Government Operations Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Another.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Go ahead, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

First of all, I think we should hold off, even the area of study we just talked about, on placing it in the boxes on the calendar until we put forward some other ones. I actually believe point number three on the second page recommended that the stimulus package might be the most interesting thing for the committee to start with in its early stages. It's timely, it's topical, and it answers important questions for the politicians and the general public. It's an unprecedented rollout, and I think we have a duty and an obligation to investigate the efficacy of such a rollout as it pertains at least to Treasury Board and Public Works and Government Services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

If no other committee is doing this, I think we'd probably be doing the House a favour if we monitored it closely. At the risk of our being seen to be harassing the government or the Privy Council, work on monitoring the stimulus package would seem to be appropriate. But let's hear from members.

Mr. Warkentin, on that.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I think we're in full agreement that we should speak to people from Public Works and whatever. I think this is probably going to be an ongoing discussion, so if we were to have a preliminary meeting at this point in terms of getting a comprehensive picture as to what's in the stimulus package for the respective departments, then I guess we'll get feedback as it progresses. I'm not sure that we'll learn a whole lot more than just what the mechanics will look like at this point, but I think we're in agreement that it's important that we keep an eye on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

The witnesses who came to our last meeting, colleagues, at least opened up the subject, but I did not get a clear picture of a coordinating mechanism. There was a meeting of deputy ministers that the Privy Council witnesses referred to, but beyond that, this may be a work in progress. Keep in mind that this particular committee, in terms of mandate across departments and around government, can actually go pretty far, if not the distance. On something like this, a stimulus package that cuts across many departments, I think we have ample mandate in the Standing Orders to actually canvass that.

Mr. Warkentin suggested Public Works. They may be the big one, and Transport--

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I was going to say Transport, maybe Public Works, and Treasury Board. Let's get them all before us at this point to get a clear picture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I was sort of hoping there would be a coordinator somewhere, somebody, some secretariat in the Privy Council or the Treasury Board, who had been handed this brief and told, you guys are in charge of this for six months; don't come back until you have the $6 billion out the front door. That may not have happened yet. There was some sense of that from the Privy Council witnesses who were here. I thought they were very good, but they weren't able to show us the operations panel with all the push buttons on it yet.

Let's schedule another meeting on that, the subject being coordination of the stimulus spending. We can bring the same witnesses from Privy Council, and we can do a bit of research.

Do you have something to say on that, Ms. Scratch?

[Lydia Scratch]

I have one thing to add on that. Some of the funding that was included in budget 2009 is going out in Bill C-10. Most of the money, or a lot more of the money, will start to flow out at the beginning of the fiscal year, April 1. The supplementary estimates that come out in May should show quite a bit of stimulus spending. So that would be an opportunity, when we have numbers in front of us that are going out the door by department and program, to have them come in and ask them how they are getting this money out. To have further coordination and maybe some real numbers on things that are going out may be useful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I kind of forgot--I'm sorry I keep jumping in like this as chair--but we in Parliament haven't actually passed the authorization to spend any of this money yet, so it's a little early for us to be looking for chapter and verse on the mechanisms.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

We also haven't seen any kind of realistic flow chart, yardstick to measure progress by, or realistic prospects of results. The general public and we as their representatives have been asked to sign a blank cheque. If we spend this money here it will have x results, but no one has even told us what the x results should be or what the expectations are, or given us a realistic timeframe or a yardstick to measure progress by. We had very vague language in the Speech From The Throne and then in the budget, but we haven't seen any hard numbers.

I don't think we should wait until May to see whether or not it is a reasonable plan, because these things can still be tweaked, even after the enabling legislation has passed. There can still be modifications, for instance, in how municipalities and provinces are to come up with equal funding. These things can be tinkered with to ensure easy flow of this money.

The efficacy of it hasn't been explained to anybody's satisfaction. I think if you look at the mandate of our committee, that's exactly within government operations--the analysis of government operations to ensure that taxpayers are getting good value for their dollars, and that there's a realistic plan with outcomes and a yardstick to measure progress. That's how I'd sum it up--as a really good use of our time for quite a few meetings at this early stage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

If the committee is going to assume responsibility in its role of watchdog of these moneys, as it has in the past, you raise a very valid point on the enabling legislation not being passed.

