LIPA Committee Meeting

STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT

COMITÉ MIXTE PERMANENT DE LA BIBLIOTHÈQUE DU PARLEMENT

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, November 18, 1997

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[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton, Lib.): Honourable members, I see a quorum. Shall we proceed?

Our witness today is Mr. Paré, who will brief us on the main estimates for the Library of Parliament.

Mr. Paré.

Mr. Richard Paré (Parliamentary Librarian, Library of Parliament): Thank you, Mr. Co-Chairman.

Before I start my short presentation on the budget, I would like to indicate that you have received four documents requested by the clerks of the committee, one being the main estimates, another being the outlook on program priorities and expenditures for 1996-97 to 1998-99 for the library. The submission by the library to supplementary estimates for this year and a cost analysis summary of unit cost in products and services were all distributed through the clerks. I will use my presentation to explain a few overheads we have.

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The first one I want to show you is a summary of the financial situation of the library for 1996-97. This summary will be part of the annual report, which we hope to table in the House and in the Senate before Christmas.

I just want to bring your attention to the lapse at the bottom. It was only $13,000, which means that last year, for 1996-97, we were very tight in terms of budget, in terms of estimate and expenditure.

The next gives you an idea of the budget, the main estimate, and it covers the years 1992-93 to 1997-98. As you can notice, since 1992-93, there has been a decrease in the main estimates of the library. In 1995-96, when we started the three-year downsizing requested for all government departments, we had a target of 8% from 1995-96 to 1997-98 for the library. As you can see from main-to-main estimates, we will meet that target.

Now I would like to bring your attention to 1996-97. There's an increase of $1.7 million. This is due to a transfer of the Public Information Office, which was in the House of Commons and was providing information on Parliament to the public. It was decided that it would be better to have it under the library, as it is in Westminster in London, because the information required is for Parliament. There was also an economy of scale, because many of the questions or requests coming from the public were referred to the library for answers. This part has been maintained at the same level in 1997-98. We have not applied any cuts on that part.

In 1997-98 there's a 0.9% increase, and this is explained by the arrow. In 1996 we had a study done with the support of the House of Commons.

Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, Mr. Paré is referring to something. It must be in one of these books.

Mr. Richard Paré: The figures I was referring to are in this book.

Mr. John Finlay: Which book?

Mr. Richard Paré: The main estimates and expenditure plan. I think they're on pages 3, 4, and 23 in the English.

Mr. John Finlay: All right.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, in the previous slide there was something about salaries, and the figures were broken down. Where would that be in the book?

Mr. Richard Paré: It is in the forthcoming annual report.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: You have $7 million in salaries there. Where do I look here for $7 million in salaries? It was on another slide before that. What page is that on in the book? Where can I see those figures?

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Mr. Richard Paré: It's not in that book. You have to go to page 6 of the expenditures.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Can we have that photocopied and distributed to members, please?

Mr. Chairman can we undertake that right away?

Mr. Richard Paré: You have the same detail of figures on page 6.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I'd like to have a copy of it, please.

Mr. Richard Paré: Sure.

[Translation]

Senator Eymard G. Corbin (Grand-Sault, Lib.): Can the witness continue his presentation? We're wasting time. What are we waiting for?

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Yes.

Mr. Richard Paré: Thank you, Mr. Co-Chairman.

As I was mentioning, there was a study done on the information systems used in the library in order to develop a strategy over ten years. This study was prepared with the support of the House of Commons and a report was prepared in 1996. Following that report—

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Mercier (Terrebonne—Blainville, BQ): I am sorry, but could we have a copy of that page? The one we have is almost impossible to read.

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Can you deliver a copy to each one of them?

Mr. Richard Paré: Sure, but the documents are not in a bilingual format. If it's acceptable to have them in one or the other language...some are in English and some are in French. They were just for the presentation.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: If we don't have copies of what is being presented, maybe we should look at putting this up at another time, at really studying it and then coming back.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Do we all agree with that? Does everybody have their copies?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Mercier: In most committees, members' names are indicated and we know who is who. Here it is impossible. Name cards should be put out so that we can identify who is speaking. It is not done here. That is a suggestion for the next meeting.

