[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, June 6, 1995
.1532 
[English]
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): [Inaudible - Editor]...encouraging the uses of the services and personnel of the research branch of the Library of Parliament in all committee work funded in any way by the House of Commons.
The Speaker has written back indicating that he agrees fully with this policy and reminding us of the existence of a financial policy manual for committees of the House of Commons, which makes this a prerequisite to the contracting process in paragraph 258. It is then necessary to determine if these requirements - that is to say research - can be met by resources available at no cost from within the committee's directorate, the research branch of the Library of Parliament, or other government departments.
This rule has been observed in the breach more than in actuality in recent times, but Mr. Speaker correctly draws it to the attention of members of the committee and members of Parliament, and he has assured me personally of his full cooperation.
I think this is a recognition by the Speaker of his respect for the sentiments expressed very strongly by this committee. We value the research branch of the Library of Parliament and see absolutely no reason to contract for outside research assistance until the research branch has been approached and asked if it is able to do the work. I'm happy to report that back to members of the committee.
Are there any comments or additions to that before we proceed to our agenda?
If not, we will proceed. The order of the day is a review of the effectiveness of the management and operations of the Library of Parliament.
We have witnesses from the Social Science Employees Association.
[Translation]
Mr. Krause is the President of the Social Science Employees Association. His presentation has not been translated. I will now ask Mr. Krause to introduce his associates before making his presentation.
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[English]
Mr. Krause, perhaps you would be so kind as to introduce your colleagues to us. Introduce your colleagues by name so their names will be noted, and then I'll ask you to present. You can refer back, from time to time, to your colleagues if you wish.
Mr. Bill Krause (President, Social Science Employees Association): Thank you very much.
Mr. McWhinney and Senator Riel, first let me tell you it's both an honour and a pleasure to be here today before this committee. I want to start by thanking the Standing Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Library of Parliament for providing this opportunity. We are very appreciative.
I'm Bill Krause, president of the Social Science Employees Association. It's my pleasure to introduce to you my colleagues from the Library of Parliament. I have with me Patricia Bégin; Jane Allain; Jack Stillborn; and Claude Danik, a labour relations officer with our association, who serves the Library of Parliament membership.
Our association, as part of its representation of more than 5,000 professional and technical employees in the government, represents some 70 research officers at the Library of Parliament. These research officers are a significant intellectual asset of Parliament. With professional degrees, generally masters degrees, and in some cases a Ph.D.s, they work in four principal areas: law and government; political and social affairs; science and technology; and economics.
Over time they have developed expertise on various issues of importance to parliamentarians. As individual parliamentarians and as a committee, you are probably more directly familiar than I with the services provided by these individuals. They provide, on a non-partisan basis, timely, accurate, objective, and confidential research, analysis, and advice to members of Parliament, parliamentary committees, and other parliamentary clientele. As such, they are responsible for retaining the corporate memory of the work done by committees. Your own experience should tell you that they are very proud of the roles they play and are dedicated to serving you. They respect the deadlines set by their parliamentary clients, even on short notice, and they always provide responses to requests in both official languages.
As the mandate of this committee touches very directly on the effectiveness, management, and operation of the library, we hope the concerns of these research officers will add a significant perspective to the work of the committee.
We further believe that library management, despite spending restraint, is making significant efforts to meet the needs of its parliamentary clientele. These are extremely difficult times to manage. From our vantage point, we see five areas of primary concern that are quite interrelated: first, the addition of new functional requirements we call association work; second, increases in the volume and complexity of work; third, the issue of the maintenance of skills; fourth, the need to improve second language skills; and fifth, morale.
On the issue of association work, research officers have taken on a relatively new advisory function. As part of this, they now accompany associations and provide on-the-spot assistance. Consequently, in addition to the traditional role of preparing briefing papers, they require specialized knowledge of whatever issue is under discussion. This task has the same profile as committee work. This service has evolved over time with no addition of resources. These demands can therefore be met only by trading off overtime, the type of services provided, or the quality of work.
