Government Operations Committee on Oct. 30th, 2012

[Bill Matthews]

We are.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

How are you going about picking which departments you're going to do?

[Bill Matthews]

We wanted a couple of departments to show a range of programs. I believe we have four departments.

I'll let my colleague speak to which four.

[Kenneth Wheat, Senior Director, Estimates, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

We picked four departments so we could get the broad range that Bill's talking about. There were a number of statutory items, a range of program activity structures, so we've chosen TBS, finance, fisheries, and national defence.

[Bill Matthews]

Depending on how our work goes, we may adjust those slightly, but those are the four we're working on.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That's great.

I read it over numerous times, and the government response is in support of most of the recommendations. There are some they're referring to another standing committee to resolve, taking into account the process at Parliament. There's one I'm going to ask finance about; you called it a fixed date. My understanding is that the recommendation wasn't for a fixed date, but a date that it had to be done by, meaning that it could be done in January, or it could be done before. Why are you calling it a fixed date?

[Douglas Nevison]

I take your point. It's more of a deadline for tabling the budget, and it's by February 1.

As for the fixed date, that may be a bit of a misnomer. The point was about anything that makes it hard for the government to table the budget when it sees fit. If anything is going on in the domestic economy or the global economy, there is going to be a cost along with that. There might not be an actual fixed date; this was more about flexibility and the best time to table the budget.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

There are no rules in this place for a budget to be presented. That's my understanding: there's no law saying there has to be one. Do you think there should be?

[Douglas Nevison]

I think the status quo works. You need that flexibility. The purpose of a budget is to provide a high-level policy document that presents the government's economic and fiscal plan over the upcoming five-year period. There's an advantage in having the flexibility to present it when you feel the time is right, so from that perspective, I think the flexibility in the current system works well.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

My final question has to do with Mr. Blanchette's approach.

The real frustration for us is that we get the budget, and a week later we get the mains, but they don't reflect anything that might be happening from a policy perspective. Do you have any suggestions for a solution to that?

[Douglas Nevison]

We understand that frustration, but even if you had a date in January, for example, I don't think you would achieve the objective that you're looking for. You wouldn't have more budget measures in the upcoming mains, because the timetables for the two don't correspond particularly well. We are working with Treasury Board Secretariat to try to make sure that budget items go through the budget process and the subsequent due diligence associated with the Treasury Board process as efficiently as possible. We want to maintain the due diligence associated with the process.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You're out of time. Perhaps some other questioner can tell us what we can do to align the budget and the estimates. If having a fixed date is not going to do it, we're no further ahead than when we started this study.

Go ahead, Mathieu.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to you all for being here.

I'm going to follow up on Mr. Wallace's question.

There are other countries in this world that use a fixed date. One of the reasons we proposed this is that we had a witness who was quite convincing with regard to the fixed date system and the greater transparency it permits. I believe the witnesses was from New Zealand. What I'm concerned about is that you're giving us an answer, but you're not really giving us an answer. Have you really studied whether or not you can actually have a "by" date and still keep the flexibility? My understanding is that supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C) ensure that flexibility. Would it be possible to answer a little bit more precisely?

[Douglas Nevison]

Coming to your first point in terms of countries, provinces have been able to do this as well. There are examples of other jurisdictions that have done it. My understanding is that in most cases, if not all, the Treasury Board function and the finance function are integrated into one package so it can all work as a whole. That would obviously be a significant machinery change in the current system.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Would that change be favourable with regard to transparency, in your opinion?

[Douglas Nevison]

It depends how you measure transparency, as you said.

At the moment, the budget decisions do come out through supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C), so the transparency is there. It's just the question of that initial timing in terms of the gap between a budget in the winter-spring and a tabling date for mains of March 1. There is a timing issue there.

Coming back to your second question, as I said, I think the answer is in working on our processes within the system that we have to try to make them as efficient as possible, but then, as Bill mentioned in terms of some of the responses here, trying to link some of the supplementary estimates to particular funding decisions so as to build that crosswalk that would give you a sense of where the funds for a particular budget item or off-cycle funding decision are coming from.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Having worked in the public service, I understand there is a culture within it that what we have done is right, up to now. We have a lot of difficulty thinking outside the box.

The response was quick, and I think the wording of the response is somewhat categorical. I think it would be reassuring to the committee if a model like that of New Zealand or another country, or a provincial model, were looked at and studied carefully before a catch-all statement with regard to flexibility is made, but that's just a concern I have as a parliamentarian. I agree with you that it's mostly a question of quality of information, but it's also a question of having the time to study what we need to study. I think Mr. Wallace is quite right: the amount of time we have and the timing of these tablings are very difficult to manage as parliamentarians.

I'd like to go on to a second suggestion that was made by the committee, and that's with regard to the role of the PBO.

You can understand, given that we're given omnibus budget bills of 420-some pages and that the government doesn't keep from attacking the office of the PBO, that we think part of the solution would be to give Mr. Page and his office a little more strength and a little more of an important role.

Here the response we get is a cop-out. It's that somehow it makes sense for Mr. Page to be an extension of the services of the Library of Parliament. I don't know if my colleagues across the way were satisfied with that answer, but I think it's rather shallow, so I'd like to know why you don't think Kevin Page should be an independent agent just like other officers of Parliament.

[Bill Matthews]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The recommendation itself was directed to the House of Commons, not to government departments. The response simply included some context in that this issue has already been looked at by one committee, although that's not to say it couldn't be looked at by another. It was to remind the committee that this has been looked at before, but the actual recommendation itself is directed to the House of Commons, not to TBS or finance.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I think your five minutes are up. Thank you very much.

For the Conservatives, we have Jacques Gourde. You have five minutes, Jacques.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for joining us this morning.

The government's response indicated that it “will provide a clearer crosswalk to demonstrate the alignment between the current appropriation structure and the program activity model”.

I feel that is a good initiative and that it will be well received.

Could you please tell us what that crosswalk consists of?

[Bill Matthews]

Is there a particular recommendation you're referring to in your question?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I am talking about recommendation 2.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much.

The idea in recommendation 2 is the notion that right now, although parliamentarians do receive information around program activity alignment, the question is how best to vote information. We're committing to providing an alternative format, using four departments as examples, to show the committee members what a new model might look like before going down that road. To change the vote structure would represent significant effort.

This is about presenting an alternative model using real information from last year's estimates to give committee members a sense of what the new model would look like before we proceed down a road where we would potentially invest significant time and effort to change the system. It's about having that discussion before we proceed.