On the second problem I think you're going to have, with all due respect, from the way we saw Statistics Canada respond to some of the pertinent questions we asked on how they benchmark trends and where money is best spent, I think it's very clear that we could be asking questions for which there are no answers at this time.

I understand we're trying to fill a bit of time here, and we have other pieces of information or ideas that we were going to work on through motions and resolutions. We may want to bide our time with that up until just beyond the supplementary estimates (C), which will probably take us into the first weeks of April. At that point I think we'll have a much better picture of how money is being allocated and its direct impact on stimulating the economy. In the meantime, I think we're trying to fill time here and it's going to be an exercise in futility. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't see how you're going to have witnesses coming forward saying, “Yes, this is how it's going to be spent” with the kinds of targets we want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

We clearly need a meeting on this, although not our next meeting. Let's give Bill C-10 an opportunity to get through the finance committee. It's also worth noting that there are spending authorizations in the current fiscal year that involve infrastructure investments that haven't gone through yet. I don't know the total, but it's a billion or two. That money is kind of going through the system, and Mr. Martin's questions about stimulus spending could apply just as much to that currently authorized money as to the Bill C-10 stimulus money.

So I suggest we have a meeting on this about the middle of March, give or take a week. The clerk is suggesting March 10 or 12, if that's acceptable. We'll firm it up later. Is that okay, or do you want something more precise?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'm just wondering what we're doing on February 24 and 26, then, and on March 3 and 5. Were you going to do this--

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Oh no, we're just giving some time for the pot to boil.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Okay. I just think there are still questions that the Statistics Canada people could have answered in brief, such as, do you get a better bang for your money spent building a bridge or raising EI benefits? Frankly, our research shows that you get a 2.5% more return on putting money in the pockets of a person on EI than you do building another CN Tower. Those basic policy questions have yet to be answered to see if we're even on the right track.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Well, I think they had a sense of what an answer might be, but they were reluctant to step up and say with precision. They were reluctant perhaps both as economists and as public servants. I don't know the answer to that, but you think it should be moved up a bit closer. Okay, that's good enough.

Are there other comments on the timing of that meeting?

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I think we can decide as it moves along. I have no problem as to when it's held, but I think there are other things we can discuss. In the other meeting, Mr. Martin had questions with regard to government-owned real estate and their retrofits. This is something that we discussed in the last Parliament in this committee--the disrepair of real property in the federal government's holding.

Certainly I think we could do at least one meeting on the federal real estate property plan in conjunction with the efforts to green government operations in general, because the two are very related and do have a strong relationship. We really haven't held any type of query, especially in recent months since the sale of properties that did take place, as to what Public Works' efforts are in greening the real estate of government. I think that if we expect Canadians to respond differently and to improve their own real estate, we should lead by example in government. I think we should speak to Public Works on that part.

We may want to talk to the NCC as well, because they have a responsibility, at least here in Ottawa. Although they don't have a significant real estate holding in comparison to Public Works, they have an interesting responsibility in that whatever they do is very high profile. I just think of the discussions to improve 24 Sussex Drive or different things like this. If they're not leading by example in terms of demonstrating that the greening of real estate is important to them and to us as government, then Canadians don't have anybody to lead by example.

So it would be an interesting meeting to have, to speak with Public Works on the greening of the federal real estate holdings and possibly other aspects of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Okay, now you're into another subject, another meeting.

Ms. Hall Findlay on that or something related, yes.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Well, it is related. Can I just ask a procedural question? Pardon my lack of understanding of the process yet; the learning curve's still pretty straight up and down.

Are the decisions we make today on this carved in stone, or as issues come up, are we able to put some flexibility into our meeting schedule in terms of content?

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Oh, at this point flexibility is always available; we're not locked into anything. But if members decide, then they have decided. I see around the table a fair bit of room for flexibility.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Right. That's my sense too. I just wanted to make sure.

On that point--we're talking about federal real estate--we did have some questions at another meeting about the disposal of assets, which for the most part would be real estate, just given relative values. Part of the answer I got was no, we have no plans for the next tranche. When we have a political commitment to book $2 billion of net sale value, I really would very much like...and I don't think if you combine it with greening there may be enough time. My focus on the real estate piece would be the general asset sales.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Okay. I thought we were bundling for one meeting, but you're not. We're getting strung out on a tangent.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

We are talking about federal real property. I couldn't--