On the issue of the volume and complexity of work, there have been increases in the number of committees, as well as projects, served by each research officer. More important, research officers have seen their work steadily evolve in complexity. Their advisory work and report writing now involve considerable discretionary responsibility, a high level of judgment, and substantive knowledge of broad policy fields and current developments. Here again, this demand is not offset by an increase in resources.
On the maintenance of skills issue, the expansion of working complexity, together with the lack of additional resources, has changed the character of research work. This has now become a continuous series of deadline-driven exercises, affording little time to maintain the broader knowledge and disciplines essential to supporting the advisory function.
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We believe that, over time, this will affect the work undertaken on the part of all parliamentarians. Steps must be taken, such as work sabbaticals, professional seminars, and training assignments, to keep staff sufficiently informed on the latest work in the chosen areas of expertise.
On the issue of second language skills, it is our impression that a significant percentage of research officers have some difficulty in communicating in the official language that is not their mother tongue. This is very unacceptable in providing quality service. We believe management shares this concern, and we are willing to cooperate towards correcting this deficiency in the services provided by the library. While hiring policies may address a situation in the long run, the needs of current staff must be addressed.
Finally, we come to the issue of morale. We are all acutely aware of the serious morale problems facing government employees. Although it may be fashionable to speak of doing more with less, we must eventually face the reality that this may no longer be possible in the research work performed by the library. Resource constraints, coupled with more complex issues and greater expectations on the part of clientele, can only lead to morale problems. Our association has begun to see anecdotal evidence of increases in absenteeism and stress-related leave and declining productivity throughout the public service, and the library is not immune to such problems.
We must acknowledge the fact that morale at the Library of Parliament is a problem that has been identified since 1991, when the Auditor General conducted an audit of the Library of Parliament and library management. Although there was much publicity regarding the approval ratings from senators and MPs, there was no publicity regarding a number of focus interviews with staff dealing with internal issues. Although the report provided to library management was never made available to the library staff, the joint committee, or parliamentary clientele, the focus group participants believe it did identify morale issues within the research branch.
We believe it is highly likely that morale has further slipped since then, exacerbated by the issues we have raised. We would encourage the joint committee to obtain the focus group report and explore in a cooperative manner with library management and employees to see how we can systematically work together to address and resolve these problems.
These conclude my remarks, and my colleagues and I would be very happy to entertain any questions that you have. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Mrs. Debien, please.
Mrs. Debien (Laval East): I would like to make a preliminary comment. The document that we have here is in English only. I would have appreciated a translation before the meeting.
This is my question. You identified a number of areas of concern. You mentioned observations and evidence on the subject. You encouraged us to read a report referring to the same problems. Since you have raised those problems, I would like you to tell us what suggestions you can make to the Parliamentary Library committee in order to allay these concerns.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Mrs. Debien, we have duly noted the fact that there is only an English version, but I believe that Mr. Krause intends to have it translated.
Mrs. Debien: This is the first time that we do not get a translation before a meeting.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): You are quite right to raise the point.
Mrs. Debien: I made a point of it because it is the first time that it has happened.
[English]
Mr. Krause: I'm going to refer, whenever I can, questions to my colleagues of the Library of Parliament, as they are the individuals who day by day work in that environment and are most familiar with it.
Mr. Jack Stillborn (Senior Research Officer, Library of Parliament): Well, I'd like to make a few comments to start with, and then my colleagues can supplement. In this case, I think the most important thing I can say is that we recognize there is a range of what are essentially labour-management issues in our organization, as there is in any organization, that are primarily the responsibility of labour and management working together to solve.
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It's not our purpose today to try to suggest that a parliamentary committee ought to or should intervene in those issues, but our purpose today is to suggest that many of these issues have direct implications for you and for the quality of services you receive. What we're really inviting is your intervention, primarily on the grounds of your own interest, to ensure that the services you get are of maximum quality and scope and suit your needs as adequately as possible.
