Government Operations Committee on March 5th, 2009

[Alister Smith]

Mr. Martin, I do not want to try to speak for the Auditor General on this. That's the nature of my response. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on what she would say.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

No. I wouldn't ask you to, but I also don't think it's really proper for anyone to let the public believe that this has the Auditor General's Good Housekeeping seal of approval, because we don't know that. A previous Auditor General said about a vote 5:

...the basic principle at the root of our concerns is simple: spending by departments must have the prior sanction of Parliament.

And this is not the case. You're saying that everything in a vote 5 has the prior sanction of Parliament. In 2002 the Auditor General had grave concerns about the process.

[Alister Smith]

Mr. Martin, with respect, we've had a contingency vote, Treasury Board vote 5, for I believe well over 100 years.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes, but since 1968, every year the Auditor General has found fault with the process. We went that far back.

[Alister Smith]

Perhaps I'll allow my colleague, Mr. Pagan, who is more expert on this vote than I am, to comment.

We've worked very hard with committees and with the Auditor General to meet both the need for the flexibility of a contingency vote to deal with urgent situations or unforeseen circumstances that face Canadians and the needs of the committees for clear rules and guidance on how this vote is used. I'm not aware of any additional criticism by the Auditor General of the wording of the vote in recent years.

Perhaps I could ask my colleague, Mr. Pagan--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Maybe I can do that on my own after the fact, Mr. Pagan. I could see you personally.

Another concern I have is the sheer volume of activity that you're going to be asked to undertake in the coming months. If it normally takes two to three months to have a proposal approved by Treasury Board, and this volume of activity is going to be squeezed in above and beyond all the normal activity at Treasury Board, from April 1 to June 30. Don't you have a huge logistical human resources problem if nothing else? If you're going to apply the same due diligence, how in God's name are you going to cope with that volume of activity?

[Alister Smith]

Well, Mr. Martin, there's no question that the entire civil service and all the departments that are involved in budget implementation are working extremely hard to bring this budget to fruition. So without question, there's a tremendous burden on all public servants who are charged with these responsibilities.

But, again, this period from April to June is a start-up period. This is not the end of the process by any stretch—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

No, but that's when the approvals will take place. Business cases will have to be put to Treasury Board personnel, who have to assess those business cases—

[Alister Smith]

But we're talking about a $40 billion program over two years, and this is the $3 billion start-up part of it. So there's a huge amount of more work to be done after that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I understand. With my last moment, can you explain the difference: three-twelfths is the normal request; we're asking for eleventh-twelfths. Please run it by me again so I understand the significance of that difference.

[Alister Smith]

Yes. Normally in interim supply we ask for three-twelfths to start up. In fact, Parliament typically does approve something in the order of $25 billion of spending before committees go into detail on the plans.

Every year we do ask for some increases beyond three-twelfths for certain departments, for certain needs, up to eleven-twelfths. In this particular case we're asking for eleven-twelfths, which is the maximum we can ask for, to allow for a fund of about $2.7 billion of that $3 billion to be available in April and the remainder on full supply in June.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You see, what worries people in my party is that when it was three-twelfths there was a leap of faith, and we'd approve that and go ahead and get rolling with that three-twelfths. You still had nine-twelfths that would be under better scrutiny. Now you're asking for eleven-twelfths, a leap of faith on the eleven-twelfths, and that's where the term “blank cheque”, etc., comes from that my Liberal colleagues are using. We share those concerns.

[Alister Smith]

Well, these are for items that are in the budget that has been approved, so—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But not just chapter 3. We were told in the briefing it would be only section 3 of the budget. Now we learn it can be anywhere in the budget. Is that true?

[Alister Smith]

I think the vast majority is in the economic action plan, which is really in chapter 3. It's a very large chapter.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But is that eleven-twelfths spending limited to chapter 3, or could it find itself anywhere in the budget?

[Alister Smith]

That's the guidance that we have provided departments, that it will be chapter 3.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Now, colleagues, we have to be out of here just before the top of the hour and we have two other individuals who want to ask questions. I'm going to arbitrarily cut the time to two and a half minutes each. I'll be very strict. I have two questions myself and we have a routine motion to pass.

Ms. Hall Findlay, two and a half minutes to you.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

I wanted to clarify just a couple of things. I understand that the $3 billion applies to buckets already in the budget. We understand this isn't an additional $3 billion blank cheque. The request in vote 35 is to have $3 billion of that large amount budgeted not subject to the normal process of the mains and estimates, the normal oversight process that one would go through.

[Alister Smith]

I'm sorry, if I may correct you there, it is subject to the normal process we follow in approving items for, say, supplementary estimates. There's no difference. Indeed, we may see some items where we would draw on the central vote for the first installment and then into supps A or supps B for remaining funding. So it's the same process.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

All right.

Then if that process is gone through, once the due diligence is done internally there will be a knowledge of whether a project will actually be approved or not, yes? And therefore the money would start to flow?

[Alister Smith]

That's correct.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Right. At that point, then, that information should be made available to parliamentarians, yes?

[Alister Smith]

That's correct, and all allocations from this vote will be communicated to Parliament.