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Thank you for the suggestion. They will be made for the next meeting.

Mr. Paré, please carry on.

Mr. Richard Paré: Following that study, it was agreed by the Speakers to have an amount of money in the budget added for information technology and to put the library at the same levels as the House of Commons and the Senate. It is very important that we use the same equipment, the same levels of systems and software; otherwise we would have difficulty communicating.

The second $150,000 added to the budget was money to buy books and newspapers for senators. The year before, in 1996-97, we undertook to give that service to the senators and to charge it back to the Senate. At the end of the fiscal year they required that the money be put in our budget and we were to provide the same service. This is why we have this $150,000.

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The last one, $250,000, is employee benefits. We were asked by Treasury Board—and I think it was for all departments—to increase from 14.5% to 17%. That explains the increase of 0.9%, $100,000.

The next one brings us to the supplementary estimates, the revised budget for this year. Because we have encountered unforeseen expenditures during the year, we had to ask for a supplementary estimate. One was for the pay equity issue we had with a group of employees, the library technicians. This situation goes back to 1988. The general direction we had from the two Speakers was to settle this pay equity issue before going to the tribunal. Finally, this year, we have been able to settle this issue, but of course there was a cost attached to it and this was not foreseen in the budget. That explains the $507,000 in the supplementary budget.

Since we have to pay back pay to the library technicians 60 days after the settlement, we had to go to Treasury Board—vote 5—to have $400,000 to ensure the payback. The rest is the ongoing costs, and these costs will be put in the budget.

The second item, which is $800,000, was for the early retirement incentive program. We have been able to meet our target of budget restraint of 8% over three years, but because we had this early retirement incentive program we had 12 staff whose positions were declared surplus, and they have benefited from that program. These have to be paid: the pay benefits, the lump-sum payment, and annual leave.

The other item, which is $604,000, was the cost incurred because of the new Parliament.

Publications were prepared. One of those was Issue Highlights, which you have all received. We also have the Guide to Services, which is at the printing stage now, and which you should receive in two weeks, hopefully. It's part of these expenses.

We also had a centre, you may recall, for new members at the beginning of Parliament, before Parliament reconvened, to facilitate and help them be more acquainted with Parliament and the activities of the House. The library was part of that, and this covers mainly this item.

The other one is the promotion of Parliament. In this item we have different projects that were part of that. We have in the visitors' centres, which is under the responsibility of the library, a project that is called a PARLINFO touch screen information booth. This will be a database and a booth where visitors will use a touch screen and be able to ask for the names of members or senators, or of any members in the past. Of course, in the beginning we only had the members and the senators of the 35th Parliament, but we plan to go back and include all these people. This project is evaluated at $98,000.

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We also have to list our telephone numbers in all the telephone directories in Canada. We have to pay to have the number of the Public Information Office...and this cost was not transferred from the House. When the transfer was made this part was included in their large cost and it was not identified as a cost. So we have to maintain that. This is an additional cost of the transfer.

Also, this year the Peace Tower has been reopened and we have to have parliamentary guides for tours in the Peace Tower and in the Chapel of Remembrance. This is an additional cost we have incurred.

There is also the new program in the historic rooms of the East Block. That includes the cabinet room in the East Block and also the Prime Minister's office.

We also have a new system of control for the souvenir boutique. An accounting control and the development and design of new products are included in that amount.

The rest is other expenditures. For instance, one is the hiring of contract negotiators. We are now at the point where we will have to renegotiate our contracts with our staff. We have the first group starting now with librarians. We have four groups in the library. The other three groups will be during the next fiscal year, so we have to hire a negotiator for that period of time when we want to negotiate with these four groups.

That gives you the detail of the expenses we are facing for the supplementary budget. I think at this point, Mr. Chairman, I would be ready to answer questions. I think I have covered in a general way what I want to say about the budget.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Thank you, Mr. Paré.