What can you do? There are probably two parts to the answer. The first part is something you've already done: namely, after this committee lay in dormancy for a number of decades following the last election, it was reconstituted, and that sent to people in the library an extremely positive message - namely, that parliamentarians recognize the importance of the services provided by the library and are willing to take time from very busy schedules and invest some in the library. From the employees' point of view and from the morale point of view, that in itself has already accomplished some very positive things, and I hope you take some satisfaction in that.
The second part of the answer is that there are aspects of the library - again starting with the focus on services to you and to other members - that you might find useful to study in more depth than is possible in a general conversation such as this one, just to assure yourselves that services are meeting your needs as fully as possible and are being provided in as efficient a way as possible.
Some of the concerns Bill has raised, while they, from the internal point of view, have the status of labour-management concerns such as morale, are also, I would have thought, of interest to you, because they impact directly on the kinds and quality of services offered.
French language capacity is another example of something that directly relates to the services to you. If you wish to pursue something like that, you might profitably begin by inquiring into second language training policies and practices within the library, what progress has been made in recent years with respect to transforming unilingual people into people capable of providing bilingual service, and perhaps future objectives and timeframes by way of ensuring that sufficient services and bilingualism are attained. That's just an example of a line of inquiry that might be launched into something like that. My colleagues may have other suggestions.
Actually, I have one more that I'd like to throw on the table before I throw the ball away, and that is, as you may be aware - following the planning document, which I believe management presented to you in the fall of last year - the library is now engaged in a program review analogous to that which is occurring in government departments. So we're propelled by the same kinds of fundamental questions that are being applied in the public service, beginning with questions such as should we be doing this and do our clients want it. Well, you are the clients, and I would have thought you have a fairly direct interest in ensuring your views are reflected in this review from its starting point. So that would be another issue that might be taken up.
Senator Doyle (North York): Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure this is the right place to ask the specific questions I have in mind. You raised the subject of languages and bilingual services. I'd like to have some information that goes a bit further - that is, what language resources are available to us in the library itself and in the membership of your association.
There are problems in other Canadian legislatures involving other languages - Tuktoyaktuk, for one, in the north.
There are resources available to us, particularly now that we're dealing with the information highway where there is a rapid need, perhaps, of a translation from Spanish, Polish, or Ukrainian.Is there a catalogue of people who have languages other than English or French who might be made available either on a casual basis or in a formal way? Could you expand in that area?
.1550
Mr. Krause: I think that kind of question, dealing with a variety of language issues, is probably best addressed by the management of the Library of Parliament. It's certainly difficult to answer that question, because I don't have knowledge of which way the information highway - the Internet type of accessibility - is proceeding at the library. Maybe my colleagues would have some insight on that.
[Translation]
Ms Jane Allain (Parliamentary Library): Currently, we have no access to Internet.
[English]
We currently can't access Internet as research officers at the library. It's going to be implemented shortly, but we don't have it currently.
We don't have exact figures either on the exact number of research officers who are bilingual and unilingual, so we cannot really respond to that by giving you precise numbers.
Senator Doyle: Perhaps we can avoid getting into Internet or any of the formal uses. If I got a letter this morning from a constituent who writes to me in Polish, and it looks like it's an urgent letter, where do I go to get it translated? Is there any way I can call up my friendly contacts here in the library and be referred to the right party? Is there a list, even, of the capacities of our staff? We have a pretty wonderful staff. They're always surprising me - not just in the library, but throughout the two Houses. But it's sometimes difficult to find those resources.
Mr. Krause: In response to that question, it's my understanding that you can generally get services dealing with a variety of other languages through the Secretary of State. As I understood, it did provide translation services in virtually all of the languages. I believe they may be provided somehow through the translation bureau we currently have as well. So there are services, I believe, elsewhere in government for dealing with other languages.
