Finance Committee on Nov. 15th, 2007

[Paul Rochon]

That was purely an operating assumption.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I have just two quick questions. My time is limited.

Can you just quickly take me through, for example—I'll just take any line, and I think Mr. Wallace was asking about this—the amount of money that's for the clean air and climate change. This money gets transferred to Environment—$1.5 billion—and then what happens to that money?

The amount of $1.5 billion gets transferred to Environment. Take me through it.

[Barbara Anderson]

This was a trust fund set up.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Right.

[Barbara Anderson]

As soon as the budget was passed—

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

So the money goes into the trust fund. What happens after that?

[Barbara Anderson]

Then the provinces draw it down as they wish.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Does Finance forget about it and never track it again? It is off your books and it's....

[Barbara Anderson]

It is off our books.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

So it's no longer your responsibility, but it becomes the responsibility of the fund?

[Barbara Anderson]

The responsibility for administering the fund remains with the Department of Finance.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

It's with the Department of Finance? Okay.

My last question, since I have a little bit of time left, is for FINTRAC. Nobody really spoke about it, but tell me why we should vote for the $5.4 million. I guess the question is not only why should I, but—the explanation is very vague—what my return is going to be at the end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Do you have an answer now, or do you want to come back to it?

[Barbara Jordan, Deputy Director, Strategies and Partnership, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada]

No, I'm fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, go ahead.

[Barbara Jordan]

I'm Barbara Jordan, with FINTRAC. Good afternoon.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Do you have the question? It's just about the $5.4 million. Why should we be voting for it? It says, “to bolster the combat against the laundering of proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorist activities”. It sounds great. I feel like I'm in the United States of America.

Tell me what I'm going to get for this $5.4 million.

[Barbara Jordan]

This reflects money that was included in Budget 2006. It's for changes to our legislation that expanded our mandate. We will be introducing a registry for money services businesses to enhance compliance with our activities or with our act.

We will also be—

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I just want to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Very quickly; you're over time.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Just quickly, because I know I'm at the end of my time, I want to know whether there will be targets and whether I will be able to say next year that you guys did a good job with this $5.4 million and that you achieved all the targets or achieved your goals.

[Barbara Jordan]

We will have implemented an administrative monetary penalty system and a money services business registry, so we will have expanded our activities quite significantly and will be in a position to demonstrate that a year hence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Wallace, you have three minutes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Just to finish up on my comments, my experience has been that for organizations I have dealt with, including those at the municipal level, we set up performance evaluations or performance guidelines and were able to evaluate them a lot more quickly, to see how we did that year.

I have no complaints about the finance department. Here, we're so far away from it. But when I look at the supplementary estimates and the actual budget that's here, how much of it is the cost of actually running Finance, the staffing of Finance? What is the number here?

When I look at vote 1(a) in the supps, I see it talks about operating expenditures, but it talks about supporting ministries and so forth. I can't see where to see how much the Department of Finance is actually spending.

[Coleen Volk]

It is really vote 1 that you're looking at. It's in the neighbourhood of $90 million.