Government Operations Committee on March 5th, 2009

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I work constructively with all my cabinet colleagues. The political minister in each region is obviously one of the principal advisers whom I would turn to for advice and counsel. Mr. Lebel works for the Regional Economic Development Agency for the Regions of Quebec. Obviously that might be a delivery agent for one or more initiatives. We'll be coming forward in very short order with some specifics on that.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Will forms be made available to the municipalities? Will they be able to apply using these forms?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In the case of Quebec, we can't give federal forms to municipalities because that's not permissible. So we'll work constructively with Quebec on a process to follow through.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Because of that extra step in the province of Quebec—which I'm not critical of, I don't pass any judgment, that's legitimately the National Assembly, and the Government of Quebec is perfectly in their right. What I'm looking to the Government of Quebec for is what can we do to speed up a process so that decisions can be made and we can get people working. I think that the economy, the situation of the unemployed or underemployed, the uncertainty in the economy hopefully will lend itself for some good cooperation in an expeditious timeframe.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Nevertheless, you have understood that for the projects you are asking for, you must give the municipalities some time to prepare the plans and specifications. I hope that you will give the municipalities enough time to submit their projects. As you know, this can take three to six months.

For example, the mayor of Terrebonne can say that he has a project, that it was included in his triennial plans, but we have to give him time to submit it. Sometimes, what happens is that you have money for two projects whereas you had planned for three or four. I hope that you will allow the municipalities sufficient time to prepare their projects.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'll have to seek the counsel of the government officials and ministers in the Government of Quebec on that. I do know that these new initiatives will be like every other government program, that they'll be oversubscribed, that there will always be more demand than there are funds; that won't be any different in this. What we want to do is challenge people for the need to identify projects expeditiously. We're accepting the challenge to make decisions expeditiously. If people want to take six months to review their projects and submit applications, that's probably not going to be a good candidate for the stimulus fund because we want to get projects going as quickly as possible.

In the case of Quebec, where municipalities have to work through the province, I am confident that we can identify a process that will move quickly. If you have any specific advice or counsel that would assist me, I would certainly welcome it.

I've served in a provincial cabinet. I served as a member of a provincial legislature. Our government doesn't have the edict that all the decisions are made in Ottawa. What works in P.E.I. won't work in Quebec and vice versa. We're certainly committed to do that. I try to respect that. It takes a little bit longer, but it's just the reality, which we don't have a problem with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Before I recognize Mr. Brown, I just want to say that the minister had agreed to be with us for an hour. We did start a few minutes late, and the minister did come on relatively short notice. We're continuing our consideration of this matter at our next meeting on Tuesday with the Treasury Board president, and there are officials from the minister's department here whom I'll introduce later who are staying. When the minister feels that it's time to go, we will accept his departure when that time comes.

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Jean so we can both get in a question to the minister.

I have three quick things, and perhaps you could comment on one.

As a former city councillor, I think the excitement with this record infrastructure investment is terrific. There seems to be a lot of interest, and I think you'll get more projects than anyone can handle. One thing that got a particularly pleasant reaction was the low-cost loan. Maybe you could expand upon that a little bit.

Also, from an historical perspective, is this the largest infrastructure investment in Canadian history?

Lastly, when you were in the provincial government and there were infrastructure agreements with the previously Liberal federal government, did they allow provincial input? What they're suggesting today is to announce a $3 billion list and ignore an opportunity for input from your premier, Dalton McGuinty. Is that something that has ever occurred before, where we announced lists unilaterally and ignored the wishes of other levels of government?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

You've been a strong lobbyist for projects in Barrie. A few of your city councillors were in to present some projects that were shovel-ready about two weeks ago. I suspect your provincial colleague, Aileen Carroll, would be quite angry if you or I began to make announcements in Ottawa without them. They would think that was in bad faith and not constructive to federal-provincial relations.

George Smitherman has said to me that partnership is about working together, making decisions together, and making announcements together. It's not one side trying to get a communications or a PR advantage by scooping the other side. We are committed to working constructively.

I can tell you we announced 289 projects around the province. I think they went very smoothly in all but two of the cases. It was because you had people working and making announcements together, whether it's the federal and provincial governments and every region of the province working together.... We're not going to simply make unilateral announcements on the provinces. Those decisions are made collectively. That's what a partnership is all about. I suspect that if I started to make announcements unilaterally here, my Blackberry would start to go off and it would be the provincial minister calling to give me heck.

I made an announcement with Premier McGuinty on Friday. I didn't announce it before I got there. We announced it together. That's what the province asked for and that's what I asked for. They honoured and respected that, and I think that's good news. One of the biggest accountability mechanisms in all of this funding is that you have to work with the provinces and territories. We want to work with municipalities. We'll work constructively, in the case of your riding, with the McGuinty government. I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to come to an agreement expeditiously on funds from the stimulus fund with them, but it involves cooperation and partnership. That's how it was always done and that's how we intend to proceed at this time.

I have had a good number of members of Parliament present projects in their constituencies, whether those be on the government or opposition side of the House. I'm constantly having members of Parliament put proposals on my desk that we take back to the department and review. I don't think the McGuinty government is going to cooperate with anything that's untoward or isn't of high ethical standards; neither do I think that the Doer government, the MacDonald government, or the Campbell government would. That's the biggest accountability mechanism. We're only a one-third partner in these projects. We need to work with provinces and municipalities, and that's what I would call a great check and balance on the process.

We are making record investments in infrastructure with big and small projects. We can be proud of that. It will move quickly, but we'll never move as quickly as people would like. We are committed, though, to make things happen for the beginning of this construction season.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I think Brian Jean has a quick point.

Thank you for working with our premier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Half a minute might do the trick, Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you very much.

