Government Operations Committee on March 25th, 2014

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Okay, was the board consulted on the decision?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

No, this was a government policy decision.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Why do you feel you shouldn't have consulted them?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I'm going to predict that a board that had a certain way of doing things wouldn't necessarily want to change.

From our point of view, it just made more efficient sense to consolidate two boards that were doing the same kind of thing in two different areas and have the same back office and make sure that you—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

So it's a cost savings justification.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I would say basically it's—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

How much money is it going to save?

[Daniel Watson, Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

It is important to remember that, in the past, employees could go to three or four different places to file one series of complaints only. From now on, there will be only one place where they will file their complaints and they will have the same fundamental rights. Having only one place will make things easier for bargaining agents, employees and managers who must deal with those complaints. As a result, instead of going to three or four places, they will go to one place only.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Adler, you have the remaining two minutes.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and all of your officials, for being here today. I know you have been working very hard, and I want to thank you for everything you have done.

I do have a couple of questions, Minister. You mentioned earlier that there were 100 different e-mail suppliers and 300 different data centres. How did we get to a position where we have that kind of ridiculous situation?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Over time things build up. One of the problems when you have things in silos is that people will then, within their silo, recreate the wheel. In that sense, because IT was siloed in different departments and agencies, they all had their own IT contracts. They all had their own IT applications and so on. Finally we got to the point where we said that this is not logical. We are one organization. We want enterprise solutions, to use that buzzword, and so we have found a way through Shared Services Canada to consolidate a lot of this.

There is still some IT that goes on in individual departments, but to the extent that we can consolidate and still achieve the goals of the organization, that's what we decided to do.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Are there any glaring examples? You mentioned those two, but are there any other glaring examples where you said, “Oh, my goodness, how did this—”

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I'll give you one right off the bat, which is on licence fees for software. It got to the point where vendors were coming up to me and saying, “Look. You have all these different departments each paying licence fees for exactly the same software. We're willing to keep accepting the cheques from the government, but you might want to consider some consolidation on software so you can reduce your licence fees.” That's exactly what we've done.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

You mentioned that suppliers were coming up to you. I have constituents coming to me in my office and giving me...a lot of it is anecdotal from their own experiences, but some people come with some pretty good ideas. How do constituents who have either worked in government or have an idea or have some experience convey those messages to you or your departmental staff about how to possibly save some money?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Sure, we're always open to ideas, Mr. Adler. To the extent that it's a procurement issue, of course, in that sense, we will not engage with vendors when we are going through a procurement because there are certain processes, but in the absence of that, we're always open to new ideas on these.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you. I am going to have to cut you off.

I thank the minister for being here and for finding the time in his busy schedule to appear before our committee. I am sure that all the members of the committee have appreciated it.

We are going to suspend the meeting for a few minutes. We will then come back with other witnesses who will be able to continue answering our questions on the main estimates.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

We'll reconvene the meeting.

Two new people from the expenditure management sector have joined us, namely Ms. Santiago, executive director, and Mr. Sprecher, director.

Mr. Matthews, who always honours us with his presence, has a few clarifications to make. We will then move to questions from members of the committee.

Mr. Matthews, you have the floor.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

In the first part of the meeting, I spoke too quickly on slide twelve of my slide deck when I was explaining the decrease in Citizenship and Immigration. I incorrectly stated that Passport Canada had left Citizenship and Immigration. It is in fact part of Citizenship and Immigration, and the reason for the decrease is a technical matter revolving around the revolving fund, so that effectively there's a surplus being run in Passport Canada; because of the 10-year passport there's a large influx in cash. That explains that decrease by that organization.

In addition to that, my colleagues found some answers to questions that were asked with respect to equalization payments, as well as with respect to Mr. Byrne's question around the disaster financial assistance arrangements and how much money was indeed included in the estimates. Maybe I'll turn to Marcia to give those answers quickly and then we can resume.

[Marcia Santiago, Executive Director, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

For the disaster financial assistance arrangements the contributions to provinces are listed on page 269 in English and page 294 in French. It's a total of $762 million in contributions for 2014-15.

Regarding the question on equalization. the total forecast at this point for 2014-15 is $16.7 billion. By province, it's approximately $360 million in P.E.I., $1.6 billion in Nova Scotia, $1.7 billion in New Brunswick, $9.3 billion in Quebec, $2 billion in Ontario, and $1.8 billion in Manitoba.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for those clarifications. They answer some of the committee's questions.

We will continue with questions from members of the committee.

Mrs. Day has the floor for five minutes.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Ms. Santiago and Mr. Sprecher.

I would like to ask you a few questions about the Communications Security Establishment.

In main estimates 2014-15, the Communications Security Establishment is requesting $796 million in vote 1 for the program's expenditures. That is an increase of $408 million compared to main estimates 2013-14. According to them, this change is primarily because of the $300 million anticipated for a new building, as well as an increase of $100 million in contract payments for 2014-15.

Here is my first question. Of the $100 million for contracts, how much will be used for the maintenance of the building?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for your question.

The maintenance, of the $100 million it's $19.2 million, so let's say around $20 million just to be rough for maintenance, and about $75 million for what's called service payments and that's for the actual operations of the facility itself. It's distinguished from maintenance so that's kind of how the $100 million splits out. So $19.2 million exactly for maintenance....

You're quite right in terms of your understanding of the increase in CSE's budget being driven by this new building. It is a public-private partnership in terms of how it was constructed so it's not our typical model of operations where the government is building something. It is being built through a public-private partnership. That's why you're seeing the $100 million in contract payments, split as mentioned between maintenance and service payments.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Will the $100 million be recurring fees every year?

[Bill Matthews]

I can't speak with certainty, but I would assume for the maintenance cost that would be a good estimate. I think it may only be eight months' worth of funding, so you would have to extrapolate that over 12 months. I would expect it would increase slightly when we're operating a full year. The amount you're seeing here is for eight months of operations. I would expect it would increase by about one-third, if my math is correct, in future years.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Can you tell us what the benefit is in building a new facility through a public-private partnership?