There are many dozens of votes in the public accounts of Canada where Parliament has authorized departments to spend up to a certain amount—operating votes, capital votes, grants and contribution votes. Many of those votes aren't fully used and funds lapse.
If the committee wishes to pursue the reasons that funds were lapsed on individual votes, those questions would be best posed to the departments responsible for those votes and to which Parliament had voted the funds.
With respect to the question of the use of temporary help agencies and contractors in government, this is not something the office of the Auditor General has looked at in a performance audit. I would point out that an organization as large and as complex as the Government of Canada is going to have a requirement for temporary help periodically, and it is going to have a requirement for specialized assistance for those skills it doesn't have on staff. In my view, there will be some legitimate needs. We can question the extent of these needs, but there will certainly be some legitimate needs for temporary help, specialized assistance, legal advice, and other advice or skills that the government does not have on staff.