Government Operations Committee on Nov. 28th, 2013

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

To your knowledge, are these figures accurate? Can you verify that?

The $12.9 million that Mr. Oliver is asking for in the supplementary estimates (B) will be added to, I believe, $26 million that he's already spending promoting the oil and gas industry for a total of $40 million. Would you be able to answer, would this $40 million be above and beyond.... Last year they spent $237,000 total, this year it's $40 million. Will that be added to the government's total of $65 million in advertising that they spend across the board?

[Michelle d'Auray]

I think, Mr. Chair, we would have to get back to you on that because my understanding is that the total Government of Canada advertising, centrally funded, is $65 million.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's my understanding, yes.

[Michelle d'Auray]

The departments, however, can also allocate from within their own funding. Again, that question should be directed to the Department of Natural Resources.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Okay.

I'm going to leave that and with the last minute I have go to a very narrow question.

The direct deposit program I presume is an efficiency undertaking to save money and streamline direct deposit, whether it's pensions or paycheques. I understand by 2016 this program will be complete. Does that mean that no one will get a paper cheque in the mail anymore, period?

I raise this because I've had seniors come to me with that concern, that they are not comfortable with, or prepared to, endorse the idea that all communication of money from the government will be electronic.

[Michelle d'Auray]

The goal is in fact to get as close to 100% as possible, recognizing that in some instances there are some people.... This is for direct deposit in bank accounts, so if you do not have a bank account or if you do not have access to a financial institution, there are some provisions for the government to be able to provide you with the money in a cheque form. However, we have found, and it has in fact been demonstrated, that direct deposit and electronic transfers to banks are actually more secure than paper cheques, which can be endorsed using different means of identification.

In fact, we have found that the take-up among seniors is among the most significant of all of our users. The challenge that we have for direct deposit is with small business, it's not with seniors.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Van Kesteren, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for coming here.

I'm one of the newbies. I think there are a lot of newbies here, and we're just gathering information and trying to understand.

In a former life—and we still own it—we owned a car dealership. They used to call the dealer principals—I guess I was a dealer principal—three-fingered Charlies because we would zoom into the assets, the liabilities, and the profit/loss. Those were the only three figures that we were really interested in.

I'm somewhat surprised, and maybe I'm missing this, but.... If I could just segue for a second—maybe I can answer Mr. Martin's question, too—advertising is a form of promotion. I think that's probably why the government does it. If my memory serves me correctly, we'd advertise about 6% of gross sales, so if gross sales were $10 million, it's sizeable. To that degree, if you look at what the federal government is spending, it's far, far less than that. If it is a form of promotion for oils and sands, or 20% of GDP, then it makes sense that we would spend that kind of money on the oil and sands—pardon me, the oil and gas industry.

Do you have or does the federal government have a spreadsheet much the same that would list assets and liabilities? Obviously, we take in a sizeable amount of money, we spend a lot of money, but do we have a figure? What's the federal government worth?

[Michelle d'Auray]

The public accounts is actually the closest that we have in presenting, as you call it, the total balance sheet. We put a dollar figure on the expenditures, obviously, the revenues, and the liabilities. In terms of the assets, we do not put a dollar figure on the assets because we self-insure. Even if an asset had a certain value, we would put a dollar figure on it if we were about to sell the asset, but not put it into the value of the books of Canada. If we did, we would actually have to measure every single asset that we have, put a market value to it, and some of it is irreplaceable. At some point, you look at your liabilities and you look at the assets if you sell them.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

From what I understand, these buildings—and we had a wonderful tour with Ms. Chahwan last week of what we're doing—we never tag what the building's worth. Is it ever done?

[Michelle d'Auray]

We do not put a book value on the assets held by the government except for very specific accounting purposes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

What about crown lands and things like that?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Unless we are about to divest ourselves of crown lands, Mr. Chair, we do not put a value on them. The closest we have come is when we have to assess all of the liabilities. We have done, for example, a full assessment of the liabilities for contaminated lands or buildings. We did undertake an initiative a few years back, exactly as you suggest, to do a valuation of all of the assets held by the Government of Canada. We looked at the cost benefit of doing that, and we found that it was going to take us probably about 30 years to do it, and the cost of doing it would far outweigh the benefit because, if something happens to the physical assets, and we need them, we replace them. It's just virtually impossible to put a dollar value on them.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

You have one minute.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

The short answer is we have no idea what the federal government is worth—no idea?

[Michelle d'Auray]

No, the short answer is at some point.... I'll stop there.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Interesting.

Okay, I have two other questions. The first is in relation to pensions. When we were looking at our spreadsheet last week, we discovered—and I think most of us knew—that the federal government had a debt of about $640 billion, but tagged to that were liabilities for pensions.

We ran out of time. I didn't get an answer for this. Does that mean the money is not set aside for public pensions? From what I understand, the employee gives a portion and the employer contributes a portion. Is that money not put somewhere? Or is that just a balance, again, for assets and liabilities? It's sitting there, but it's a liability because it has to be paid.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chair, there are some instances, and this goes back to my previous incarnation as the Secretary of the Treasury Board, not in this current function. I can give you an answer but the specific answer would actually be coming from the Treasury Board Secretariat. After 2000, both the sources of funds as well as the liabilities were put into the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. Prior to that, the liabilities and the payments were, as you suggest: the payments went into this general revenue fund and the contributions in went into the consolidated revenue fund, and the expectation of the payments out were also from the fiscal framework.

After 2000, actually, the regime was established with the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, much like the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and so the moneys in and the moneys out are now accounted for with the board.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Ms. Day, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to continue the line of questioning started by Mr. Van Kesteren.

A citizen filled a complaint with Advertising Standards Canada in September and won. At issue was a government advertisement concerning Canada's Economic Action Plan announced by Stephen Harper. It stated that $15,000 would be available, $5,000 from the provinces, $5,000 from the Government of Canada and $5,000 from the business itself. As we know, however, the government was blamed and the advertisement was withdrawn from the program.

Could you tell us how much that advertisement cost?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chair, I will have to provide those figures at a later date. They will have to come in part from the Department of Employment and Social Development.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, you may send that information to the clerk.

[Michelle d'Auray]

If you are asking us to provide those figures, we will have to get them from the other departments. I simply want to point out that this is not necessarily our responsibility.