Evidence of meeting #35 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was money.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
I have the figures for Manuge. Last year we paid $939 million, so with this $190 million, it brings the total up to $1.1 billion.
9:20 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
That will be the final.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you for those comments.
The floor now goes to Mr. Easter, for five minutes.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
My congratulations to Mr. Matthews on being the Comptroller General of Canada. I imagine it's an interesting job at times.
With regard to your presentation, you and your people did a good job of drawing out a lot of the areas in a fairly understandable fashion, so I appreciate that.
One thing that isn't in here, though, and I'm wondering if you have that information available or can get it for us, is the lapsed spending, the spending that was budgeted.
I can tell you in my critic area, which is public safety, CSIS is lapsing $18.2 million; RCMP is lapsing $158.6 million; Correctional Services is lapsing $166.7 million; Canada Border Services Agency is lapsing $194.2 million.
In a time when we're talking security, we find these lapsed moneys. Do you have anywhere a total number for the lapsed money in the budget and in what areas they are in? I'm not saying you have to answer that now, but if that information can be made available to us, I'd like to see it in total.
9:20 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
Sure, I'll give it a shot.
Where you will actually find lapsed funding, and this will get a little complex, is in the Public Accounts of Canada, which I did happen to bring along. Volume II will give you department-by-department lapse.
There are a couple of points on lapse, though. Number one, you can't overspend your money, so some degree of lapse is actually normal. If a department got within 33¢ of their votes, that's a signal they're running too close to the line. That is why we allow departments to carry forward 5% of operating and 20% of capital. There's no such automated mechanism on grants and contributions. That's an important point. There's no automated rollover of unspent grants and contributions money. The lapse, when you're looking at it, you really have to look at what was driving it. So, we differentiate. The total lapse government-wide, to answer your question, was $7.3 billion. That's down 28% from the previous year.
But I'm more interested in something we call the net lapse, which is the unplanned lapse. That's basically, when we look at.... Departments are given ceilings that they have to respect. Partway through the year, they might come to us and say that a project is behind schedule and they'd like to see if they can move that money from the current year to the next fiscal year. The Department of Finance would think about it and say yes or no, but usually yes. Then they would come to Parliament to be re-voted on the next year, because Parliament votes on an annual basis.
The net lapse is about $4 billion, $3.9, and that's down 13% from the previous year. That net lapse—and this is the most important point I think I'll leave you with—93% of that lapse is driven by grants and contributions and the central votes that I mentioned earlier. It's quite normal to have high lapses in the central votes because you've got things like government-wide contingencies. If we don't need it, we don't need it.
For the grants and contributions vote, two departments in particular made up $1.1 billion of it and it's quite understandable when you think about it. It's Infrastructure Canada which is involved in negotiating agreements with provinces and municipalities. They often slide so they're always a high lapser and that's just to be expected. Then the other department I would highlight for you is Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada, again, for the same reason. They're often involved in negotiations with first nations and those things do tend to slide as well.
The operating dollars which I think people are quite preoccupied with, the whole of government, departments lapsed less than their 5% carry forward, so on the whole they were within the 5%. Now, on an individual basis, some were above the 5% and some were below, but that's kind of where we sit.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I think each and every one of us in our own ridings would have at one point or another had an infrastructure program lapse and worried about whether the money was going to carry through to the next year.
On Mr. O'Connor's question on salaries and the cutbacks and the loss of jobs, I'll lay it on the table. One of my huge concerns is that I always find that when there are cutbacks, regardless of the political party that's in power, Ottawa tends to look after itself and the outlying regions seem to be the ones that take the brunt of the cuts in the front-line service workers. In my humble opinion, I think we have far too many managers and not enough workers. Is there any way you could give us a comparison in terms of—and it's related to Mr. O'Connor's question—the total salary for the public service managers and front-line workers in say, 2011-12 as compared to today? I understand completely why you're asking for more money, because those decisions that were made dropped off and we're now back to normal. But I hear that there's 20,000 fewer public servants and you hear all different kinds of different numbers in moneys.
