Justice Committee on March 20th, 2013

[William F. Pentney]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I just want it to be clear to the members here that it's not a cut. It's not a cut. It's because there's been a date established in law that this program is ending on this date. For it to be approved, you can't put it in your estimates, because that would be illegal for you to do. Parliament has to vote on it to be reinstated.

[William F. Pentney]

There was a period of time in federal budget management where a significant amount of grants and contributions were put on a five-year sunsetting renewal—this goes back some time—as a way of trying to control and regularly review expenses. What it does lead to is these ups and downs, when in fact sunsetting programs very rarely actually see the sun go down in many cases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You're right. That's rare.

[William F. Pentney]

Your point is exactly right in terms of what must be included in the estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I'm going to take you to the last paragraph at the bottom of page 197. In the first sentence, you talked about 2008-09, total authority available to use is $773 million. So I looked. I actually have the estimates for that year; I keep them in my office. I went back to supplementary estimates (A) in 2008-09 because I couldn't find the main estimates. I could not find this number. I'm not sure if it's cumulative of everything that was spent that year, including supplementary estimates (C). Then you compare it to $657 million, which is in the main estimates this year. In my view, for it to be accurate, it needs to compare main estimates to main estimates, not cumulative money in 2008-09 to a main estimate this year. Would you agree with that?

[William F. Pentney]

I would agree absolutely that the fairest comparison would be, on one level, main estimates to main estimates, and perhaps another comparison would be estimates to date, assuming that we understand what estimates to date are.

A point is made in that paragraph as well about net voting authority, which is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Can you explain that to me?

[William F. Pentney]

Net voting authority is an authorization we have from Treasury Board for a portion of the legal services we provide to other government departments on a cost recovery basis. We have a base which is appropriated to us, and we also have authority to provide legal services to clients for which they're going to be billed and for which they'll transfer money to the Department of Justice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's all internal, but is that charged back to different departments?

[William F. Pentney]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

My final question is to deal with the plans and priorities document. I'm dealing with the main estimates. We're at the end of this year, and we're into the main estimates for next year. I know they're not out for next year yet, but I know they're coming, hopefully. When we're saying there is a significant reduction in internal services in these main estimates, in past books I've noticed we've budgeted something. Last year we spent $142 million and we budgeted $90 million. What is happening to shared services in internal services? Is that a big piece of work that Justice did that got moved out to shared services, and is it reflected in the change that we have here?

[William F. Pentney]

I'll let Mr. Schnob speak to that.

[Daniel Schnob]

When shared services was created, they looked at the funding we were spending on the items they would be accountable for. Our budget was reduced by that amount and the shared services budget was created by that amount—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's right.

[Daniel Schnob]

—from a series of departments. Most of that funding would have been removed all across the board. A lot of it would have been from internal services but it would have been—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That change that's already taken place is not reflected in these main estimates because it was reflected in previous years.

[Daniel Schnob]

It was replaced last fiscal year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Okay, thank you very much.

[Daniel Schnob]

So it wouldn't be an issue in these main estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's my time on this turn anyway. Thank you.

Mr. Cotler from the Liberal Party, it's your turn.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In the previous round when I only got one question, I was able to ask the minister about the wisdom of reductions in three areas: access to justice in both languages fund, youth justice services, and the aboriginal justice strategy fund, and the minister responded. Now I'm going to look at the other side of the ledger, namely projected increases. I think that demonstrates that the cuts need not be uniform, that they are in effect a judgment call.

I support this first increase, but that's $14.4 million for the renewal of funding for the delivery of immigration and refugee legal aid. I have no problem with that. I know why it's done, and I support it. What about the overall federal contribution to legal aid services for all Canadians, on both the criminal and the civil sides? Has funding been increased or decreased?

[William F. Pentney]

I believe funding has held steady for ongoing baseline funding for legal aid.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay. Given the increased demands, I would hope there would be an overall increase, but we'll go to the second question.

Maybe Donald Piragoff can help on this, because this is his area of expertise.

What is the projected budget with respect to the International Criminal Court? Is there a projected increase, a projected decrease?

[Donald Piragoff, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy Sector, Department of Justice]

We don't have a particular budget line for the International Criminal Court. The support we provide to it is part of our operational budget in terms of mutual legal assistance, providing any information that the court may request of us. It's part of our normal operating budget that's allocated to that part of Justice that deals with providing mutual legal assistance to other countries or to international tribunals. There's no specific budget line.