Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

So then, in addition to the $140,000 for travel expenditures, and $140,000 for travel expenses as an MP, it's all for driving her around. The fact that she doesn't own a car is really kind of irrelevant when she has public funds to drive her around.

[Chris Forbes]

Well, when she's in Ottawa doing official business, yes, she would have a driver like most cabinet ministers.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is your time, Mr. Nater.

I'm turning now to Ms. Bradford.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses today. I understand that we might be seeing you again really soon, so if we don't get through all our questions today, I guess we're going to have another chance.

I do have a couple of questions for you today.

The first one is probably for you, Ms. Hogan. Can you please explain what the term “lapse” represents? As well, how much was lapsed in 2022-23?

[Karen Hogan]

Again, I think that's a great question to ask the comptroller general in terms of what “lapse” means, but usually it's what a department doesn't spend based on what it's given in its annual budget.

I'll let him provide you with an accurate number.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

It's the underspending of an allocation, then.

[Roch Huppé]

Well, exactly. You get a budget—voted authorities, as we call it—and any amount that's not spent will become a lapsed amount.

The amount of the lapse in the last fiscal year was $54.2 billion.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Does that carry forward automatically, then, into the next fiscal...?

[Roch Huppé]

No, it doesn't all automatically get carried forward. What happens is that in the world of unspent funds, there are different things that you may ask for. First of all, every department, under what they call their "operation vote", is allowed to carry forward up to 5%. On what we call their "capital vote", they're allowed to carry forward up to 20%. Then, for very specific.... Say, you're leading a major project and your spend shifts. You may ask our colleagues here at the Department of Finance for authorities—what we call a "reprofile"—to move that money for a very specific purpose from one year to the other. Again, that needs specific approvals to do that. There's no automatic “you haven't spent it; therefore you'll be able to put it on top of your budget the following year”....

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay.

Another question—and I'm not sure who's up for this one—I have is about professional and special services. It is a broad category of spending. Can you break down what services fall under that reporting category?

Mr. Huppé.

[Roch Huppé]

Under volume 3, you have a list of all of the categories. It varies from business management to informatics services, engineering-type services, health services. There is a series of about 10, 11 or 12 there that are broken down. It tells you the types of different professional services that we utilize, and how much we spent on them. That's the very detailed table in volume 3 around page 174.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Would that include IT services as well, or is that all in-house? That wouldn't be IT.

[Roch Huppé]

No, it doesn't include our in-house employees who work in IT. It includes the outsourcing to IT companies, but it also would include the services that, for example, SSC would provide. They would provide some IT services to other departments, so what we call internal professional services are also included there. Out of the total amount, that represents about $3 billion that is internal. It includes things like some of the IT services received by SSC, for example. It also includes legal services obtained from the Department of Justice, because we do have internal professional services also.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay.

This might be for you, Ms. Hogan. In 2020, we asked you to survey stakeholders on how to make the public accounts more user-friendly, while maintaining transparency. What did you hear?

[Karen Hogan]

Again, that's a question for the comptroller general. I do not prepare the Public Accounts of Canada. I audit the financial statements. The Public Accounts of Canada are prepared by the comptroller general, the receiver general and the Department of Finance.

[Roch Huppé]

She has the nice job.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Roch Huppé]

In their report, this committee did ask us to do that, and we did. We launched a consultation exercise. Internal and external stakeholders were surveyed. We looked at how we could streamline things. There are requirements in the public accounts that have been there since 1950, for example. Are they still valid or not, and is there a duplication of some of that information that already appears under departmental websites or whatever? What we're trying to do is find ways to streamline and have the right, useful information. We do have a way forward out of these consultations in order to make them more user-friendly, but also to have the right information in there.

We're going to welcome the input of this committee to make again our proposals to go forward with different changes that we would like to see happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. We look forward to receiving that and reviewing it.

That is your time, I'm afraid.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor now for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Forbes, I'd like to take advantage of your presence here today to go back to the Canada Emergency Business Account, the CEBA, given that the program was established during the pandemic.

And I don't know whether you've seen it, but a note that includes a partial analysis of what a one-year postponement of the CEBA would cost was distributed this morning.

Have you done an analysis at the Department of Finance of the costs and benefits of a one-year postponement of the CEBA?

[Chris Forbes]

We've done several analyses of the deadlines for loan repayment.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Could you please give them to us?

[Chris Forbes]

Of course, I'll look into what we can send you.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Okay.

Have you done any analyses of the potential impact of not extending the deadline for loan repayment—business bankruptcies, for instance? Many companies are unable to borrow from financial institutions or to repay the loan they received from the Canada Emergency Benefit Account. If the deadline is not extended, they will lose the $20,000 loan forgiveness and will have to repay their $60,000 government loan over the next three years at a 5% interest rate.

These businesses are seriously considering bankruptcy. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, over 200,000 businesses are in that position.

Has the impact of bankruptcies been assessed? Has the snowball effect of bankruptcies, including repercussions on jobs and suppliers, been evaluated? Even if only 1% of the 200,000 businesses were to declare bankruptcy, that would amount to 2,000 bankruptcies at the same time. That would be problematic.

Has the Department of Finance taken these impacts into consideration?

[Chris Forbes]

I don't have any numbers on bankruptcy forecasts linked to the closing of the program.

The program was of course established during the COVID‑19 pandemic. It's only to be expected that programs like that should end now that the pandemic is over.