Now we will have seven minutes for Reform. Madam Grey, do you have any questions?

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation. There are just so many numbers to look at here.

I have one small question. You're dealing with such a huge budget, but when you mentioned earlier the $2.5 million you needed in your supplementary estimates, the pay equity was $507,000, early retirement was $800,000, and then you said because of the new Parliament it was $604,000. If you look at 300 MPs and roughly 100 senators, you're looking at 400 people. Dividing that number into $604,000 it's over $1,500 per member. Could you just give a little idea of what is included in that at the beginning of every new Parliament? I hate to sound facetious, but I don't feel as though every member got $1,500 worth of stuff. I know the library does tremendous work for us, but what is it that's incurred in costs with every new Parliament?

Mr. Richard Paré: First, I want to say that it doesn't mean the same amount would be needed at the next Parliament. We don't know exactly; it's why we go for the supplementary. For this one, we have spent $40,000 on the information centre. We have spent $20,000 for information officers, and for an information centre for new MPs, the organization and so on, another $20,000.

In regard to training and visits to the offices of new MPs, we have offered to visit all the new MPs and explain the service of the information in the library. We spent $10,000 on that.

I mentioned some publications of the new Parliament, such as Issue Highlights and the Guide to Services, which unfortunately was not available for the opening of Parliament but will be available within the next two weeks.

Senator Roch Bolduc (Golfe, PC): Issue Highlights is not this one.

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Mr. Richard Paré: No. That is just the outlook document. Issue Highlights was—

Senator Roch Bolduc: The one we are going to receive.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, the faits saillants in French, the highlights. There's also the guide to the library. The guide to the library will be published for the next four years, so we have 7,000 copies.

There's also the MPs' photo album, an unofficial slide show. We have in the visitors' centres a slide show with the pictures of the members, which we have to redo because of the new members. That's $7,000.

There is the videocassette in the library. We had a videocassette that was updated in the last Parliament. We believe it is time to redo it because the times have changed and the people have changed and so on. This is $35,000.

On new workshops for MPs and their staff...we have established a series of workshops for the staff to better understand what their work is, and that's $53,000. We have a series continuing until the end of November or the beginning of December. Every week or second week there is a seminar.

There is cataloguing on the Internet. We are now moving more and more toward using material on the Internet. What we do is select, using the same process for books or printed materials. When we have selected, we have to download these materials. We decide to keep it online or have a print copy, but we also have to catalogue it. We are increasing that.

The access licence to electronic information sources is $150,000. We are in the middle of negotiating a licence for an electronic media monitoring service for all the MPs and their offices. Rather than having each MP or one office negotiate a licence and paying a certain amount, we are doing it for all the members, so this will reduce the cost.

Miss Deborah Grey: Thank you.

I also wanted to ask about the Teachers' Institute on Canadian Parliamentary Democracy. That just happened here, of course, on the Hill a couple of weeks ago. It says that the total cost of the institute is $302,413 and yet I don't see it listed in the main estimates. Could you show me where that is and the justification for it?

Mr. Richard Paré: This is part of the transfer. It is in the supplementary. It is part of the Public Information Office on page 5 of the main estimates. It's part of the Public Information Office in the $1.6 million.

Miss Deborah Grey: So that would be a fairly large chunk of their whole budget.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, but we have had a bit from the supplementary budget. I must tell you that this $300,000 is what we have budgeted; it's not what we will expend. There is a slight difference. Also, it is a budget that is shared by sponsors and school boards who pay for the time of the teachers coming in. The teachers are chipping in $200 each. There is also the House, the Senate, and the library that share the rest of the budget, and I can give you the breakdown. We have for this year the subtotalled cost after salary as $139,000. The share will be $69,000 by the House of Commons, $27,000 by the Senate, and $41,000 by the library. These are rough figures.