Senator Doyle: You've answered my problem. You've told me where to go.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Do you have a repertory, perhaps, of the language skills? I know you have a very talented division. Is there, by any chance, a repertory of the language skills? As a sometime researcher myself, I have a list of languages I can work in, and I suspect there are many languages present in various degrees of skill among your staff.
Mr. Krause: Again, I really wouldn't know what the inventory of language skills is, and that's a very good question. Perhaps we should ask the management of the library whether it could provide a document highlighting the language skills of its research officers.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): To augment the case for maintaining, or even increasing, library resources - it's a good case with a brilliant research library, such as you have - I'd put these skills on record, since you undoubtedly have them.
Senator Doyle: Before I came to this place, I worked for a private company that had fewer than 1,000 employees, and they found they had remarkable skills in 46 languages when we set about cataloguing them. It was of great use to us.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): I read seven languages myself, so I suspect there are many in the library who can do better. But it would be interesting to have it, and we obviously we couldn't demand that library research staff make translations now without perhaps making the case for supplemental assistance, financial or otherwise. But it would nice to have a record.
Senator Doyle, had you completed your questions?
Senator Doyle: I just have a further comment that it's not always only to get translations.
You sometimes find yourself in a business like this with an emergency where health is concerned, and to know where you can turn is quite valuable.
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Mrs. Jennings (Mission - Coquitlam): First, I must tell the co-chair that I must leave before 4 p.m. today as I have another commitment.
To the library researchers, I recognize and respect the work done by all of our researchers in the library. Indeed, I am very pleased to say that with appreciation I have used them and am continuing to use them. However, I am very concerned today that we as the members of the library committee have not been presented with a presentation by the witnesses for us to peruse, or a brief from research for these witnesses, or any background material to enable us to prepare for today's meeting.
I believe this is not a good way to treat the library committee. I believe all of our time is very valuable. I think if we are going to make the best use of our time, if we're going to ask meaningful questions, or if we're going to be very productive, we should have the proper research information presented to us ahead of time. I did inquire yesterday as to whether there was anything at all.
I do have one question that I have just decided I will ask you, because I have been askingMr. Paré and others before and I thought you might try to answer this for me. I have yet to receive an answer.
Is it reasonable for me to ask you, as researchers, to give us, as parliamentarians, some idea of exactly what our costs might be? For instance, if we're asking for basic research, is it possible for you to say at the end of something you are returning to us that this cost approximately so much for the time, so much for this particular question or this inquiry? Is that a reasonable question? Is that something we could expect, or would it incur a great deal more cost on behalf of the library and not be worth looking into?
Mr. Krause: My own experience - and I could divorce that from the Library of Parliament experience, since I have done economic research and I have worked in a research environment myself and I have worked on a cost-recovery basis at times - is that I generally believe that given any work of substance one can always make an estimate of the amount of time one is going to spend. One does know one's per diems. And one knows there are some basic overhead expenses of administration that can be taken into account. So my own belief is that it is possible, when given a piece of work, to give an estimate of what it's going to cost. It may vary in what is actually provided, but I really think if companies can compete and give estimates on bids for work, then the Library of Parliament has the ability to do that as well. And the talent pool to do it as well.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you. I believe parliamentarians should be aware of the costs they are incurring, if we're going to be responsible for the taxpayers' dollars.
Thank you very much.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): We have called this meeting because we wanted a meeting before the parliamentary recess. We are very grateful for the witnesses who are testifying orally, but for more detailed questions, particularly if you have more detailed questions such as the preceding one, if you could give written notice we can invite the witnesses back when Parliament resumes.
I think some of these issues would require some research on their part. But we would be happy to do that.
I intend, as soon as we've gone through this round, to ask if there is any further business we would like researched over the summer, perhaps for further emphasis.
Senator Riel, my co-chairman, and then Mr. Maloney.
[Translation]
The Joint Chairman (Senator Riel): I would like to mention to the Association that it is not very satisfying to be given a document that has not been translated into French. You told us about this large association of 5,000 professionals, and about the 70 researchers working at the Library of Parliament. I would think that you would find someone who is able to write a French presentation or to translate the English version into French. You've known for a long time that we would be here this afternoon to meet you.