Is there any way of getting a comparison between total salaries for the federal government employees of the public service in say 2011-12 and this year?
9:25 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
We can get you 2011-12 versus 2013-14 for certain. Just to maybe touch on parts of your question, I don't have the comparison with me but we can certainly get that. The 20,000 jobs eliminated that you were referring to was as a result of the deficit reduction action plan. Of those 20,000 we did some analysis on the reductions by province. You did touch on the regions versus Ottawa itself. The percentage distribution of jobs before and after those reductions was the same. So, actually, Ottawa was treated the same way as the rest of the country. It was an even distribution of the reductions. I can tell you that in the national capital region alone, 7,700 jobs were eliminated. Before and after those reductions, the distribution by province was the same.
We'll have to get back to you on the wage bill. I may have it here. I don't think I do, but if I do, I'll....
9:25 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you, Mr. Easter.
Given that several people have asked for items of information, may I ask you to send them to the clerk? In turn, he will be happy to pass them on to the members of the committee.
Mr. Maguire, you have five minutes.
November 20th, 2014 / 9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I appreciate your presentation, Mr. Matthews, and congratulations as well.
In regard to a comment about comparisons between various years, can you explain some of the differences between the 2014-15 supplementary estimates (B) and the 2013-14 supplementary estimates (B)? I see most of the mains and the proposed.... There's quite a variance in some of the supp (B)s and I wonder if you could explain that somewhat for me.
9:30 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
Sure. It's an interesting question. Hopefully, I can give you an answer that makes some sense.
As I mentioned, supplementary estimates (B) are always our biggest. The reason for that is you have a budget in February. Supplementary estimates (A) follow close on its heels, and often there's not enough time to get new budget initiatives into supplementary estimates (A). In supplementary estimates (B), you're starting to see some of the new budget things come about.
When you look at supplementary estimates (B) for the current year, the figure is lower than last year's. Last year we were at $5.4 billion in supps (B) and this year we're certainly under that. I would like to highlight for you that last year's was unusually large. I'm talking whole of government here. The reason last year was so large was disaster financial assistance, $700 million, which if I remember correctly related to the Alberta floods. That was a big chunk of money there. Manuge would be the second piece, which we talked about earlier today. Aboriginal Affairs had a large out-of-court settlement last year. That's why last year's was so big.
If you compare the current year, 2014-15 to 2012-13, those numbers are very much in line, but I don't get too fussed by the amount of supplementary estimates (B), because when you look at year to date, that's kind of a more interesting total, and the trend is that voted appropriations are going down, largely to do with the reductions the government has made, while the statutory continues to go up.
The reason I say I don't get too fussed about supplementary estimates (B) from one year to the next is that sometimes you have a program that expires and it doesn't get renewed in time to make it to the main estimates. The program is renewed, but it missed the main estimates cycle.
To give you an example, a couple of years back we had the RCMP policing program that is done with the provinces and municipalities. It didn't make it into the main estimates because the deal wasn't basically done in time, so you saw a drop in RCMP in main estimates. Then lo and behold, you come along to supplementary estimates and there's a large spike in RCMP. It was because that program was extended and it was simply a matter of waiting until that deal was reached.
I think it's more relevant to look at the total year to date, which you have asked me to do. I think I've made it clear that the voted number is going down largely because of the reductions that are in play. That's not to say there are not some major items in supplementary estimates (B), but I think we've touched on those.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you.
A corollary to that and to add some more to it, you're right that the proposed numbers at the end of the year are fairly even. Thank you for the description of the differences there.
In regard to the statutory and the voted expenditures, there are some differences there as well. Are both of these items included in supps (B), and if they are, can you give an example of each from this year's supps (B)?
9:30 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
For members who may not be familiar with the terminology, statutory spending is the spending that is directly through legislation, where we don't actually put a hard cap on the spending.
