Evidence of meeting #86 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was billion.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
It was 2021, which was two years ago. Absolutely.
No. The reason we had to reopen the books was that because the books were not tabled yet, and some—I would say—material kind of happened through that court decision. After discussion, obviously with the Auditor General, we felt it would be more prudent and more transparent to account for that in the right way, because it was material. Nothing like that happened this year that would have forced us to, for example, reopen the books after signing.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
That is your time, Ms. Shanahan.
Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor now for two and a half minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's true that if we look at overall GDP numbers, we appear to be at a higher level. I think everyone here understands that this is an average, and that some sectors are doing well, while others are not.
Among those sectors that are doing less well are tourism and hospitality, accommodation, and retail trade. The insolvency rates in these sectors are higher than they were prior to the pandemic.
Is the Department of Finance concerned about this?
12:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
Thank you for your question.
At the Department of Finance, our concerns include all sectors of the economy. We monitor developments in the economy as a whole and in all the sectors.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
You were asked to extend the repayment deadline for the Canada Emergency Benefit Account to give a little more time to those sectors that had access to it. If repayment is not extended for another year and thousands of businesses go bankrupt, are you going to do something to help these sectors?
Are you going to wait for these bankruptcies to happen or are you instead going to do a closer review of what's happening in these sectors? Several among them have asked for a little more breathing space for repayment to the emergency benefit account.
12:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
I can't make any assumptions about the future…
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
12:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
Yes, but ultimately, the government makes these decisions, not me.
Businesses were allowed a specified period to reimburse amounts owing. How are these economic sectors going to perform? The future will tell, but I haven't yet speculated about the potential results.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
So you haven't assessed the fact that thousands of bankruptcies might be declared over the coming months, in sectors as crucial as tourism and hospitality, agriculture, and retail trade. These three sectors of the economy are definitely doing less well than they were.
Weren't the potential bankruptcies in these sectors evaluated?
12:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
As I said, I can't do forecasts. We are going to take economic developments into account. We examine all aspects of the economy.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
You'll be able to return to that topic later.
Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor now for two and a half minutes.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I do want to turn now to the Treasury Board representatives. Amongst yourselves, I'm certain you can answer this series of important questions related to the state of the Phoenix pay system.
There is no question that the Phoenix pay system has disproportionately impacted public servants for a very long time. It's a terrible shame that this continues to exacerbate the negative experience of public servants that we have.
I have a few questions with regard to the Phoenix pay system. First, what was the backlog of outstanding pay action requests as of March 31, 2023?
12:45 p.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The backlog, as of March, was about—I have the number somewhere here—410,000.
The Auditor General is saying 405,000.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Mr. Huppé, is that an increase or a decrease from last year?
12:50 p.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's actually an increase from the previous year.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
I haven't been in Parliament all that long, but in my two years in this place, we've brought this issue up several times. I've been told several times, in response to my questions as to when or how we're going to remedy this, that it will get better.
This is a dissatisfying answer, Mr. Huppé, to me and to the many public servants who expect to get paid for the work they do.
How is it that the Treasury Board is going to reconcile this? Some of the samples from the audit here are that 30% of employees sampled had an error in their basic or acting pay this last year compared with 28% in the year prior—so that's getting worse—and that 21% of employees sampled still require corrections to their pay as of March 31 of this year, an increase from 17% the previous year. How can we have confidence that our employees are going to get paid?
12:50 p.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
First of all, let me acknowledge that it is terrible that some of the employees are not getting paid accurately and on time.
What I can tell you is that a lot of efforts are being devoted to making things better. There are a lot more pay transactions. The number of pay transactions, actually—
12:50 p.m.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
When will this end? Well, there is going to be a decision in the upcoming spring. There's a report that's being looked at. There's been a series of testing done on a new system, but what I can tell you is that—
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Huppé, I'm going to stop you there, but thank you.
Mr. Desjarlais will have another opportunity. I've extended the time, so instead of squeezing it in, I'm going to have him come back to you.
I'm turning now to Mr. Stewart.
You have the floor for five minutes, please.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being here today.
All of my questions today will be for the Auditor General, Ms. Hogan.
To start off, I will note that the CEO of the National Capital Commission, Tobi Nussbaum, mentioned the Office of the Auditor General eight times in his testimony on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the CEO of the NCC told this committee that the NCC is “subject to an annual audit by the Office of the Auditor General.” He stated, “The Office of the Auditor General has every opportunity to do an examination of the NCC spending and provide any recommendations or advice”.
When I asked him if anyone had been held accountable for the outrageous spending of $8 million on a barn, he basically said no, so I'm asking this: Did your office look into the NCC's spending $8 million on a barn?
12:50 p.m.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
I was aware of the comments that the CEO of the NCC made at committee on Tuesday. What I would offer up is that we have not audited that specific project or transaction.
12:50 p.m.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
We do complete an annual financial audit, so if I may, for two seconds.... We may have looked at transactions linked to that, but we would have looked at them in the context of whether they were valid transactions and properly recorded, not at whether they were a good use of public funds.
A financial audit is very different from a performance audit.