Government Operations Committee on Oct. 5th, 2010

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

I would first like to ask Mr. Page a question. In your speech today, on page 3 of the English version, you said you encountered so many challenges in getting information that you had to use results from annual surveys by Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada, and from provincial and territorial correctional departments themselves.

I would imagine that's not your normal way of doing things, am I right?

[Kevin Page]

It is normal to work with figures that are available to anyone, such as the information in the report on plans and priorities and all the information from Statistics Canada.

In terms of the bill that has a significant impact on the provinces and territories, we had to work with each province separately.

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

Could we go back to my motion? I think that's important.

Last April, you asked the committee to support your work. You asked the department and the Treasury Board to provide you or the committee with the relevant documents so you can do your work.

Is that request still valid now, as of 10:10 a.m. this morning?

[Kevin Page]

Yes, we still need the same information—a fiscal risk analysis and a service level analysis.

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

You still need the same information.

Mr. Chair, I think it is ridiculous that Mr. Page, who is the parliamentary budget officer and is at the service of the members of Parliament, cannot do his job properly. Once again, there is a lack of transparency. The government is holding back the information.

How are we supposed to do our job as MPs when the information is kept secret and we do not have everything we need to get our work done? It is unfortunate, and I hope my colleagues in the committee will join me and adopt this motion so that we can have Mr. Page back in two or three weeks and get accurate data.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Bourgeois.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I was listening to my colleague from the Bloc, Diane, and I couldn't agree with her more. The estimates process is a fundamental cornerstone in the way we conduct ourselves in our parliamentary democracy. It hasn't been appreciated fully in recent years, I don't believe.

I come from Manitoba, where the estimates are scrutinized. A minister has to sit in front of a committee sometimes for 12 hours while they are grilled on their estimates--not after the fact on what they spent but what they intend to spend and how they justify that budget line. We don't do any of that here. The only tool we have is the newly created Parliamentary Budget Officer. I'm very concerned. The public has a right to know what their government is doing with their money.

I'd like to use what little time I have to ask you specifically, what types of questions were you putting where they use the excuse that, no, I'm sorry, that would be a cabinet confidence? Where did you run into that problem? I too am concerned about the bracket creep that's going on that is expanding what we used to consider to be legitimate cabinet confidences.

[Kevin Page]

We've had three items here today, and with respect to one of the items, on the infrastructure stimulus fund, as I said, we've had fairly good discourse with departmental officials. They were sharing information. We've had issues that we've shared with them in terms of quality of data, but I think the relationship has been good and helpful for parliamentarians.

With respect to our being able to provide the type of fiscal risk analysis and service-level risk analysis, we had asked--and we posted this information, our request, on our PBO website for all parliamentarians and Canadians to see--the Treasury Board Secretariat to give five-year reference level information for departments so we can start to analyze what the impact of freezing operational spending will be over a couple of years, and what the impact would be on a specific department. As we've seen here today, we have one department that even according to its plans and priorities is going to be growing roughly at 13% a year. If one department is growing at 13% a year and we have operational spending fairly flat, somebody else is going to be taking a fairly substantive reduction.

It's important for us to see that whole scope of departments so we can present to parliamentarians that broader landscape. Again, in that kind of question we were saying five-year reference levels, and anything that goes beyond the main estimates numbers is a cabinet confidence.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Sorry, Mr. Page. Can you say that again: anything that goes beyond....

[Kevin Page]

Beyond what's available through the main estimates documents. In this case, what's available is 2010 and 2011 as it gets updated through the supplementary estimates.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So when you get into planning and priorities that becomes....

[Kevin Page]

We provided a very detailed spreadsheet, department by department, for Treasury Board Secretariat officials so they could fill it out. They still came back and said this is a cabinet confidence.

