I say, a lot of our resources are devoted to getting material onto our website so you don't have to call us up but can find the material you want just by using our website and can get links to material elsewhere on the Internet as well.
À (1005)
Mr. Jerry Pickard: The second question that comes to mind concerns the fact that there must be changing requirements for staff. As time goes on, you're going to need staff to provide different types of services. That may mean a demand for extra staff or it may mean shifting staff.
Presently there are your researchers, your committee support people, your miscellaneous groups, and the librarians themselves who are doing the tasks in your branch. However, I probably see information service as an area of growth for you, and it would probably be major growth. At the same time, you may have a diminished side of it.
You have a group of people with certain skills and you're going to require other skills. How are you handling those kinds of issues, retraining, reprogramming, or whatever we call it, to bring employees into the new phase of the types of jobs they're going to be required to do?
Mr. Richard Paré: Obviously, we will need more people with better skills to work in information technology, with the website service, for instance. I could say “web specialist” but I won't; I don't have the number. So you're right, we will need more and more.
What we do is, we retrain some of the staff, and every time we have a position that comes open, we reassess the contents of the work they do in their job. Then if we have to train, we take the opportunity to do it at that time. We also train and retrain many of our technical staff to be better able to use the new technology.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: Do you bring in outside consulting or programming services to help deal with the types of communication technology you're involved with?
Mr. Richard Paré: As I mentioned before, we usually do that with the House of Commons. We contract and partner with the House of Commons. There's always this component of the infrastructure we have to take into account. This is why we have had some contracts with the House. The last one we had was to develop a website on e-democracy last year, and we are participating with the House of Commons in developing a website for the House subcommittee on the disabled.
This is an experiment for us and this is an experiment for them. For us it's because we believe this type of experiment may in the future change the way our research analysts work with committees. This is the interest we have. This is what we mostly do with respect to new technology: we usually work closely with the House.
There's always the infrastructure part involved, electronic and computer infrastructure, and we have to take it into account. This is mainly what we do.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: Thank you very much.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin):
Merci beaucoup. Thank you.
Dr. Bennett.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)): Thanks very much.
As my colleague Dr. Hill said, it's a small cult that wants to serve on this committee. It is about understanding the importance of the library, I think, to the role of parliamentarians. It is our heft in terms of newer information, better information, and the ability to get information, and not just from government departments. I think you've heard me say before that Donald Savoie said that if he had one thing to do, it would be to take half of the budget of the Privy Council and give it to you.
I think what we're trying to do in the estimates is to say, what does the future look like in terms of getting you the resources you need to help us do our job better, which is to call the government to account. That's what our job as parliamentarians is.
In terms of information and knowledge, there's this interpretation function you do as well. In a time when there's so much information out there, how do we as parliamentarians interpret information and knowledge in a way we can trust it, and whichever side of the House we sit on, where do we get that? The capacity for that is a priority for a lot of us.
How do we, as Mr. Pickard said, make sure we are ahead of the curve in getting you the resources you need to be ahead of the curve, to let Canadians know that we are able to do our job here but also able to keep talking to them? That's the piece I want to know, what capacity you feel you have at the library now to be ahead of the curve for what expectations Canadians have of us and also what the expectation of Canadians is in terms of dealing with committees, dealing with Parliament, and making sure our information isn't only coming from government departments.
I know that there are certain skill sets such as writing for the web and e-consultation, a whole bunch of skill sets that at the moment are within the purview of consultants. I'd like to know, how are we going to mainstream that such that you have the capacity within the library to hire a few consultants? But then we want to know you have the wherewithal to get the skills you need internal to the library.
We had a little chat about this last time. Consultants come with baggage, and sometimes on a committee we worry that the minute you hire a consultant, you kind of know what the report is going to be.
If we'd like to see ourselves as helping you, should we be asking for more money for you? Should we be asking that consultants have to be hired through you? I think that's a way of building capacity. How can we help? If you were going to let us help you with planning and priorities or let us help you dream in technicolour, what would it look like?