[English]
There's a need to improve second language skills.
[Translation]
I think we will have to pay once more in order to have a French document.
Your presentation seems offhand to me. I think Mrs. Debien and the other lady who spoke have every right to complain. As for me, this is unacceptable. This has been going on for too long... I had other questions, but I'm not going to ask them, considering the type of answers we get.
.1600
[English]
They always provide responses to requests in both official languages.
[Translation]
This is not what we had this afternoon. I'm deeply disappointed. Mr. Chairman, I will put my questions at the next meeting.
[English]
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Thank you.
Mr. Krause.
Mr. Krause: I'd like to apologize to the committee. When I came here today I did not intend to distribute a statement. I thought I would only read one. However, the statements have been distributed by the clerk.
I finished writing this statement today because I found out about our appearance only last week when I returned from a business trip. I had only a few days and the time over the weekend to prepare this statement. I like to write my own speeches and do my own work.
If the committee would accept my apologies, I will be very happy to send a translation of this document to the committee members, and I will do that tomorrow.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Thank you, Mr. Krause.
Mr. Maloney (Erie): I appreciate the services provided by the Library of Parliament. I think you're thorough, you're prompt, and you certainly have been of great assistance to me.
You've listed five concerns here. I think the answers to these concerns are rather obvious, but they're not so obvious when we look at the declining resources we all have available to us. How are we going to be able to address your concerns within the fiscal restraints we've been saddled with? That's my concern. We have valid concerns, but can we address them?
Mr. Krause: You said the answer is obvious. I think we're going in a specific direction. If we acknowledge we want to have quality work - and I think we all accept we want the highest quality work - and at the same time we acknowledge the fact that we're going to accept resource reductions as part of the natural process of what's happening in government right now, then we will have to be very careful about the issues we set down for research. We'll have to select and prioritize them, and pick the issues that are very, very important and work on those in some order of priority.
I mean, that's the only way I know of handling a situation of wanting to maintain quality yet having a scarcity of resource. I have to restrict the issues that I then research, or the issues we then approach, or set down time lines that respect the resource availability I have. I realize that's maybe not an acceptable solution in the parliamentary context.
Mr. Maloney: How do you set priorities between committees, priorities between different MPs? Is my question more important than Mrs. Debien's, or...?
Mr. Krause: That's a superb question. I'm afraid I don't have the answer for who's going to decide which committees are relatively more important. I really don't know.
Mr. Stillborn: I'd like to make a supplementary comment on that, just to make it slightly more complex to start with.
The issue of priority is, I think, a key issue once we recognize that simply adding more and more resources to any public-sector institution is not on these days. I would have thought, from your point of view as monitors of the Library of Parliament, the business of assuring yourselves that absolute maximum best value for money is being achieved from current resources would be a key issue.
At the present time we have work that essentially comes, in some cases, from members' offices requested on behalf of the member, sometimes directly reflecting a need of the member. On other occasions, anecdotally, we are aware that the member may not be aware of the request. We've even encountered a few incidents over the years when carefully crafted papers are subsequently submitted to the University of Ottawa as term papers. I might note the marks we obtain are frequently good.
Then we have requests coming directly from members themselves. We have committee work, which sometimes is originated by a committee researcher in response to an apprehended need of the committee and, in other cases, responds to a request either from a member of the committee or a chair.
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As was mentioned, we have an emerging growth area of delegation work involving both the traditional task of creating background papers, something we've always done, and also more and more accompanying delegations and serving as an on-the-spot source of advice.
Those all flow in from diverse sources. I think my colleagues will confirm that at the present time there really is no systematic internal prioritization of work or attempt to allocate resources on a best value for money basis. The work arrives, we do it. Sometimes we labour long and hard over a project that may or may not be seen by a member at the expense of, for example, a piece of committee work that comes up very suddenly and for which we have not had an adequate opportunity to prepare.