Miss Deborah Grey: Good. Thank you very much.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Mr. Mercier.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Mercier: I see revised estimates. Under the title "millions of dollars," there is voted appropriation of $18. I imagine that it is $18 million. I also see a $2 million statutory appropriation, which gives us a total of $20.1 million. Then there is the pie chart that is used to explain how this $20.1 million is broken down. You see the pie chart there. The piece of the chart representing $2.7 million is explained on the right-hand side in "Supplementary estimates—in thousands of dollars." What I do not really understand is that the piece of the pie chart represents $2.7 million but that the details on this piece of the chart give an amount of $2.227 million.

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Mr. Richard Paré: I will explain it to you. In 1994-95 and 1995-96, funds were carried forward. At the end of the year, we had budget surpluses. Treasury Board allows an organization to use up to 5 per cent of its budget. For those two years we had $455,000, so we used that money before the supplementary estimate. The amount was subtracted from the $2.6 million.

Mr. Paul Mercier: That is not clear from the way it is indicated there.

Mr. Richard Paré: It is perhaps not expressed clearly, and I apologize. That is the reason.

Mr. Paul Mercier: Do the dollar signs represent millions of dollars?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Thank you.

Senator Corbin.

Senator Eymard Corbin: If some of my House of Commons friends want to go ahead of me, it's no problem.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Mr. Finlay.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am interested in “Other expenditures” on page 3 of the supplementary. In the bottom box it says, “Program to assist new democracies, $20,000”.

Can you tell me what's involved in that?

Mr. Richard Paré: This amount is used mainly for sending books to other parliaments, new parliaments. For instance, this year we sent some to Namibia and Haiti.

It's very expensive to ship books. That's what the expense of $20,000 mainly covers.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you.

In box 4 on that same page, I'm interested in the new product development and the design, and your new accounting system in the boutique. I make use of it occasionally.

Do you have any breakdown of the amount of revenue generated? Is there a profit or is it a break-even situation?

Mr. Richard Paré: The actual sales for the souvenir boutique today total $558,497.

Mr. John Finlay: Is that for a year?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

Mr. John Finlay: Did we make any money?

Mr. Richard Paré: Not very much. At this stage, we have in our budget an amount of exactly $203,000, which we have to return to Treasury Board. We don't have that money in the budget. They anticipate the money needed, calling it the “vote-netting mechanism”. We inherited that when it was transferred from the House of Commons, and we have to keep that as is.

According to the figure I have today, we are at minus $17,000 if we look at all the inventories and materials we have to pay.

Mr. John Finlay: The staff and so on.

Mr. Richard Paré: Of course.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Senator Corbin.

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[Translation]

Senator Eymard Corbin: Mr. Paré, you are the Parliamentary Librarian, can you tell us if the library plans to expand? I have noticed that facilities are being built behind parliament for electricity services, water mains, heating, etc., at a rather high cost.

Moreover, I know for a fact that part of your collection is in a warehouse, at some distance from Parliament, and that it is not always available immediately for members of Parliament, for senators and other users of the Library of Parliament.

Have you already talked to government authorities about the need for more space on site so that you do not always have to use off-site accommodations?

Mr. Richard Paré: Thank you for your question. We prepared a long-term accommodation plan for the library about two years ago. Unfortunately, I do not have it with me. The renovation plan for Parliament includes the library. At some point, the library will have to move. According to the current plan, that will be in 1999. The library will have to move out for four years and will then return to renovated accommodations.

In this study, we estimated that by the year 2010 or 2012, we will no longer need additional space because we will be using more and more documents in electronic form. It will balance out with printed documents according to the analysis we have done.

In our Hull warehouse, we try to store documents that are less in demand. They include mainly official publications or documents from foreign governments for which demand is not as high. Demand is higher for Canadian and provincial documents. We can get them within a day.

Moreover, we often use the fax when we only need a few pages. It is easier to make a copy and to send it by fax, because we can get it the same day. So as a result, we will probably be able to meet parliamentarians' needs in the future with the space we have now. Of course, we will have to move out during the renovations.

Senator Eymard Corbin: May I ask another question?