I have my experience on e-consultation, which was a spectacular opportunity for our little, tiny committee on disabilities to actually get beyond the usual suspects and talk to regular Canadians about their experience. The fact that our committee talked to 1,200 Canadians is, I think, unprecedented.
I don't think that the information that's on our disability website, in terms of just providing information to Canadians about what is happening in committee, should be only on the disability committee website. I think that this information piece should be on all committee websites. What kind of money would it take to get the quality of website we have with the disability subcommittee for all committee websites?
À (1010)
Second, there's the little, tiny study we did, the consulting piece. If, say, three more committees wanted to do that, say foreign affairs, finance for pre-budget, or whatever, what kind of money would that take?
Mr. Richard Paré: That's a good question.
Of course, the small test we did with the subcommittee on the consultation aspect was very important for us.
This year we have approximately the same budget we had last year, except for the salary increases that were negotiated. In 2003-04 we have approximately the same spending capacity we had last year.
What we are suggesting is that there might be a website created for all committees in the Senate and the House without that consultation part. That might be a first step to work on.
Second, we could try another experiment similar to what we did with the subcommittee in the House this year. The suggestion would be for the Senate side. Why? Because the House, this Parliament, is moving into the last part of its mandate, so the timing would be better for us to try something with the Senate this year. This is a suggestion we have had and are now considering.
À (1015)
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin):
Mr. Paré, on what point are you considering doing that?
Mr. Richard Paré: To try an experiment similar to the one we had on e-consultation. With the budget I have I could do it this year, but if we want to do three or four, I need more money. I don't have the money.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett):
Is it on consultation or on information?
Mr. Richard Paré: It would be the same as the experiment with the subcommittee on the disabled, the consultation part we did the back-and-forth on. This is the idea.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett):
There are two kinds of websites. The OECD standard on this is for three different levels: information, consultation, and deliberation in terms of partnerships with citizens. So the information one--
Mr. Richard Paré: --could be done. We could work on that.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett):
Across the board. The consultation one, the interactive piece and the actual...is clearly more expensive. You have to listen, interpret, and have a mechanism for the feedback.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin):
This is what you did.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett):
This is what we did. But phase one was getting all the information, all the committee reports, all the stuff up there for one-stop shopping. All last summer we built a website that had everything anybody wanted to know about the work of the disability committee in an information-only way. They could send a contact-us form or something if they wanted. Then we launched the consultation in December.
My question is in two parts. What would it take to get everybody the information kind of website for every parliamentary committee? Second, how much more money would you need to do a couple more consultations?
Mr. Richard Paré: For the cost, well, how much have we spent this year?
Mr. Hugh Finsten: In terms of the pilot project, it was obviously a new experience for our staff, and we learned a lot from it. You were asking about bringing in consultants. Whenever a consultant is brought in on something like that, we learn a lot from it.
Obviously, some of our staff have a pretty good idea of what is required. As you know, Bill Young and Peter Niemczak were involved with your subcommittee, and I think we have to get their input in more detail in terms of how much it would cost.
Obviously, our research staff and librarians who were working on it were taken away from their other duties in a sense in order to work on the website and put up the information that was required. If that were to happen in all committees, then there'd have to be some other staff there to either carry on the normal duties or work on the informational website.
In addition, there's support staff, there are editors, and there's some training that would be involved. There are a lot of things involved in order to do that process. I think you're obviously very much aware of all the complexities and difficulties and of all the people who were involved.
I think we have to sit down with our staff who worked on the committee and start budgeting it out as to how much it would cost each committee, the exact type of expertise they would need, and also the additional research staff who would be required. It was certainly a coordinated effort among the support staff, research staff, and technical staff from the House who had to work on it. As I say, I think we'd have to sit down on a committee basis and come up with a figure.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: I don't mean to interrupt, but that's exactly the kind of thing I was trying to get you in the thinking frame to do, to look at the chains of service and at the delivery types not only to members of Parliament but, as pointed out by the chairs, to the Canadian public, to those we need to reach and work with in order to be effective. I think that is a role for the Library of Parliament and is something you should be striving for.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Would you just have a go at writing that down so the members of the committee can have a look at it. At the steering committee we suggested maybe having one--
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): No, I think that's definitely been decided, that there will be one meeting on e-consultation. Maybe we could discuss these issues at that meeting.
