Evidence of meeting #4 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was advertising.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I'm right. Thank you. I appreciate that. I defer to Mr. Wallace.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Then what we're voting on today, if I have this right, is the $15 million, or whatever it is, for advertising--is that correct?--and the $234,400,000 for the Nova Scotia payment, which I agree with Mr. Pacetti should have been budgeted long before this.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
But you're taking the reduction in the interest charge against that in a sense, so what we're voting on here today is in brackets. Is that not correct?
Corporate Services Branch, Department of Finance
The statutory items are there for information only. No vote is associated with it. The two items, you are also correct, the $15 million for the advertising in our vote 1 for operating and the $234 million in vote 5 grants and contributions for the Nova Scotia payment, because it is not statutory, require Parliament's approval.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So $50 million for advertising, $234 million for Nova Scotia--you save $2.1 billion in interest charges and then there are these other informational ones on which there is no vote.
Regarding the public transit and the police officers fund that Ms. Hall Findlay talked about and the others here, why were those amounts not in the original authorities?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Yes, they would have been. Effectively they were, and that was the Budget Implementation Act, 2008. They're here for information only.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
If they were, and now they're here again, does that mean they've lapsed?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
No. The payments were made. We're reporting them here for information only.
Corporate Services Branch, Department of Finance
A point of clarity. The legislation that allowed for those payments was independent of the estimates approval, but all items that have financial implications are put into the estimates document so that Parliament can see how much they've voted and how much they've approved through stand-alone legislation. The timing was such that when the main estimates for 2008-09 were put together, the budget implementation bill had not passed; therefore, this is the first opportunity. It may seem late because this would normally happen in the fall, but it was the first opportunity to present it to Parliament through the expenditure plan.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So this money is out the door at this time.
As a point of information, last Thursday the parliamentary budget officer said that 50% of the infrastructure money lapsed, aside from the gas transfer money. When it lapses, presumably it goes back into the government's piggy bank. What happens to it at that point? Does it still retain its ability to go back out to the program in a vote?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
The government has committed to a block amount of $33 billion for the infrastructure programs, and when it lapses those moneys are pulled forward to future years.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Let's be clear. We had this discussion this morning. The existing $33 billion infrastructure program, which is before the 2009 budget amounts, is reprofiled to future years when it lapses. The governing principle behind the new moneys that have been announced in the 2009 budget is use it or lose it. So if those lapse, they are gone; they go to the bottom line, effectively.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
All right. That's interesting information.
I think the budget officer said that the government didn't get out about $1 billion of the $2.3 billion. That is my vague recollection—$1.1 billion on $2.3 billion; I think those are the numbers. Therefore, that $1.1 billion has just been moved forward into the overall program. But if that same thing happens and you are sitting here this time next year with new moneys, that money would be gone. Okay. Thank you for that clarification.
You have a transfer to CIDA. I'm not quite sure how I read that. Does it mean that CIDA is giving the money back to Finance, or is it that you're sending the money to it? It looks like only $2 million.
Corporate Services Branch, Department of Finance
It is only $2 million, and it was provided to CIDA because it has the program responsibility to deal in this area with the World Bank. It was an amount that Finance identified to help contribute towards that initiative.
If you'll notice, again, in the front of the supplementary estimates, there are several pages of transfers between programs, which require Parliament's authority, but in effect it's several departments contributing towards an objective over which one department has ultimate responsibility. The money is moved—it's frozen, actually, in the department it comes from—and Parliament votes it in the receiving department. There are several examples of that in the front of the estimates book. This happens to be the last one in the table, but it's a small one.
Corporate Services Branch, Department of Finance
Well, in the estimates under CIDA, it has a $2 million increase to show that change, so the identification as the source of the money is Finance, which is there as information, and then basically CIDA gets the increase in its appropriation order to spend money.
