Annual report. Alberta. Legislative Assembly Office.

44 Pages·1993·3.8 MB·English

by  Alberta. Legislative Assembly Office

Legislative Assembly Office
1 993 annual report
Alberta
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2014
https://archive.org/details/annualreportalbe00albe_9
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
ALBERTA
OFFICE OF THE CLERK soi legislature annex
9718 - 107 STREET
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA
T5K 1E4
TELEPHONE [phone]
FAX (403) 427-5688
March 1, 1994
To the Honourable the Speaker of the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
I have the honour to submit the sixth annual report of the Legislative Assembly Office, as
required by Standing Order 109, for the calendar year ended December 31, 1993.
Respectfully submitted,
W.J. David McNeil
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly Office
1993 Annual Report
Alberta
Prepared for the Honourable Stanley S. Schumacher
Speaker
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly Office:
In Service to Alberta's Parliament
The origins of the Legislative Assembly providing services to MLAs and the public.
Office of Alberta can be traced to the 14th
The latter include financial administration, pur-
century in England when Parliament elected chasing, personnel administration, office auto-
the first Speaker and appointed the first Clerk. library. mation assistance, public education, and the
Today, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
is the head of the Office and the Clerk is the
The Legislative Assembly Office as a whole
Speaker's deputy. The Legislative Assembly has the same two procedural and administra-
Act of 1983 made the Office's current name tive roles. This is a unique characteristic of the
official. Office and is evident throughout the Office:
The most common misconception about the the normal duties, work hours, and office loca-
Legislative Assembly Office is that it is a tions of m any staff change significantly during
branch of the government and that its staff are sessions of the Assembly.
government employees. However, in the par- The Office's annual budget as well as statu-
liamentary system the government is the ex- tory provisions for financial and personnel
ecutive branch and is responsible for applying administration are under the purview of the
and enforcing laws; the Legislative Assembly is
Special Standing Committee on Members' Ser-
the legislative branch and is responsible for vices. A c ommittee of the Assembly, the Mem-
establishing those laws. The Legislative As- bers' Services Committee also regulates consti-
sembly Office provides various types of sup-
tuency office support and members' pay, al-
port to t he entire Assembly, including MLAs of lowances, benefits, and group insurance plans,
opposition and government parties alike. all of which the Office administers. Tradi-
Although the Office has sometimes been
vicest ionCalolym, tmhei S tpteeea. ker chairs the Members' Ser-
called, informally, the Speaker's department, it
is not a government department and the Each party grouping, or caucus, of elected
Speaker does not belong to the cabinet and members is a branch of the Legislative Assem-
cannot be asked questions during Oral Ques- bly Office. Although technically the Speaker
has authority over the administration of each
tion Period or participate in the Assembly's
debates. The Speaker does have administrative caucus office, for obvious reasons these
authority and responsibility similar to that of branches operate with considerable autonomy.
the ministers of government departments, The two caucus branches are therefore not part
of this report; it includes only branches of the
while the Clerk is the Speaker's chief adminis-
trative deputy and has authority and responsi-
Office under the Speaker's full control. How-
bility similar to that of a deputy minister of a ever, since the caucuses receive financial, ad-
government department. ministrative, and p ersonnel services as well as
The Speaker has two distinct but related other support from other branches of the
roles. In the Assembly the Speaker maintains Office, branches of the Office may refer to
order and ensures that MLAs conduct their these services in their individual reports. In
business according to the Standing Orders of
addition, the Office's consolidated budget esti-
the Assembly. Administratively, the Speaker is mates, which appear at the end of this report,
include the estimates for the caucus branches.
responsible for the Assembly's records and for
I Ta ble of Contents
Overview 1
W.J. David McNeil, Clerk of t he Legislative Assembly
Purpose Statement 3
Functional Statements 4
House and Committee Services
Louise J. K amuchik, Clerk Assistant and Clerk of C ommittees 5
Information, Reference, and Co-ordination Services: Legislature Library
Lome Buhr, Legislature Librarian 8
Legal Services
Franklin J. W ork, Senior Parliamentary Counsel 12
Ceremonial and Security Services
Brian Hodgson, Sergeant-at-Arms 14
Public Education and Reporting Services: Public Information Branch
Gary Garrison, Director of P ublic Information 16
Administrative Services: General Administration
Scott Ellis, Director of A dministration 22
Personnel Services
Cheryl Scarlett, Director of P ersonnel 24
Information Systems Services
Bill Gano, Director of I nformation Systems 27
Special Events 29
Former Members of the Legislative Assembly 31
Interparliamentary Relations 32
Participation in National and International Organizations 33
Summary of Budget Estimates by Account 34
Public Education Materials inside back cover