Mr. Richard Paré: I just want to add that the preliminary figure I have for the cost to the library last year is $80,000. There was additional staff at the time...because it's time-consuming, and there was also the support staff. I know that the House also invested a lot of money. If we want to do three, is it $240,000 or is it $200,000 because we can benefit from the others? I don't know. This is something we have to work on, the numbers.
À (1020)
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): I guess we're now viewed as world-class in this if having our paper accepted in Prague is any example of what we've been able to achieve in this sort of e-democracy piece. I think it's a beginning of a new way of doing business and making Parliament more relevant and responsive to citizens, so it's a good thing. I would just like to see it written down.
You might as well ask. If we were going to get you more money for.... I understand the Speaker's budget is huge, and we just think you should get more of it.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Cut down on parties and spend more on the library.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Yes, on the wine cellar.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): We would like to know what it would cost to have all the committees with at least an informational site and then what it would cost for a couple of extra consultations a year for everybody. Why don't you just do some projections for us so you're not stealing money from other parts of the library to move forward on this.
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): So you'll send us a little written proposal?
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Yes, but we will also have a full meeting on that subject. I think it'll be the third meeting done, as was discussed last time.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Maybe that could be part of his comments.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Or maybe he could prepare the documents for that .
I have a few very specific issues, Mr. Paré, if I may. The first one is these increases, 18%, 6.4%, and so forth, which are really increases in resources. Would you have the equivalent figures on increased requests for services or on the increase in services from year to year? I know it's not an easy question, but have the requests for services increased by the same amount or more? Maybe this would give us an idea of whether your resources are sufficient to cover the demand.
Mr. Richard Paré: What I can tell you in response in a general way is that we have the same levels of individual requests for research services from Parliament.
Haven't we had approximately the same levels over the last two or three years?
Mr. Hugh Finsten: Well, it certainly went up. We don't have our statistics for the last fiscal year yet, but from what I understand, it certainly has gone up about 10%.
Mr. Richard Paré: Is that for individual requests?
Mr. Hugh Finsten: The total number of responses has gone up about 10%.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): That's the total for research?
Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, research. We have had an increase in the demand from the public for information about Parliament, and we have had a slight decrease in requests relating to reference and information over the last few years--a slight decrease; we would say approximately 5% each year.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): If I understand correctly, the resources will be increasing by 6.4% but the requests for services have increased by 10%. Am I right in saying that?
Mr. Hugh Finsten: In a way it's very difficult. In terms of our committee work, where we put about 60% of our research resources, we use our resources to meet the demand. For example, there are new committees set up in the Senate and the House, namely official languages and the new committee on estimates, which had two subcommittees. In essence, we have to stretch our resources in order to meet those new demands because we try to meet all those demands.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Yes, but is there any way of knowing what the increased demands are? Let me put it another way if you can't answer that question. What is the overtime? Has there been an increase in overtime by your researchers over the last years?
I'm trying to find out if there's been an increase. I understand the increase in resources, but I would also like to have a handle on what your activities are. Are you selling more shoes? Is there some way to quantify what you're doing? Has that increased? Has it been stable? If it has increased, by how much? If you want us to help you in getting more resources, we should have some handle on what your activities are.
À (1025)
Mr. Hugh Finsten: As I was mentioning, in terms of the research services, 60% of our resources are going to the committees. You're creating more committees and you're doing studies in the Senate and the House such as the study by the social affairs committee, the study by the defence committee, and also a study by that special committee on drugs. And every time there's a new special committee, we staff it. I can give you numbers as to the amount of time we're spending, but it basically equals the amount of time all our staff are spending at work plus the overtime.