As you said earlier, you are responsible for programs that, strictly speaking, are not library services. For example, you are involved in tourism, a souvenir boutique and other areas. I am not aware of all of these services. You mentioned several of them today.

Were these things imposed on you and would you prefer—be honest with us—that this type of service be transferred to another agency so that you could concentrate on service to parliamentarians?

Mr. Richard Paré: I would say no. That has not affected the way library staff and the managers view things. On the contrary, I would say that it has motivated them, because these services are complementary. I did explain, for example, that with respect to the Public Information Office, economies of scale could be achieved by offering the service at the Library.

Since the library is there to serve Parliament, we are always prepared to serve, regardless of the type of service we are asked to provide. I must say that these services that were transferred in 1996 have been quite positive for the library team.

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What has been a little bit more awkward is the fact that we were facing budget restrictions and that, despite the transfer, our budget remained the same. But we quickly saw that the situation would not go on forever. We hope that in the future we will not have to repeat the budget-cutting exercise we carried out over the past three years.

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Thank you.

Senator Bolduc, if you have any questions...

[Translation]

Senator Roch Bolduc: Mr. Paré, I see that you want to save money by cutting the budget for the economics collection by 4% or $50,000. I admit that I am a rather thrifty guy. I have been around governments for a long time; I worked at Treasury Board, etc. It worries me somewhat to see that you are reducing the budget for the economics collection when economic analysis is the best tool for policy design and analysis.

I could understand if you were cutting the budget for some magazines that are more or less popular and that everyone can buy. There are a lot of people who subscribe to relatively popular magazines, but I have trouble understanding cuts to the budget for the economics collection. I read it in your Outlook on Program Priorities and Expenditures.

Mr. Richard Paré: When we decided the budget would have to be cut by 8% over three years, we obviously tried to see whether we could reorganize the items, and that is when we decided to make cuts. We also wanted to ensure that the cuts would have as little effect as possible on services to senators and ministers of Parliament.

I am not sure we were 100% successful. Instead of having a four or five-star service, we may now have a three or four-star service. But we did our best to not eliminate anything.

To answer your question on books more specifically, we had asked our Director of Collections to cut his global budget for books, periodicals, newspapers, microforms, and microfiches, etc., by 4% in 1996-97 and 4% in 1997-98. The budget for this service is, I believe, about 1.2 million dollars.

We thought that we could be more selective. That was the objective that had been set. There were also some documents and collections to which we had access in electronic form. For the number of times we had to use them, it was perhaps more economical to do so in electronic form, on the Internet.

As a result, they were able to meet their objective. It was more difficult than anticipated, because you must always take into account the fact that costs for books and periodicals go up about 10% each year. By combining the budgets for electronic documentation and printed documentation, they were able to balance everything and meet their objective.

I do not intend to impose new cuts this year.

Senator Roch Bolduc: I wanted to pointed that out, because I spent my life analyzing documents and writing documents for governments. That was my job.

I can assure you that if there is one area that should not be touched it is documents concerning economic analysis, economic theory or economic policy analysis. I understand that it is published everywhere, that all universities produce that, that it is available everywhere, etc. I understand that. Sometimes there is redundancy, because there are a lot of publishing houses, namely in United States. All Prentice-Hall has to do is decide to publish something and the next day Simon & Schuster and the others publish something similar. I understand that.

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But we must bear in mind that this is a library for Parliament. We, as parliamentarians, are fundamentally involved in policy analysis. We determine whether such and such a policy makes sense or not. We do that for the most part using economic analysis of the issues, whether it be in the field of transport, the environment, natural resources, foreign policy or another area.

Mr. Richard Paré: If I may, I will interrupt you for a moment, I think that there is a period missing. It should read: "Collections Budget. Savings of $50,000."

Senator Roch Bolduc: I'm sorry.

Mr. Richard Paré: The $50,000 amount applies to the entire collection. I apologize for that.

Senator Roch Bolduc: I see.

Mr. Richard Paré: There should have been a period there. It is a mistake.