With respect to some of our costing exercises, again, it's different. For anything with respect to the Truth in Sentencing Act, I think the government's policy said that officially this is a cabinet confidence. They provided no estimates to Parliament while this was being debated. We saw $90 million go into the estimates for 2010-11 and we didn't see any numbers in terms of the fiscal impact numbers come out until after we started putting our numbers out and some of our numbers were being discussed. We're starting to see more numbers come out in dribs and drabs in terms of the number of additional cells required. Everything was a cabinet confidence when we were having these conversations trying to cost this, starting this exercise back in the late fall of 2009.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's useful for us to know, but it's also of great concern. If you're trying to garner the public's support for a policy, why do you wrap it in a shroud of secrecy? If your plan of action has merit, one would think you would want to tell people about it to garner their support and pitch it to them that you're governing well. It strikes me as contrary. There's nothing to be gained by wrapping what you're planning to do in a shroud of secrecy.

I think we've exposed a real problem here that's becoming a hallmark, not just in this area but in terms of denying the public's right to know, in access to information that is not a matter of national security. For some reason their default position is secrecy instead of open government. It seems to me we're going completely in the wrong direction in that regard. But we will support you as much as we can in your efforts to help us understand more about what the government's estimates are.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Martin. Unfortunately, we're out of time.

Monsieur Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. It is very interesting.

Mr. Page, we talked about infrastructure programs. Could you tell me whether the forecasts in your speech are based on the report from June 30 or the one from March 31?

[Kevin Page]

We will be very happy to update our numbers, and we will update them in terms of lapsed estimates for the infrastructure program based on different scenarios as well. As we move forward it will be really important for parliamentarians--and it may be a bit late--once we get the data that really captures the activity through the summer, that we get a really good sense of where the level of risk really is.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

The infrastructure and construction work went well during the summer. Work has been done in all the provinces. We are talking about a large number of projects, more than 20,000 projects that are in progress or that have already been completed. You are certainly going to have the list of completed or nearly completed projects in the next few days, aren't you?

[Peter Weltman]

The database is from March 31. As a result, we only have a list of completed projects, which represents roughly 9%. We are waiting for an updated list.

So we don't have any information on what's happening today and what's going to be completed soon enough. Hopefully, with the June data we'll be closer to that.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

What you told us today is based on data from March 31. So we are missing six months of infrastructure work. Correct me if I am wrong, but the missing six months are surely the same months during which all the work had to get done. It was the summer season and the contracts had been awarded. I think those data will be much more reliable once we have them. The estimates we currently have are perhaps fear-mongering. I think you believe that most of the projects will be completed. You suggested three different scenarios: one that includes the total amount spent, another that is more difficult and a third that is even more difficult.

We would appreciate it if you could provide us with the data for the six months during which a lot of work has been done on these projects. That will give us a clearer idea of the situation.

[Kevin Page]

Yes, sir. Thank you. We agree--and it has been highlighted in our report--that the summer of 2010 has been a very high-impact period for the infrastructure stimulus fund. Outlays of the fund have been almost as much as $1 billion per month. This is a key month, so you're absolutely right it's very important for us to get this information in front of parliamentarians when we get the updated data from Infrastructure Canada. We're excited and we're looking forward to seeing that data. It will be very important.

We didn't mean to be alarmists when we put the data out based on March 31 data, but as a legislative budget office we wanted parliamentarians to have the benefit of having the most current information we had available. That was our purpose. We provided three scenarios. We didn't provide a probability on each scenario.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Gourde, are you done?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

That's great, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Before we go to Mr. Regan, colleagues, there is a motion on the table from Madame Bourgeois. I should have waited till she returned. What I need guidance on is whether we take ten minutes at the end of this meeting or do we postpone dealing with this motion to the beginning of the next?

You'll be happy to take the whole half-hour.

Okay, so the questioning of Mr. Page and his colleagues will end at 10:35, then.

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Page, let me get back to a question I had earlier. I mentioned the Dartmouth correctional centre. Will this bill and the other things the government's been doing in this area cause more overcrowding in provincial jails? Is that your sense?