Certainly, in regard to the overtime, we have very high levels of overtime for our staff because they travel with committees and they write committee reports. As I mentioned, some of those committees are very heavily involved in overtime and committee reports. We can certainly give you figures as to the number of hours our staff are spending on these various items. We can get those for you if that would help.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): That would be interesting.
Mr. Paré, what are the new initiatives you're planning for the next few years? We've talked about e-consultation, which I think is very important. Do you have a major initiative of the same type?
Mr. Richard Paré: New initiatives? We always have several we want to achieve. I have a group of managers who are very dedicated and very enthusiastic. I have realized over the last couple of years that they identify too many new initiatives, and sometimes there's too much for them to chew during that year because they also have their regular responsibilities. We will try to limit the new initiatives more.
We will certainly focus more on information technology and we will also focus on this action plan we have to improve the functions with respect to comptrollership of the library.
Certainly, we'll make a presentation, a case, for having a bit more research funding for committees to get better expertise. We are lacking a bit in expertise in certain areas. We have identified that and we will make a case for that.
We have not spoken very much about the collections this morning. I believe that even if we are moving more and more into a parliamentary virtual library, there'll always be a strong component of collections, however virtual we are. We will never be completely electronic. We have to continue to support our collections both in print format and in electronic format.
Perhaps I will ask Lynn to give you the increase we see every year in terms of cost.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): They're expensive, of course. Every library in the world is complaining about the increase in cost of the collections.
Ms. Brodie.
Ms. Lynn Brodie (Director, Collections Division, Library of Parliament): Thank you.
It goes back a little to Mr. Paré's question before. I'd like to point out that about 30% of the library's budget is currently spent on electronic collections. There's no question that if we had more, we'd buy more, and we'd make it more readily available to you. However, in our most recent survey we have found that there is still a very large proportion of information available in the world that's not available electronically or is only partially available electronically. Or if it's available electronically, it's considerably more expensive than the print version of it.
We're attempting to develop our collections with you in mind as well as your successors; we realize we've been around for a long time and we'd like to make sure that some of the information we're collecting is also available for quite some time. We know that much of our historical information is used on a regular basis, but it's not at this point economically feasible to digitize it, although we have had projects in the last few years to digitize our clipping file collection.
At the current time we're also digitizing a number of other documents in our collections that are free of copyright, because that's another issue that's of concern to us.
So we're increasing our electronic but still maintaining our print.
À (1030)
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Dr. Bennett has a question precisely on the copyright issue.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): I understand there are two choices. We could ask for a law that exempts you from copyright as is done in certain countries, or we could give you more money to buy them. Do you have a preference?
Ms. Lynn Brodie: I think that it has to be seen not so much as giving us free rein to do things as giving you the opportunity to receive information from us without worrying about the fact that we might be breaking copyright or that you would be breaking copyright by making copies of it. There are currently a few countries in the world, Australia and New Zealand being the main ones, that have exemptions for their members of Parliament. Members are allowed, I believe, to make two or three copies that are exempt from any copyright licensing.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Mr. Pickard.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: A question quickly pops into mind. How is that looked upon in the international community? Obviously, as a small group we are doing things that are not allowed, and I think the public would react in a somewhat negative way to that. The international community has tried to bring forward regulations on copyright that are fair and just. If you exempt a group, you're acting contrary to the purpose of the international community. How do you see the international community reacting?
Ms. Lynn Brodie: As you said, it's a small group, and I believe the countries that have brought in those laws have determined that it was in the best interests of their legislators to be as well informed as possible and that they were not abusing the making of copies of material because they were doing it in order to be better legislators.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: So you don't see an international response to that.
Ms. Lynn Brodie: I know that there is an international interest in making copyright laws identical and very international in scope, but in fact they're not. There's quite a bit of variation between countries.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: Thank you.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): I'd like to follow up on what Mr. Pickard said earlier concerning the changing environment. What about professional training for your staff, your researchers? What programs do you have?
