Government Operations Committee on June 20th, 2006

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

Essentially, the model at the present is a mix, where we do have a functional relationship with the Comptroller General and a hierarchical relationship with the deputy minister. You have a matrix kind of relationship, so there are some problems. My people talk with the chief audit executive of every department to make sure that when we need to know it, we know it. But at the same time, they are accountable to their deputy ministers.

On top of it, we have audit committees that are being formed at the moment that will be providing the governance to make sure that if there are some problems, they're going to surface.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

This is my last question.

Governance is important. On the concept of accrual accounting—and I've seen you a few times with the gun registry, etc.—departments seem to do it on a cash-modified basis and the government does its statements on an accrual accounting basis, and it creates apples and pears.

Can you tell me when you're moving to a consolidated basis and an equal accrual accounting basis? When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen?

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

Thank you very much for the question.

As I mentioned last time, together with my colleague, we just received the recent study on that issue. We must brief the president to review the various concepts, and this committee--and I believe the public accounts committee--has decided to have a review in the fall so that the president will be able to take a position at that time.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We also received the Auditor General's report, which raises the exact concern, and I think it's something I take seriously and would like to see resolved expeditiously, this fiscal year if possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much.

Madame Thibault for seven minutes.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Baird, I want to thank you and your colleagues for joining us. Some of us have already had an opportunity to get together over the past few weeks to discuss the Auditor General's report, specifically chapters 1, 4 and 7.

I'd like to start with chapter 7 in which mention is made of an audit by the Auditor General of the practice of leasing office space. I discovered, as did my constituents and a number of other people, that inevitably with the existing system and mechanisms in place, the government often ended up choosing the less economical, and therefore, the most costly option. We were dumbfounded by this revelation. The reason is tied to the whole question of accrual accounting as opposed to the cash basis of accounting. Our colleague just talked to us about that issue.

Even though you're waiting to discuss this with your colleagues, I'd like to know your opinion on the subject -- you mentioned Bill C-2 -- as a responsible, accountable official. In light of the situation, do you intend to commit to bringing in accrual accounting, barring a revelation of messianic proportions?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I took the Auditor General's findings very seriously. We're looking at ways to implement policies in order to do a better job. Obviously, I'm not here to make excuses for the previous government, but the examples cited in the AG's report are very serious.

Why would a department sign a one-year lease rather than a five-year or twenty-year lease? Short-term leases are far more costly. We will work with the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Mr. Fortier, to formulate a better policy and to ensure regulatory compliance.

In Montreal, for instance, the minister has indicated that he wants to remain in his present location. However, other office space has already been rented for his department. That's unacceptable. Of course, if several departments could be relocated outside of Ottawa, not necessarily to large cities, but to municipalities with populations of less than 200,000, it would be less expensive. For example, it might be more productive to have employees from different departments working in a region like Trois-Rivières, Fort McMurray, Kingston or Rimouski. That way, they would be more in tune with the goings-on of other departments with regional offices.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

You were told by your people that we would be discussing a motion this morning about an ongoing situation, namely the number of federal government employees working in the Outaouais. Currently, 19% of federal employees work on the Quebec side of the river, while the remaining 81% work in Ottawa. Last week, you acknowledged in the House that the ratio should be 25:75.

How do you plan to rebalance the numbers and how quickly can you redress the situation in a timely fashion, given your responsibility over this area?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I believe the actual figure is 21 or 23%, not 18 or 19%.

These figures apply to the actual number of federal employees in the Outaouais. I want to be certain that we're on the same page, because this is an important question.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I can tell you that this is equivalent to 7,000 jobs, more or less. That's a substantial number.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I agree.

I admit that my colleague Mr. Cannon, the Minister responsible for Quebec, and your colleague from Gatineau, have brought this situation to my attention.

I don't have a problem with the 25% target. I agree with the policy. We want to work with PWGSC to determine how best to achieve this objective.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Then you won't encounter any problems if you move fairly quickly to achieve this target?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

That depends on the lease term. In the case of a twenty-year lease, it's much more difficult...

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I'm talking here about committing to this target. That is the issue, is it not?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes. I support the 25% standard. We will submit the figures to your committee and to your colleagues from Gatineau and we will discuss how best to attain the 25% target.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Fine. Thank you.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

It's much easier to work on this because the public service is involved. It's much more difficult when we're dealing with Crown corporations because we don't make all of the decisions in their case.

Consider, for example, the RCMP which, by law, must be headquartered in Ottawa. It's impossible for 25%t of its workforce to be located on the Quebec side. However, there is no reason why that cannot be the case for public service employees.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

You're not implying that laws cannot be amended, are you?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Certainly not. I'm saying there are already regulations in effect respecting the public services and it's important that the government comply with them.

I'm not in a position to make excuses for the former government. However, I do know that my colleagues representing Pontiac and Gatineau will be looking at this issue very closely.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Indeed. Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Go ahead, Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

I would be remiss if I didn't first offer one simple word of congratulation, first of all, from all the prison guards across this country, who are absolutely delighted, after four years of impasse, that they have a resolution. On behalf of the number within my own constituency and across Canada, thank you very kindly for settling that issue.

On another matter, the initiatives that were launched by your predecessor in a number of fields—administrative services being shared, expenditure management, information systems, etc., and other similar programs—have you had a chance to evaluate a number of these initiatives? Do you think your department and/or the ministry will be accepting some of those initiatives that have been started, or will you be eliminating any of them?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'll say two things quickly, and then I'll ask the associate secretary to comment.

There is the opportunity for some savings with respect to shared administrative services. The government already does a significant amount of this. For example, we don't have a security branch at Treasury Board; we simply share one with the finance department. Since we're co-located, there are huge opportunities there.

I'm always very skeptical of grand designs to make things bigger, as to whether that genuinely leads to savings, so I should say in some respects I'm very, very skeptical.

On the second issue, one of the mandates that I received in Mr. Flaherty's budget is to come up with a good expenditure management system. Since the country was in large deficits, there was so much centralization of expenditure reductions, and then once we got to surplus there really hasn't been a revisiting of that, so decisions are taken very narrowly. What do we do to manage priorities? Simply because something is coming up for renewal doesn't mean it's top priority. There may be something that has received funding that would be higher on the radar screens of all members. So we're looking at a system coming forward some time later in the year to facilitate good decision-making.

I'll ask the associate secretary to comment in greater detail.

[Linda Lizotte-MacPherson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

There are two parts to your question. I'll address the first part related to corporate administrative services, then I'll ask my colleague, David Moloney, to speak to the expenditure management information system.

Over the last number of years, the government has done a number of significant studies to explore shared services. Essentially, the conclusion from those early studies was that moving to more of a shared approach for corporate administrative services is certainly desirable. So work is currently under way at the secretariat to further scope and access the viability, and then if we were to move forward, to what an implementation plan might look like.

We're working very closely with the policy centres, the Office of the Comptroller General, and with the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency. We're also working with 12 departments, representing about 20% of government, to take a closer look at their current environment, problems, and stand, and then at what might a way forward look like, so some implementation options—

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Do you have any timeframe when you might expect the...?