A good example is the EI program. If you qualify for EI, you get a cheque—I guess you get a direct deposit now, not a cheque. That's in legislation. We do our best to forecast those numbers. The same goes for the old age security payments. For departments, basically, we spend what we spend, and that's the way the program works. Voted expenditures means departments have to respect the limits there.
The increases in statutory spending, and it's an increasing trend in terms of statutory spending going up, is largely around the legislated increase to the Canada health transfer, which is a significant increase, as well as the demographics for our aging population. We're having higher increases in old age security programs driving those numbers. Those are the two things I would highlight for you there.
In terms of specific adjustments to this year's statutory forecast that we're making in supplementary estimates (B), Finance has shared with us that their initial estimate for interest expense for the year is now lower because long-term interest rates have stayed low, as well as the softwood lumber payments that they're now forecasting at zero, largely because of the U.S. housing market.
For voted, I think I would refer members of the committee to slides 6 and 7 to get a sense of the major items, and I think we've been through them all. The one I would highlight for you is the Treasury Board Secretariat compensation adjustments, just because it's a central vote that's going out to departments, and we've already touched on it. We hadn't seen that for a couple of years because of the operating budget freeze, or at least not to this extent.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you, Mr. Maguire.
The floor now goes to Mr. Ravignat, for five minutes.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
Just to go back to the $652.2 million for National Defence, I don't know if you have these details or you can provide them to the committee, but I'm just wondering what aircraft or light armoured vehicles will benefit directly from the funding for fleet maintenance.
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
I can speak to some of this. The aircraft in question is the Chinook 147. That's the funding I'm aware of for the aircraft. In terms of the armoured vehicles, I'm not aware of which class is involved, but I believe they're personnel carriers. I don't have any information on what class of vehicle they are though.
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
It's the Halifax class frigate for sure, but I'm not a navy guy, so I apologize that I don't really know much detail.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
Neither am I, and I thank you for that level of detail.
On another subject, the estimates show a further $80 million for remediation of federal contaminated sites, but at the same time, public accounts show that the total federal liability for the cleanup is around $11 billion. In my opinion, this is mainly because of poor oversight and response with regard to these increasing contaminated sites. They're throwing $80 million at an $11 billion problem, so what is going to be accomplished with that meagre amount?
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
That's an excellent question. I would say a couple of things on contaminated sites. The size of the liability, which the member has mentioned, is important. Understand that when we look at public accounts—and we do have to compare these two numbers—when we get a sense of the environmental liability and agree that the government is responsible or has assumed responsibility, we put a liability on the public accounts. That's important information for the public. So $11 billion is the right number.
I would highlight for members that some of our biggest liabilities were not actually caused by the government. They're liabilities the government has assumed because the private sector may have walked away. Giant mine or Faro mine up north are two of our biggest. There's an interesting history around those ones. When we look at supplementary estimates (B), this is an additional amount that's being spent across nine departments, and there's a mix of what will be accomplished by that. One is actual remediation. You'll appreciate that the remediation occurs largely during fair weather seasons. It's hard to remediate sites in winter in some of our more northern climates, but there are also ongoing assessments. I will highlight for members that when we book environmental liabilities, they can fluctuate as we get more information. So part of that $80 million goes to assessing sites that have been identified but for which we haven't really landed on a detailed plan about how it's going to be cleaned up.
To give you an example, if you're in a remote area—
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
I'm sorry to interrupt you. So none of this money is going to actually do the cleanup?
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
No, there is a mix. Some is going to assessment and some is going to cleanup. It's both, but I did want to highlight that some does go to assessment.
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
I think about 15% to 20% is the norm.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
It's 15% to 20% of the $80 million; so already we're dealing with a very small amount and then we're going to channel some of that amount to study.
9:35 a.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
It's going to go towards figuring out the plan for the ongoing assessment, because to clean these up, you kind of have to keep things in the pipelines. You need the ongoing assessment, the more detailed assessment, while you're cleaning up other sites. Otherwise you kind of dry up in terms of sites you can remediate. There's a mix.