I simply state it as a problem or, as a question, is this the best we can do? I think it would be very appropriate for you as members to consider whether or not this is the way you want to be served. There may be suggestions you might have about either prioritizing those categories of work, or perhaps investing a bit more time at the front end, determining, narrowing, precisely defining needs, say, for members' projects to avoid the expenditure of time that may not directly meet an actual need. That's just a thought.
Mr. Maloney: I may ask a question that Mrs. Jennings may have asked three months ago, but a different researcher gets the project. Is there anything on computer that you can plug into that can spit out... so you don't have to reinvent the wheel? I'm sure these things must come back on a regular basis from time to time.
Ms Allain: We do have a data bank of all requests, but because they're done on a confidential basis, if a parliamentarian doesn't want that paper to be shared - it's their property - we can't share it. So sometimes the work has to be redone, in a sense; you can't simply release that information.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): You would give priority to committee work, though, would you not?
I'm also a bit troubled by one comment, that you prepare papers for individual members.I would have thought you might supply information but it's not your function to write papers for individual MPs. They should do that for themselves.
Ms Allain: We do both.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): We can supply ground rules. In other words, the committee could very easily, I think, establish an order of the day as to priorities. We could do it very easily. But I would have thought, in your own judgment, supplying a paper to an MP goes beyond the limits of reasonableness in their request to you. I'm not surprised they end up at the University of Ottawa or somewhere else. But that's just a thought. It's for the committee to establish rules.
Mr. Maloney, had you finished? I understood you had.
Mr. Maloney: Yes.
[Translation]
Mrs. Debien: I'd like to come back to the issue of translation and add some precision possibly in favour of the Social Science Employees' Association. In other committees, the rule of thumb - that we may have to determine presently - is that organizations or witnesses appearing in front of the committee don't usually have to present a written document in both official languages. Those organizations or witnesses who table bilingual documents do it when possible but if there are special constraints, it is the responsibility of the clerk of the committee to provide the members with a translation of the document.
I wanted to state that. This is the practice in the other committees and I want to say that in defence of the Association which I don't want to incriminate too severely. We should maybe analyse this issue and adopt a line of conduct.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): This is a good suggestion. We can very well follow the same line of conduct. We should adopt it.
Thank you Mrs. Debien.
[English]
Again, I think we might invite members of the committee to submit suggestions for more details in line with Mrs. Jennings' comment. Any more detailed questions we could submit to our witnesses and perhaps ask them either to come back in the fall and testify or to make written comments.
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One very clear suggestion emerging from Mr. Maloney's questions would be if it would help you to have us establish règles de raison something of that sort, even if they're not une espèce d'ordre juridique but ground rules to govern your use of your time.
I take it that requests from committees have priority and presentation or preparation of reports for committees have priority. But individual MPs, one always assumes there is some self-restraint on the part of individual MPs but, if it is helpful to you, it seems to me it would be a very useful function for this committee to try to establish some priority and suggest where the limits of your time should end.
Mr. Krause: I'd like to add one comment that we might have explored earlier. Setting priorities and being able to look at things on a priority basis would obviously help the work of the research staff. They are a scarce resource. There is another possibility that is, of course, to look at the technology aspect of operating a library. I'm sure if the basic research tools are available on CD-ROM technology through a network accessible to every research staff person, if there were the right kind of internet systems available for people to access data banks anywhere they needed information, we might find there are ways of communicating on the information highway and implementing new technologies with computers that would, hopefully, lead to an increased ability to service the various committees and parliamentarians and maybe we could have the best of both worlds, so to speak. We could set some priorities and at the same time do a much better job and get even more done. But again, it's an area we should explore, the state of technology of the library.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): The line of division I was suggesting related to presentation of source materials. It seems to me that members should then themselves make that extra jump of trying to digest them and prepare their own speeches or their own reports. But with committees, particularly since we're encouraging parliamentary committees to use your facilities, if they ask you to write a report, then that, it seems to me, is a priority and it's legitimate. But for members themselves, and particularly with the new data facilities, it may be that simply supplying the bibliography and supplying the articles or the digest of information, something like Keesing's archives and some of these other things, might be sufficient. If it would help you in planning your own responses to members, the committee perhaps in the fall could make some more concrete suggestions if we haven't reached a consensus.
