Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2009

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

You gave 2009-10. It was $2.3 billion total, and you had $349 million for--

[Alister Smith]

Yes, the savings identified in this last round, the 2008 round, were $349 million for 2009-10 and $449 million for 2010-11, rising to $586 million for 2011-12. Of course, as I mentioned before, there are reinvestments, which offset those reallocations.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Are 2012-13 and 2013-14 similar?

[Alister Smith]

I'm sorry, I don't have those figures.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you, colleagues.

To the witnesses, thank you very much for appearing today. You may withdraw at this point in time, as we get into some other business.

We'll stay on the record.

First of all, we have to deal with two motions put forward by Mr. Calandra. We don't have to vote on them today, but I am going to put them on the agenda. We've had notice of them. The steering committee has not had a chance to review them. You will have copies in front of you.

I will comment about each. It would be most appropriate not to actually move the motion and to put them today, but to take a decision to deal with them in the course of our future business.

Mr. Calandra may want to speak to either one of them. I'll offer you the opportunity to do that, Mr. Calandra, rather than putting the motion. Would you like to just outline your proposals? Both of them are fairly straightforward.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

The motion on accrual accounting was based on a letter the committee received from the Auditor General expressing some disappointment that we actually didn't look into that matter, so I thought perhaps we should do so. I have such a great interest in accrual accounting that I thought it would generate much excitement in this committee during my time.

The second one is again pretty straightforward. It is with respect to the demographic challenges. This issue has been brought up a number of times in committee by many different members. I'm not sure what our schedule looks like--

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you for that.

On the first one, the accrual budgeting issue, I'm informed that the committee did report on this subject. They did a study and a report in the last Parliament, so I don't think the Auditor General would have been critical or disappointed that we had done that.

Could I ask our researcher? Lydia, are you aware of this comment by the Auditor General?

[Lydia Scratch, Committee Researcher]

I'm not actually aware of the letter that the Auditor General sent to the committee, so I can't really speak to that. I know the committee did make a report on this matter a couple of years ago. It made some recommendations, and the government has responded to those recommendations, so it would be a matter of whether or not they're fulfilling their obligations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Go ahead, Madame Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I sat on the committee that reviewed accrual accounting. This committee produced a report and received a letter from the President of Treasury Board saying that it intended to apply accrual accounting. In a letter the Auditor General advised the committee to make sure that the implemented planning included indicators of time and performance, because there was an issue. Treasury Board said that it could not implement accrual accounting in less than five or ten years, whereas the committee, after more than 15 years of study, requested that it be implemented on a regular basis. Therefore, it is up to this committee to ensure that time and performance indicators be provided to it so that the implementation of accrual accounting be done in three or five years instead of ten years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I was going to suggest that we have our researcher package the status of this issue, the correspondence on it, and the reply, if any, from the government to the sixth report.

I think we're looking at one meeting that would essentially update us on where we are with reference to accrual budgeting. We can build that into our work plan.

If that's acceptable, then we'll simply ask Lydia to do the workup on it, and then we'll build it into our near future schedule.

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Could we bring the Auditor General in, as well?

I was on the committee that looked at this originally. We want to make sure we're on top of this, as a committee. It seems, and it has seemed so over the years, that where this has come up as an issue from time to time, there's been a reluctance on behalf of the governments, of successive stripes, to implement it. Because it is costly, it is time-consuming, and there always seem to be other issues that come along.

I think the Auditor General will make some good points.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That is not true.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

I didn't want to have a full debate on this.

Could I suggest that we consult with the Office of the Auditor General on this issue before we bring it back to committee? There may be disagreements between members about what happened two or three years ago. I think we'll just bring it back. Let Ms. Scratch do a workup, consult with the Office of the Auditor General, and we'll probably have a meaningful one meeting for that.

The second item of Mr. Calandra's proposal is the so-called demographic challenges of the public service. I am proposing to ask the Public Service Commission to appear, on the matter of their own estimates, on March 31. During that meeting there will be ample opportunity to inquire into that issue of the demographic challenge in the public service. Coming out of that meeting, if members felt they wanted to sink their teeth into the broader cross-departmental, sociological, demographic issues associated with that, then we could plan that. But we'd need to do a bit of a workup.

Mr. Warkentin.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

That was this Thursday that this was being proposed, is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

No, it would be a week from today--next Tuesday.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

It would be Tuesday, March 31, and we would have the Public Service Commission, with its chair, and the other individuals who would normally come on estimates.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I'm going to beg of you, as chair, as well as my committee colleagues, to possibly push that back a little further. The reason I would like to do that is for my own efforts on this whole issue of classification creep. I have been doing some work on the side with regard to this. I think at some point we maybe want to have a discussion, as a committee.

I would like to bring Madame Barrados back when I'm a little better prepared to question her publicly.

I know I'm asking for a lot from my committee colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Are you asking for a couple of days or a couple of weeks?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Possibly a week, if the schedule would allow it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

To be frank, there's nothing wrong with your request; it's just that you might be giving us a holiday we hadn't planned on.

I can also point out that the Public Service Commission actually likes to come to Parliament, because they don't have a supervising minister. So I am very confident that--

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

She'll come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Yes. The whole team would be delighted to be here, on an invitation from Mr. Warkentin on that issue, and other associated issues. I don't think there's any obstacle here. You can hold that issue until you're ready to take out the knife.