Overview
A Year of Change
Clerk of the Legislative Assembly especially Personnel and Administration. New
W.J. David McNeil members required orientation to the Assembly,
office space, computers, staff, research assist-
Sweeping parliamentary reforms and a ance, payroll commencement, and various
general election that returned 49 energetic new other kinds of support.
members were the main events that made 1993 The new members brought with them new
a year of fundamental change both for the ideas about how the Assembly should work,
Assembly and the Legislative Assembly Office. and these helped sustain the momentum of
The changes posed major challenges for the reform that began well before the election. In
staff, who once again proved their considerable late August the Premier and Leader of the
talents and dedication to service. As well, a Opposition met to set a reform process in
number of important projects proceeded, and motion. On September 9 the Assembly
high quality regular services continued in spite approved a whole new set of Standing Orders,
of financial constraints. and the House leaders tabled an agreement
The Fourth Session of the 22nd Legislature enacting further reforms. The interest in
reconvened on January 25 with a new Premier, reform was so strong that it took only about
the Hon. Ralph Klein, who took office in De- two weeks for sweeping changes to become
reality. Parliamentary Counsel and the other
cember 1992. The Assembly's first major item
of business was to elect, for the first time by Table officers worked diligently to produce
secret ballot, a Deputy Chairman of Commit- workable texts, and the challenge continued
tees, the first in a series of reforms. through the fall sittings as everyone learned to
work with the new rules.
During the three weeks of sittings the As-
The main thrust of the reforms was to
sembly passed Bill 55, Electoral Divisions A-
mendment Act, 1993, paving the way for an enhance the role of the private members and to
election under new constituency boundaries. give members more opportunity to listen to
The Fourth Session adjourned on February 12 and speak out for constituents. The Assembly
and reconvened on April 21 for another four sat an extra hour Monday through Thursday
weeks. The Assembly passed several import- and left Friday open for constituency work.
ant Bills during this period, including Mem- The compressed work week put extra pressure
bers of t he Legislative Assembly Pension Plan on members and staff, but generally the
Amendment Act, 1993 (No. 2), which discon- rdeetfaoirlsm)s. were well received by all. (see box for
tinued MLA pensions. As well, the Members'
Services Committee reduced salaries for minis- When the First Session of the 23rd Legisla-
ters and elected Assembly officers by 5 per- ture opened on August 30, the members' first
cent. action was to elect all presiding officers by
secret ballot. The Lieutenant Governor read
On May 18 the House dissolved for the
June 15 general election. Several members did the Speech from the Throne on August 31.
not seek re-election, several others lost their The secret ballot elections and the two-day
seats, and one caucus was eliminated. In total opening were both innovations.
180 members and staff left the Assembly The Assembly sat for 40 days and 25 even-
because of the election, and their departure ings, including the longest evening sitting in
together with new members and staff coming Alberta's history. On November 9 members
in presented a major challenge to all branches, convened at 8 p.m. and rose at 4:11 p.m. the
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next day, which was also the last day of Finally, several significant personnel
session. changes occurred in 1993. Hon. David J.
Other noteworthy events occurred during Carter, Speaker since 1986, did not seek re-
1993 as well. Public education efforts election and finished his term as Speaker on
increased as the Office opened the new Legis- August 29. Blake McDougall (ADM/ Legisla-
lative Assembly Interpretive Centre and Gift ture Librarian) and Maryanne Gibson (Visitor
Shop in the pedway in May and produced the Services) took early retirement in June, and
Michael Ritter (Chief Parliamentary Counsel)
new Teacher's Guide to the Alberta Legislature
resigned in April. We thank them for their
and The Citizen's Guide to Alberta's Legislature.
One clear sign of increased public awareness of contributions to the Office and wish them all
the best in the future.
the Assembly was that inquiries on the public
information telephone line increased by more Hon. Stanley S. Schumacher, QC, was
than 200 percent over 1992. elected Speaker on August 30. Lome Buhr
Information Systems upgraded the As- took over as Legislature Librarian in July, and
Lora Deeprose became co-ordinator of Visitor
sembly's computer capability in a number of
areas, including the ability to create CD-ROMs Services in September. Frank Work became
and perform keyword searches on statutes and Senior Parliamentary Counsel in May, and in
Hansard. The library moved forward on its late summer Rob Reynolds (Parliamentary
computerized indexing project and expects Counsel) and Florence Marston (Paralegal Ad-
users to be able to access index information on
ministrative Assistant) joined him in the Parlia-
library computers or from their offices early in mentary Counsel office.
1994.
A summary of the major parliamentary reforms.
Standing Orders
• The Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of Committees are now elected by secret
ballot.
• Sittings are from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, with night sittings from 8 to about
10:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. Friday sittings are eliminated.
• Members' Statements follows question period two days a week, giving private members a
chance to make a two-minute statement on constituency concerns.
• Every Thursday the Government House Leader answers a question about the government's
plans for the next week.
• Private members' public Bills must come to a vote after two hours' debate at second reading
and committee study and one hour at third reading.
• Private members' motions are put to a vote after 55 minutes' debate.
• The government must deal with each written question and motion for a return within 15 days
of its appearance on the Order Paper and respond within 30 days to those it has accepted.
Written questions are now debatable.
• The Leader of the Opposition can designate five departments' estimates to supply subcommit-
tees for f our hours of study each
House Leaders' Agreement
• The Assembly will now meet twice a year, before February 15 and again before October 21.
• The House leaders agreed to allow free votes and identified criteria for matters of confidence.
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