Mr. Maloney: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether there might be any merit in exploring the idea of establishing a working subcommittee consisting of library management, the association, this committee, and perhaps the Board of Internal Economy, to look at all these problems with a view to working out possible solutions, whether it's limiting the number of times an MP can use the facilities or a dollar basis or something. We have a problem and I'm not sure we're addressing it. I'm not sure anyone on this committee or the library management, on its own, can address the problems. I think it's something that has to be looked at from all sides.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Mr. Krause could present to us in the fall, either in person or in writing, with some estimate of the amount of time or percentage of time given to members' individual requests and then the making of reports for individual members as opposed to committee work. I think that would be a very fruitful suggestion to take up, Mr. Maloney, and I'd be very happy to have our committee take the initiative in proposing it to the other bodies you mentioned.
I think it's probably one of those things on which it would be helpful, without naming names, to have some statistics of the degree of use and the degree of completeness of the use, members who want a report made by the library as distinct from simply wanting bibliography or wanting the undigested source material presented.
Mr. Stillborn: I don't have precise figures with me, but I do recall that they run in the order of 40% to 50% of time normally spent on committee work, with the remainder divided between project work. I think about 10% has been traditionally required by delegations. So those ballpark figures would suggest that projects for individual members currently occupy a very significant portion of the total -
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The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Delegations from parliamentary committees?
Mr. Stillborn: Associations.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Associations. I understand. I know you're making an informed guess at this stage, but if you could give us some confirmation of that, I think it will be the starting point for Mr. Maloney's suggestion.
[Translation]
Senator Riel.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Riel): You ask for more details Mr. Chairman and maybeMr. Maloney asked for some too. We are hearing witnesses from an employees' association.It strikes me that we should direct our request to the Library management and ask for somebody to come and explain to us how the research department works.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): You are perfectly right.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Riel): What is the status of the Association being heard by the committee?
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): It provides information to the executive. You've got a good point: the answer has to come from the executive.
The Joint Chairman (Senator Riel): The Library management.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Yes, the management. You are right.
[English]
Mr. Stillborn: May I respond, please? I have with me some statistics that were developed andI believe previously provided to the committee by management. So this is a cooperative set of statistics you're getting here.
I'll just give them to you to give you the broad picture, which is that in the 1992-93 year, the allocation of staff time in the research branch was 45% to parliamentary committees, 3% to delegations and associations, 37% to projects for individual parliamentarians, and 15% to what we call our publications program that I think we forgot to mention earlier. It consists of publications we initiate and provide on a list to members on a quarterly basis.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Are there any other observations? I know many of us are going back to the House very shortly. If there's a desire to continue, I might ask Senator Riel to take over the présidence. Are there any comments or observations that Mr. Krause or your group would like to make?
Mr. Krause: I have one final one that Senator Doyle mentioned in his questions, the desirability of having our association in a cooperative undertaking with the management of the library to address these issues in a systematic way. At least, that was the sense of what I got from your comments.
I want you to know we would be very delighted to work with the management of the library.We have a great deal of respect for them and share the same common interest of serving the members of Parliament and the Senate, so I think we would be very happy to do that. I'd like you to know that.
The Joint Chairman (Mr. McWhinney): Thank you, Mr. Krause, and thank you to your colleagues for giving up your time. If there are more detailed questions, such as that whichMrs. Jennings envisaged, we will be in touch with you and ask you either to make further comments in writing or meet with us again. We're very grateful to you, and we respect you as skilled researchers in a discipline that requires learning and good judgment. We appreciate your services. Thank you very much.
If there's no further business, I'll declare the meeting adjourned.