Senator Roch Bolduc: I went too far. I did not know, because I was looking at the French version. So that's fine. Thank you.

Senator Normand Grimard (Québec, PC): Mr. Paré, on page 10 of the Main Estimates and Expenditure Plan, it says:

The Library provides information, documentation, research and analysis services to 104 Senators and 295 Members of the House of Commons (301 after the next election) and their staff and to other authorized clients.

Even if I have an idea as to who these authorized clients are, I would like you to clarify who authorizes you to serve these clients. How many do you have? Who are they? Not individually, but by group? What percentage does that represent in terms of the information, documentation, research and analysis in comparison with the 104 Senators and 301 Members of Parliament?

Mr. Richard Paré: First of all, I will have to divide my answer into two parts. The first group of authorized clients are journalists from the Press Gallery, who do not have access to research services but who have access to the library. I think there are roughly 300 members of the Press Gallery. At any rate, there are more than 200 members. It is a group of journalists who have access to the collection and to the library's information and reference service.

As for the others who have access to the library services, they include namely university researchers who, for one reason or another, do not have good access to specialized documentation where they are, especially in the parliamentary field, when you go back into the past. We allow them—usually they send us a letter—to come and do research at the library. They are mainly professors or students at the masters or doctorate level. We do not extend this privilege to undergraduate students; we send them to their universities instead. However, for special research, when it is well explained, we do allow it. That group represents perhaps 1 or 2% of our clients. It is not a large group.

Senator Normand Grimard: That answers my question, thank you.

Senator Eymard Corbin: You forgot parliamentary staff.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, it is indicated here.

[English]

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Mr. Karygiannis.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I've looked at the figures and I'm a little bit concerned. We have almost $13 million in salaries and wages, and then there is a little bit over $2 million in books, capital, and other expenses. There is $2.7 million... That was explained, but I'd like to go over the salaries and wages, which are $12.9 million.

What breakdown can you give us for the $7 million, the $4 million, and especially the $1.02 million, executive office and administration personnel? Would you be able to give us numbers of people who are actually working and the duties?

Mr. Richard Paré: For the $12 million I can give you a breakdown. We have about $6 million for the research branch. All these people are economists and lawyers. They're all professionals. According to a study we had a few years ago, the average salary in the library is $47,000, if I take the whole library. For the library services you will have maybe $5 million, and then the rest is $1 million. This year it will be under $1 million for the administration and the executive.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: How many people would that include in the administration and the executive?

Mr. Richard Paré: We are about 15.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: It's roughly $70,000 or $80,000 per person?

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Mr. Richard Paré: No, it's under $70,000. As I said, the library is $47,000. I don't have the breakdown by group, but I think we are $70,000.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I thank you for your answer.

Another question I have is you said the boutique is losing $17,000, but you say it's netting $217,000. In business it's black and white. You make money or you lose money. Is that boutique making money or losing money?

Mr. Richard Paré: I would say at the end of the year we make a bit of money, but at this time of the year—the year is not over yet—because we have this $200,000, we have to calculate it as something we don't have.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I visited the boutique. The prices are not on the low side. They are rather on the high side compared with what you will get off the Hill. For anybody who is doing business, and everybody who has some background in business, once you see those prices and once you see you have a staff of one or maybe two, I find it a bit hard to comprehend and understand how you would be losing money. Is it rent free?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: You have two staff, roughly.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, but we have to pay for the staff.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Oh, I agree with you.

The sales should be...it's a monopoly, because there's nobody else in the House, and people who visit are drawn there because they want to go away having bought something from the House of Commons. In all, if one wished to think about it, it's a win-win situation that would make money.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, although there are the competitors, all the boutiques around. The National Capital Region has a boutique just across the street. For visitors coming to the Hill, we have competitors around.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: What were the sales of the boutique last year? What were the gross sales?

Mr. Richard Paré: There's a difference of $50,000. I don't have the figure right here. The gross was $591,000.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: What was the cost of the items sold? Your mark-up must be more than 50%.

