Evidence of meeting #4 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
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Liberal
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's correct. And that one is estimated to be, according to the main estimates, $9.8 billion.
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Billion, yes.
March 22nd, 2010 / 4:45 p.m.
Alister Smith Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
All the departments.
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
All departments included.
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Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Professional--
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
It's called professional services, so it could be management, it could be—
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Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, no. It could be information technology services, it could be database rental--it's all professional services that are retained.
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Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Combined. It's not management consultants, per se?
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, no. It's professional services.
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Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
It could also be science. There is a long list of what we call standard objects.
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Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Okay. But under the Financial Administration Act, in order for all of us to do our effective fiduciary responsibility, we need to know the breakdown. Is there a way of getting that broken down?
4:45 p.m.
Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think we find that the most effective way is to do so through the public accounts, because that is after the fact. We can give you what the planned are. It is then dependent on how each organization decides to do the coding.
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Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
You can give me what the planned are. Can you provide that for me by department?
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Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think that would take quite a bit of time to do.
Alister.
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Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Departments log in these planned expenditures by what we call standard objects of expenditure. There's a breakdown, if you look at page I-34 , which is already fairly detailed. What we'd have to do is actually go back to the departments and break it down even further into the subgroups. This tends to be fairly micro, because these are planned by the departments.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
I was looking at last year's expenditures. If you looked at the public accounts for last year, for example, management consulting was $586 million. That's a substantive amount of money, and I want to know how it's being spent.
4:45 p.m.
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Those expenditures come from what you referred to earlier: the central financial system, the CFMRS. They are aggregated at the end of the year by Public Works and are published in the public accounts. But it's very hard to do on a planned basis, what you're asking for.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
We'll go to the next round of questioners.
Madame Bourgeois, huit minutes, s'il vous plaît.
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Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have two short questions to ask, and I will be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Nadeau.
I would like to come back to the questions I put to—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Madam Chair, I would just like to understand the order of questioning. When the minister left, it was our party's turn. When we begin with new witnesses, do we begin with a new round of questioning?