November 28, 2007 HOUSE of ASSEMBLY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION No
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November 28, 2007 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION No. 2 The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the MS MICHAEL: Lorraine Michael, House of Assembly. Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi and representing the NDP caucus. MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please! MR. SPEAKER: Sitting at the table, we have - First of all, good morning, and I would like to welcome the Commission to our first CLERK (Mr. MacKenzie): I am Bill meeting of the 46th General Assembly of MacKenzie. I am the Clerk of the House of Newfoundland and Labrador. the House of Assembly and a member of the Commission in a non-voting capacity. To start the Commission meeting, I will begin by asking each member to identify MS KEEFE: My name is Marie Keefe. I themselves. Some members are here as am the Policy and Communications Officer statute members and I would ask them that for the House of Assembly. they recognize the position that they hold as well. MR. SPEAKER: My name is Roger Fitzgerald and by being the Speaker of the I will start off with the Deputy Speaker to House of Assembly it automatically makes my extreme left. me the Chair of this Commission meeting as well. MR. BYRNE: Yes, Jack Byrne, the Member for Cape St. Francis and Deputy I would also like to acknowledge the fact Speaker. that the Deputy Speaker is a member of the Commission and can take part in debate and MR. RIDEOUT: Tom Rideout, MHA for offer comments and support, but does not Baie Verte-Springdale, and I am here as have a voting right when it comes to any Government House Leader. votes that take place here at the Commission. MR. T. MARSHALL: Tom Marshall, I am the MHA for Humber East. I am here in my We will start the meeting this morning. We capacity as the Minister of Finance and do have a very ambitious agenda. We have President of Treasury Board and the set the timeframes from 9:00 a.m. - we are a Minister Responsible for the Public Service little late starting - until 1:00 p.m. If there is Secretariat. a need to continue before or after 1:00 p.m., and if members want the meeting to MS E. MARSHALL: My name is Beth continue, then we can make arrangements Marshall, I am the Member for Topsail with the Broadcast Centre and if nobody district and I am the government caucus have booked any extra time, then we can representative. certainly take the agenda further into the afternoon, if it fits with members schedules. MS JONES: My name is Yvonne Jones. I am the MHA for the District of Cartwright- We plan on having a break at approximately L’Anse au Clair and the Leader of the 10:30 a.m. There is also an in camera Official Opposition. session to deal with a budgetary item that will take place sometime before this meeting MR. PARSONS: Kelvin Parsons, the adjourns. That needs to be done at a time Member for Burgeo & LaPoile and here as specific. That is the only housekeeping Opposition House Leader. thing and the only directions that are going to be forthcoming from me right from the very beginning. We will start the meeting 1 November 28, 2007 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION No. 2 by the approval of the minutes for the This went forward and was approved at the previous meeting. meeting, pretty much as presented. There was a change on telephone matters, which Members will note that the previous we will be looking at later on under rules meeting, the minutes are given more or less again, but it was essentially as staff in bullet style. In decisions that were made, presented it. we felt that it was not necessary to say who said what or when they said it because with MR. T. MARSHALL: Okay. I just wonder the structure of the Commission meetings if - for those of us that are cabinet ministers now being held here in House of Assembly, or have positions other than positions just as everything that we said is recorded and also MHAs, what about if there is duplication or taped, and if members want a recording of overlap here in terms of the department, or who said what or if the general public would the House of Assembly might provide - and want a copy of that, then it is readily you do not want an MHA to be entitled to available through Hansard. I would hope four blackberries, for example. that that meets with Commission members approvals, that the minutes would be CLERK: No, that is right. structured and put forward in that way. MR. T. MARSHALL: So how do we The hon. the Minister of Finance and ensure that we do not have this duplication. President of Treasury Board. CLERK: I think, for instance, on MR. T. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. telephones, blackberries, cellphones, those Chairman. sorts of things, if you put in a request with us – you should probably check with your The only thing I would raise, Agenda Item department, I am not sure, Minister - 9, it is called: Clarification of Rules - through the Corporate Service Division, we Standard Office Allocation. This list of try to ensure just getting one for you and one office furniture and office equipment that for your assistant, as it were. each MHA is entitled to, is that - this was a suggestion of the staff, is that where this list There are some issues with telephones and came from? This does not come from there is not a consistent approach yet. Some Green’s Report action. ministers have it through departments, and in that case we do not see those bills and so MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Clerk. on. We are looking at it now. What we may come to suggest – I am not putting this CLERK: The Minister of Finance is forward now – is that the House assume the referring to, in the minutes, the minute cost of all forty-eight MHAs cellphones and number 2007-005, Agenda Item 9: blackberries, even if there is departmental Clarification of Rules - Standard Office work done on them. At least there is a Allocation. consistent approach to the billing. We will receive the forty-eight bills and so on. That was a collection of furniture, Whichever way you work it, if the equipment and services that staff put department is paying for that phone, none together and brought to the August 29 the less there is still constituency work being meeting of the Commission. The rules said done with that phone. So whichever way that a standard package would be compiled, you slice it, someone is helping to pay the but it was staff who put it together. Green cost a little bit, either the department or the did not get into the specifics at all. So, that House. Sometime this winter we may try to was very much staff. bring a more coordinated approach forward for Commission approval. 2 November 28, 2007 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION No. 2 Report, suggested that in order for a quorum MR. T. MARSHALL: I also referred to to be present and a meeting to proceed, there things like photocopiers and facsimiles. had to be half of the Commission and at Well, a minister would have that through a least one member from the Official department. Opposition Party with no reference to one member from the government party and I CLERK: Yes. think at that time that there was an agreement reached that we would make an MR. T. MARSHALL: If the minister amendment to that particular statement and would receive this as well for the House of say a quorum of the meeting should be at Assembly, you would have a duplication least one member from government and at that is not needed. least one member from Opposition. CLERK: No, that is right. We would Any comments? certainly not want to duplicate. I guess it was structured on a sense of starting a It is being brought back – it was suggested constituency office from scratch, but if you at the last meeting and now brought back to have a sort of ministerial office outside the this meeting – for acknowledgement and capital region – as I understand you do – approval. then, yes, there was a potential for overlap there with your existing equipment. Any comments? For the sake of moving this along, I move CLERK : If I might make just one the adoption of the minutes. comment, Mr. Speaker, please? MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved by MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Clerk. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board and by the Leader of the CLERK: If you remember the discussion New Democratic Party that the minutes be last time, we said we would change the part adopted. of the policy manual to cover it but there was also the request: well, we should amend All those in favour, ‘aye’. the act, and this puts the proposed wording forward to capture this when the act is SOME HON MEMBERS: Aye. amended, but you will notice in the briefing note that I also mentioned there may be a MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'. number of other small amendments that will ultimately have to be done in the act. There The minutes are adopted. are errors and omissions and so no, not substantive matters, so I suppose when the On motion, minutes adopted. House next opens we can compile these into one bill.