Mr. Richard Paré: Not more than that.

I forgot, Mr. Chairman, to introduce Madam Boutin, who is the director of finance for the library.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Are you trying to tell me you're making $250,000 at the end of the day?

Mr. Richard Paré: At the end of the year.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: At the end of the year, $250,000.

You have what, two staff, roughly?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: That's $47,000, $60,000, rent free.

Mr. Richard Paré: During the summer we also use another room, a larger room, because we have more visitors in the summer.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: That's rent free, again.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: When you expand, that means you have more sales.

Mr. Richard Paré: We are not in competition with other boutiques.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: You have an exclusive monopoly.

Mr. Richard Paré: We try to develop products for Parliament.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I've bought some of those products and they are exorbitantly high. At the end of the day, when you have $590,000 at 50% mark-up, that means you're making around $250,000, $270,000, minus $120,000 for two staff. That leaves you with about $150,000.

Your mathematics don't add up. Am I missing something here?

Mr. Richard Paré: There have been some projects to improve the boutique, for instance. We incurred expenses this year.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Was it a $100,000 expense?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, roughly. We have encountered expenses because we have to redesign the boutique when we move from one room to the other one.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Expenses of $130,000?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes. There were plans and there were all the fixtures—

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: I repeat the question: $130,000 worth of display?

Mr. Richard Paré: That includes also the increase in the inventory for the summer. We have to increase inventory during the summer because of huge numbers—

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: Which you sell.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes. We increase the inventory because we don't want to be short of products.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: So how much inventory do we have in the boutique right now?

Mr. Richard Paré: We have $120,000.

Mr. Jim Karygiannis: So there's where the money is. That is possible sales for next year.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, or during the end of the year, because we calculate it at the end of the year.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Mr. Finlay.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

• 1630

We talked about space. The senator asked about space and whether we had enough. Is the library getting any space in this new service area that's presently under construction west of the Centre Block? I was told that was for services and so on. Are you getting any of that space?

Mr. Richard Paré: West of the Centre Block, as far as I know, we have a library branch in the Confederation Building. As far as the West Block, you mean?

Mr. John Finlay: No. I mean where they're pouring cement and they've dug a great big hole beside the Centre Block.

Mr. Richard Paré: Oh, no. We don't have space there. I know there is a space for storage, but I don't know if it will be shared with the library. I think it will be mostly for the use of the House of Commons.

Mr. John Finlay: Mr. Chairman, this summary of unit costs, which I see you've done because the Auditor General suggested it—and you're going to continue that—makes for some interesting reading.

On page 2, under “Information and Technical Services Branch”, it reads, “Indexing of Senate Committees, Pages Indexed”. There were 7,626 pages.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

Mr. John Finlay: And the unit cost was $51.87.

What does that mean? Does it mean that someone reads that page and then puts it into the index?

Mr. Richard Paré: All the key words are taken out and put in the...this is indexing documents. The cost of $51.87 includes all the overhead. So in the section on indexing, the overhead of the division and even the executive and administration costs are included.

There is one comment we had on our study, which in fact was initiated under the representation made by the members of the committee from the Reform Party in 1995. In the model we use, we use the exact costs, not the average. All the overheads are at the exact cost. Apparently it has been suggested that we should have an average cost rather than using all the across-the-board costs. So maybe some figures look a bit higher, but this is really a model that was used in the public service several years ago and it was the model that we used in government.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you, Mr. Paré.

Under the next box, “Research Branch”, it shows requests from individual parliamentarians, committee assignments, preparing background papers, publications, programs, and so on. These things are all very useful to us, but it says that the unit cost was $399 per diem. I take that to be the unit cost of the researcher.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, the research officers.

Mr. John Finlay: If you worked a 50-week year, that amounts to $100,000 a year, does it not? Is that just salary?

Mr. Richard Paré: No. As I mentioned, all the overhead costs are included in that analysis. The $399 includes all the overhead costs of the director of the research branch, the administration—

Mr. John Finlay: Oh, all right.

