Government Operations Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2006

[Janice Charette]

I attempted to explain the criteria that the minister has articulated. We have not actually finalized the call for proposals. We'll be giving our advice to the minister on that, and she has indicated that she'll be tendering it publicly by January 2007.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Which department financed the court challenges program? Is that financed by Treasury Board?

[Robert Fonberg]

No, I believe it's a Heritage program.

[David Moloney]

Canadian Heritage.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Can I add a little question about the youth employment program that you're going to tender in January?

Will you continue to have allocations per riding, will you go more per region, or will you just go across Canada and then decide afterwards? In the past, as you know, there were amounts per riding for the summer placement program, MPs were asked to sign off, etc. Will that continue?

[Janice Charette]

We have not finalized the criteria for the call for proposals. We are putting together our advice for the minister, and that will be coming out in January. Frankly, I can't say more than what the minister has already said about what her intentions are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

In your advice to the minister, I'd like you to consider the fact that in many regions of the country, it's very difficult for us to keep young people. We particularly like this program because it gives us a chance to have them stay in the community and oftentimes make contacts that help them to perhaps, when they finish, come back and stay in the community. I hope you keep that as a criterion, because sometimes it can be very difficult for us if our children, our young people, don't get work in the community and then leave for Toronto and Ottawa and never come back.

[Janice Charette]

Obviously, I've taken note of your comments, Madam Chair, and we'll also make sure those are passed along to the minister.

And because I'm not a mathematician, luckily my comptroller is here with her magic calculator. It is 0.01%.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That makes the point even stronger. Again, I'm going to have a hard time explaining that to the 30-some people in my riding.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mrs. Chair.

Thank you very much for coming in, all of you who are involved in presenting here today.

I noted that on October 17, when Minister Baird was before us, the question was put to him with regards to the government's practice of allocating funds into certain programs and then never spending that money.

I sit on the heritage committee as well, and there was a discussion or a question about specific funding for the MAP, the museums funding. What we found within the program was that in the past there's been allocation, but there were amounts that weren't spent. So it wasn't necessarily cut, but there was an allocation and the money was not spent.

I imagine this might be a problem that is widespread throughout other government departments. Did you find that in this review process, allocations of dollars that weren't being spent? What was done with that discovery?

[David Moloney]

In fact, there are around 20 or so specific measures that are identified and set out in the news release, areas where we had found that funds were not being used. They had either been set aside for something that did not proceed or the program's objectives were being met without those funds being taken up.

Anywhere we found such moneys--and we did, as the news release points out, find $379.6 million over two years--we proposed those to the president, who proposed them to cabinet, as being savings that should be returned to the fiscal framework for reallocation.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So $380 million was just sitting there unspent. Obviously, it seems like a reasonable thing to bring that back in to be considered for reallocation.

In your opinion, as managers of these funds, do you feel that this is a wise practice for government to be engaged in?

[David Moloney]

These were funds that had been provided for in budgets in the past to achieve a particular objective that cabinet had approved. The experience is showing that these funds were not needed or there had been a change of plan and those programs were not going forward, but we were basically still asking Parliament to approve the funds.

So in terms of accurately asking Parliament for moneys that would be spent for purposes, we certainly should be correcting that.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

As far as transparency goes, I do appreciate your involvement in that, because as parliamentarians we're able to do a better job if we know that we're not approving spending that's never going to happen anyways. So we do appreciate that.

I noticed when Minister Baird was here earlier he also talked about the fact that some jobs would be affected but that there wouldn't be, hopefully, any job losses within the civil service. Can anybody discuss that further, as to how that process will happen if there's any movement within departments or within certain programs?

[David Moloney]

The number that I believe the president mentioned to the committee at that previous meeting was that there are normally somewhere over 6,000 individuals who would leave the public service in a normal year. Last year it was over 7,000. So we're talking here about a number of 300 or less. That's quite modest in terms of that normal turnover, so one would expect there to be opportunities for the individuals in positions that might be affected to in fact move into those other areas.

In addition, the government is proposing additional programs to be put in place, the over $4 billion net increase in spending, some of which would be proposed to fund direct programs from the government. So we would expect some net employment increase as well as that overall turnover.

It is true that there are programs in place should individuals not be able to be redeployed to another position. Individuals have assistance available to them. They have rights. The employer has obligations to those people.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Could you contrast this with the situation that the Liberals found themselves in the mid-1990s? I know there were significant reductions in spending, and a lot of civil servants lost their jobs during that time. Do you know approximately what the numbers were during the 1990s when the cuts were so severe?

[David Moloney]

If memory serves, between program reviews one and two in 1995 and 1996, the amount totaled 55,000 positions—that's off the top of my head.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So 55,000 jobs were lost.

[David Moloney]

Between the two.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Martin talked earlier, saying he felt personally victimized by some of these cuts. I met with one of the literacy groups in my constituency, and this was before the cuts even happened. This is a group of volunteers who work very hard to raise money and teach the most vulnerable people in our society to read and write. They came to my office and said that what worried them the most and what they felt most attacked by, in the federal programs for literacy, was that if they wanted to put on a symposium, they could find funding. If they wanted to put out a study, they could find funding; if they wanted to put up a big banner or poster, they could find funding through the federal government. But in terms of trying to teach another person one-on-one to actually read, they couldn't access federal funding.

I was astounded by that. I was shocked that with all the money we spend, none of it was getting to—at least our local organization wasn't able to—teach somebody to read. I thought that's what literacy programs should be oriented towards.

Is it the intent of the ministry now to move towards reallocating funding? Or has it been discussed within the ministry, as to putting more money towards teaching people to read?

[Janice Charette]

I think if you look in the report on plans and priorities, it sets out what the objectives of this particular program are: adult learning, literacy, and essential skills programs. It's really about funding activities that support learning, rather than actually direct learning in accordance with what the federal government's role is in this area.

I think Minister Finley has said on a few occasions now that what she has asked is that the funding under this program be better targeted on national priorities and around achieving concrete results and measurable outcomes. I think that's certainly the direction we've been given in terms of processing the calls for proposals.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I appreciate that. I know that our local literacy groups will be very excited that this is the direction the ministry is moving.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much.

I must say that I object a bit to your thoughts, because I've seen some of the groups in my riding, and they coordinate the volunteers. With very little money, they do a great deal of teaching. They don't pay for teachers, but they bring in all the volunteers who then go out to teach people. It's a very big challenge.