I have two questions, Mr. Minister.

The first is, would you ever permit your department to issue a blank cheque of any kind in relation to funding that belongs to the taxpayers?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I couldn't even if I wanted to. All the Treasury Board rules and guidelines would not allow that, even if I wanted to, which I don't.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I did some research and found that the faster we as a government invest money in infrastructure in this country, the more quickly we actually stall and reverse the global economic downturn, the less expensive it is to build, the better the return on investment for taxpayers, the less time the unemployed stay unemployed in this country, and a better quality of life....

Are there any other advantages to getting this money out the door as quickly as humanly possible?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We get Canadians working. The sooner we make these investments, the sooner we get the benefits of the investments. If it's public transit, we get cleaner air and less congestion sooner, in addition to getting people employed. If we invest in a new convention centre, we can up our tourism numbers. If we get the investment sooner, we get the benefits of the infrastructure more expeditiously. I think that's a positive thing. Clean water--the sooner we can get waste-water treatment plants, we can stop dumping secondary raw sewage into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. Many of these projects will last for decades and decades and decades. This is an opportunity to work constructively with partners, and we're committed to doing that.

Mr. Chair, I've enjoyed this hour, as have my officials. We were asked to come for an hour. We appreciate the opportunity on such short notice. I have no doubt you might have us back again, and you never know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

It's likely we will, but I can't speak for the whole team on the committee.

I did want to introduce the three officials who were good enough to come with you this morning.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

They are also here for an hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I know. I'm sorry, it was my error. Treasury Board officials will be up next today. Mr. Louis Ranger, deputy head; John Forster, ADM, policy; Carol Beal, ADM, program operations--thank you for coming.

We'll now suspend for about one minute while we reboot the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I call the meeting back to order, colleagues.

Our witnesses now are from Treasury Board Secretariat. The subject matter is now more focused. We're looking at vote 35, which is the $3 billion stimulus package. We're essentially in a formal way looking at the government estimates, keeping in mind we'll have at least one additional meeting next week that will continue with this.

I want to welcome the witnesses and thank them for coming. We're here for about an hour. We have Alister Smith, assistant secretary, expenditure management sector; Kelly Gillis, assistant secretary, corporate services sector; Brian Pagan, executive director, expenditure operations and estimates division; and Dan Danagher, executive director, labour relations and compensation operations. That sounds like a lot of expertise.

Do you have an opening statement?

Ms. Gillis, go ahead.

[Kelly Gillis, Assistant Secretary, Corporate Services Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Yes, we do.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. My name is Kelly Gillis, assistant secretary, Corporate Services Sector at the Treasury Board Secretariat. I have several department colleagues with me today who have already been introduced.

We are here today to answer any questions you may have on the main estimates 2009-2010 for the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Canada Public Service Agency, which is referred to in these Main Estimates by its old name, namely the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada.

As you are likely aware, effective March 2, 2009, the Canada Public Service Agency and the parts of the Treasury Board Secretariat that deal with pensions and benefits, labour relations and compensation were consolidated into a new Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, with the mandate to make human resources management across the public service more effective and reduce overlap and duplication of roles. This office will be housed within the Treasury Board Secretariat.

The estimates that have been tabled in the House identify total budgetary requirements for the Treasury Board Secretariat of $7.7 billion. It is important to note that $5.5 billion of this relates to central government-wide votes. No TBS expenditures will be incurred against these votes. Instead, funding will be utilized to increase the votes of other departments in accordance with the wording approved by Parliament in the Appropriation Act.

A significant new vote for $3 billion of this $5.5 billion is vote 35, “Budget Implementation Initiatives”. This vote is a one-time-only vote, which has been introduced to facilitate the timely implementation of Budget 2009 initiatives for which there are immediate cash requirements in advance of supplementary estimates. It will allow Treasury Board ministers to allocate funds for Budget 2009 initiatives between April 1 and June 30. Any funds that are not allocated from this vote by June 30 will lapse.

Apart from these central votes, a further $2.1 billion relates to the administration and payments to various insurance, pension, and benefit programs that the secretariat administers on behalf of other government departments. Expenditures are incurred against this vote within the Treasury Board Secretariat, and anticipated expenditures have increased by $242 million over last year's main estimates as a result of increased costs and volumes for the public service health care plan, the provincial payroll taxes, disability, and dental plans.

The remaining program expenditure vote of $175 million represents the funding for organizations and employees who support the secretariat's central agency role of contributing to a government that is well managed and accountable and whose resources are allocated to achieve results. This vote has increased by approximately $10 million since last year, primarily to fund costs for ongoing pay equity litigation, compensation adjustments for collective agreements, and the creation of enhanced corporate services support to the secretariat.

We would be pleased to address any questions the committee may have on these estimates today and to provide further detailed information to the committee that it may need to complete its review and analysis.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you very much.

I'll just point out, colleagues, that normally on estimates we would lead off with the minister. Treasury Board President Toews is attending on Tuesday. Committees don't usually seek political accountability from officials, but officials are usually a wonderful source of information, and I know that officials here will be a big help to us today on these issues.

I'll look to Mr. McTeague to lead off for eight minutes.

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

Madam Gillis, thank you very much.

It is Treasury Board, so as Treasury Board critic I guess I have a question in reference to your saying this is a significant new vote. How significant, from a precedent-setting point of view, in the history of our Parliament, is this allocation?

[Kelly Gillis]

I'll ask Alister Smith to respond. Thank you.

[Alister Smith, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you, Chair and committee.

This is a unique central vote. We, of course, use central votes for other purposes, including contingencies, carry-forward paylists, and other further purposes. But this is a one-time-only vote, which would be used for a very limited time and would expire at the end of June. So it is unique in that respect.