Mr. Richard Paré: If you compare that with what we usually have on the market for specialists, for contractors, we believe that at $400 a day we are below the market price. We have a good deal.

Mr. John Finlay: So the column before that, which mentions 23.8 full-time equivalents, doesn't really have a great deal of significance because in that cost is overhead and so on.

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes, but it was the way to calculate that portion of preparing research papers and doing some briefings and background papers. It was the way we divided the study as to the work they do every day.

Mr. John Finlay: Thank you.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Senator Corbin.

Senator Eymard Corbin: I have some quick questions. Are all your items sold in the boutique made in Canada?

Mr. Richard Paré: Yes.

• 1635

Senator Eymard Corbin: What security measures do you have to make sure that part of your collection is not stolen, that books are in fact returned? Do you think it is ever possible to control some forms of vandalism, like cutting pages out with razor blades—I found that once—or people tearing whole pages out of books? What is your security control system in that respect?

Mr. Richard Paré: It may happen. For the security of the library we benefit from the services of the House of Commons. They ensure the security of the buildings and inside the library. For the security of the collections, we don't check every document on the shelves. On its return we may look into it, but I'm not sure that we go page by page to verify all the pages.

Senator Eymard Corbin: It's not a big problem?

Mr. Richard Paré: No, it's not a major problem.

We did an inventory this summer, because we have to prepare for the move when we will move out for four years.

Senator Eymard Corbin: Where are you moving to? You didn't tell us.

Mr. Richard Paré: This is still in negotiations with Public Works. We are waiting for their final decision. There was a proposal before, but it has been changed in the plan. We will be close to the Hill, so we will be able to maintain the same services. That is the objective.

Coming back to one part of your question, which is about people returning books, we don't have too much difficulty with that; people return their books.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Senator Bolduc.

Senator Roch Bolduc: We receive the research bulletins and the articles. Both are very useful, because you have on one side the newspapers and magazines and on the other side the research that you develop. The last one is a selection of... I don't remember what it is, but—

Senator Eymard Corbin: New arrivals.

Senator Roch Bolduc: No.

Mr. Richard Paré: Usually you will receive the list of the publications of the research branch three or four times a year.

Senator Roch Bolduc: Yes. There is no problem with that.

Mr. Richard Paré: You will receive one within a week or two.

Senator Roch Bolduc: There is another one that we receive, an indexing of—

Mr. Richard Paré: Articles?

Senator Roch Bolduc: No. This one is very useful too.

Mr. Richard Paré: Was it the issue—

Senator Roch Bolduc: No. It's a regular thing like the research bulletin and—

Mr. Richard Paré: Quorum, every day?

Senator Roch Bolduc: No. It's a large one.

Mr. Richard Paré: Was it a large one? It was part of the legislative summary, I think. These legislative summaries are available online on Intranet. These articles that you receive once a week during the session are now available on Intranet. So you can have access directly, or the print copy, or the document on electronic...

Senator Eymard Corbin: Mr. Chairman, I hope we can respect each other around this table. We all have our job to do. Stop the snide remarks and the understatements. We're human, you know. We try to do an honest job. We have families. We have obligations like everybody else.

None of that stuff. Let the press do that.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Thank you.

Any other questions?

Miss Deborah Gray: Will we be closing down soon?

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Yes.

Miss Deborah Grey: I would just like to say that I found out at 1.25 p.m. today that I was to give a Standing Order 31 on Robert Thompson, who died on the weekend. There was some information that I wanted to get about him. I telephoned the Library of Parliament in a panic, and in twelve minutes they had that in my office, on my desk. I just want to say how impressed my staff and I were, and we want to say thanks.

Mr. Richard Paré: Thank you.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): Does anybody else have any questions? No?

Thank you, Mr. Paré, for coming before us and answering our questions.

PARLIAMENT

Library of Parliament

Vote 10—Program expenditures—$15,494,000

Vote 10a—Program expenditures—$2,681,500

(Votes 10 and 10a agreed to)

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi): The meeting is adjourned.