Mr. Richard Paré: For the management aspect of their work we have programs we organize within the library, and we also benefit from attending conferences for specialists. We encourage our people to attend conferences, but the problem is that sometimes they don't have the time. I know two research officers here who don't have the time to attend professional training, and that's the difficulty we have.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Mr. Paré, following up on Mr. Pickard's comments, I think it's a very important issue for these people nowadays; all information has such a short half-life.
Mr. Richard Paré: The risk we have is, if we do that in a structural way, then at some point the members will suffer because the people won't be available for a period of time because they will be on training. This is the difficulty we have with training.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): This is a very important component of any organization, to have a professional training program, and this could be included in your next budget. I think it's very well recognized that you should have such a plan.
Mr. Hill, do you have any more questions to address to our witnesses?
Mr. Grant Hill: I just have a couple more to wrap up.
The first one is, did you track the use of the services by opposition versus government MPs? Do you have any sense of the relative use there?
Mr. Hugh Finsten: In our annual report we used to actually have the number of requests by party, but we don't do annual reports anymore. We obviously could do it because we have a database listing all requests we receive. We usually find that about half of the requests come from government backbenchers and half from the opposition parties, just as a general rule.
Mr. Grant Hill: Finally, I presume there's some ranking of parliamentary libraries internationally. Is there such a thing?
À (1035)
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): We're number one, Mr. Hill.
Mr. Grant Hill: I didn't want it to be you who said that.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Richard Paré: We are near the top, I would say maybe number two. The American Congressional Research Service is a very big organization. We are different because we serve committees; they don't serve committees. We believe that if we talk about it in terms of efficiency, we are the best. We are the top. We are the most efficient parliamentary library in the world. I would support that. I would defend that.
The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): You were saying that Westminster is starting to emulate what we have here, because they too didn't support committees.
Mr. Richard Paré: They have started to, and now they are looking to support more committees. They are also considering having one library rather than two, amalgamating the House of Lords library and the House of Commons library, something we have had since the beginning. So we are far ahead on that, and you can imagine the efficiency, with the staff, of having one collection serving both rather than having two.
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Mr. Pickard.
Mr. Jerry Pickard: I have one other point. It may be a statement or it may not, but it's something I think you should consider.
You serve--and this is only in the area where you serve my colleagues--400 parliamentarians in this country, and in that service--as I look at it, anyway--you do it very efficiently and very economically. If we were to compare the budgets of department services per minister and the Library of Parliament budget to service members of Parliament, I would venture to say that the efficiencies of your library would show very highly. As a matter of fact, it would be my opinion that you probably haven't sought the funds and the resources you should be getting to do that job adequately.
I would think that in the future, as the chair has already said, you should look at your service delivery, look at the new technology you're using, look at the hours that are going to be required to transmit material to members, and look at all of the expanding services you're going to be required to give. In all fairness, I think you should be coming back to this committee asking for increases that would substantiate....
It bothers me a little when you suggest that if we send somebody on a course to upgrade their skills, their knowledge, and their technique, it may shortchange the service itself. That's telling me you don't have the resources to do the job.
It's not a matter of asking for increases that can't be justified. When you suggest two or three new committees that are working.... Take the number of committees there are in the Senate and the House of Commons; if we have 30 committees, you increase by 3% for each extra committee you're working on. I think those numbers need to be substantiated and pointed out. This argument needs to be made by you, the professionals, in order to move that agenda where it needs to go.
I believe you'll have all-party support in those kinds of initiatives. We'll have some resistance from the bean-counters, who stop the funding wherever they can, and I can understand that. But if we don't make the case, we lose the battle.
M. Richard Paré: I think your statement will help us to make the case. You specify different things as to how we can make our case, which will be helpful.
[Translation]
The Joint Chair (Senator Yves Morin): Thank you very much, Mr. Paré. Thank you, Ms. Boutin, Mr. Finsten, Ms. Brodie, and Mr. Bonnaventure. You have been excellent witnesses, and we are very happy to be able to help you in your requests.
[English]
The next meeting will be on Thursday, May 1, at 9 a.m. We still don't have the location.
Thank you very much.