Government Operations Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[Kevin Page]

It was a voluntary survey, yes, sir.

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

You are fairly confident it was an accurate analysis. The responses given were honest and genuine and fairly reflect the information you are giving us.

[Kevin Page]

Well, sir, again, we could have worked with some 1,100 organizations in the analysis that was provided to you today. We got responses for some 640. We worked with a private sector firm that won a contract to implement the survey. They did pre-test interviews. They helped us construct the survey independently. We had a statistician from a local university do the analysis to see whether the results were statistically significant.

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

You were pretty comfortable with that. You didn't threaten to put anybody in the PBO jail.

[Kevin Page]

No, sir.

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

Okay. I just wanted to make sure.

There was some discussion a bit earlier. I think it was Madame Bourgeois--it was not Madame Bourgeois, I apologize--who brought up the CBC and some of the reductions we're asking of them. It was $14 million on an over $1 billion budget.

As you know, since we were elected we've opened up access to information quite dramatically, and I think 70 different organizations are now accountable to taxpayers. Of course, we have been having a great deal of difficulty having the CBC provide information with respect to their expenses, and so on. I'm wondering if you've had an opportunity or any better luck at unleashing access to information at the CBC and encouraging them to live up to their responsibilities to taxpayers in light of the modest reductions that we're asking.

[Kevin Page]

Sir, we've not worked specifically with the CBC. When we ask for information, all our information requests are put up on our website so that people can see what we're asking for and why we're asking, but we have not specifically asked for information from the CBC.

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

As a member of Parliament, I presume that is something I could ask you to undertake and you'd consider. Obviously we've not had success getting this information from other avenues, and perhaps the PBO might be more successful than we have been. Perhaps that's something I will ask you directly.

[Kevin Page]

The success rate hasn't been great in terms of getting information. In terms of our legislative power, a clause in the Parliament of Canada Act affords free and timely access to information from departments and agencies. We have used this clause to ask for information from them. Again, we've run into walls on issues of cabinet confidence or issues of persons, so we are not allowed to give confidential--

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

I have a final question.

I know you have been intently listening to all the testimony here because I've watched you.

The one thing that confuses me a bit, and maybe you guys can help shed some light on this for me, after everything you've heard this morning in the line of questioning from the Liberals opposite, can you tell me what their position is on balancing the budget? On the one hand they're extraordinarily upset that we're trying to bring the budget into balance and we're making departmental freezes here. They went over a litany of modest changes--

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra. Apparently Mr. Calandra has no interest in your response because he's gone over his eight minutes.

Mr. Martin, you have eight minutes.

Who knew that the Truth in Sentencing Act was going to be accomplished in a PBO jail.

Anyway, you had a point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, I was elected by 32,000 people in Canada's largest riding, and people in my riding deserve a touch of respect from the chair. Your consistent commentary, be it to me or other members on all sides with respect to how we ask questions and the kind of information we want, is an insult to the people who sent me here, and I respectfully ask that if you have comments you simply can't get out, that you really want to talk about, perhaps at the end of the meeting you could share your commentary with us, as opposed to reflecting in public on your own personal--

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

With that advice, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me begin, Mr. Page, by expressing my profound and continued disappointment at the lack of cooperation you seem to be getting in making inquiries on our behalf and on behalf of Canadians. It disturbs me profoundly that you say in your testimony that your repeated requests for basic information have been ignored--not only turned down but ignored. It speaks to a lack of respect for the office that was established, again an office that we had great hope, optimism, and confidence in when it was created and established.

The public has a right to know these things. And if not the public, if they can make an argument why some of this information shouldn't be openly public, then surely the Parliament of Canada has a right to know what the executive branch is doing or, in the context of estimates, plans to do. We shouldn't have to wait for the public accounts process to analyze and assess the veracity or the wisdom of the spending decisions made.

By the estimates process, we're supposed to have a right to assess whether the risk is worth it, and I'm glad you made reference to the fact that one of the specific things we've asked you to assess in this whole massive process is a risk analysis.

Let me ask you some specific questions, sir, in the context of the operating budget freeze. I suppose my first question is, where are we going to find the information that's being denied to you? If that information is not made available to us, why should we approve the supplementary estimates (B) in the absence of the information that we need to make an informed choice?

[Kevin Page]

Sir, I think it's important that parliamentarians have some of the basic information they need in terms of approving these estimates, in which I would include, particularly in the context of the budget plan, a three-year freeze. We have five-year reference levels for departments. We know what's been set aside for operations. We understand what's been set aside by the government in terms of its fiscal framework for that operating freeze. We know what departments contribute to that number.

I think we should understand as well, department by department that are affected by the freeze, what their plan is to get the savings and what the potential impacts are on service levels. We've tried to get that information going through central agencies.

Maybe the other choice is to try to go department by department and speak to the deputy ministers who are accountability officers and provide the same questions: What are your five-year reference levels? How much do you set aside for operating over the next five years? How does that contribute to what's in the fiscal framework? What is your plan to achieve those savings? But do it from the bottom up, which is effectively what we're trying to do now at the Parliamentary Budget Office.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That sounds like the bare minimum of information that we would have to have to approve what is essentially the business plan of the government to get us out of a very serious deficit situation. I'm trying to stay calm here and not express my anger over the frustration that we're having, but that's the bare minimum that MPs should have.

Somebody has to remind the Harper government that they exist at the pleasure of Parliament. They are allowed to govern at our pleasure. At this point in time, there are a lot of MPs on this side who are not pleased at all with the lack of cooperation. We do have a way around this, I fully agree. We should not approve these particular supplementary (B) estimates, which would be my recommendation. If that means going to the polls, then so be it.

Let me tell you, Mr. Page, you made reference in a November document, and it was a very helpful document, in fact--it was your assessment at the time of the operating budget freeze. You said at the time:

...the Government indicated that this information is a Cabinet confidence and will not be released to the public. A similar request was recently made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and is currently being assessed....

Today we got the answer from the President of the Treasury Board. From October 5 to December 1, this is stamped, and he finally explains that none of these questions, in fact, will be answered for fairly detailed reasons. Questions like the impact on expenditure freezes, on program service, the cost categories of each of the major programs intended to be subject to the freeze, the current baseline of all major programs, the 12 standard objects of expenditure, using the public account.... Very, very detailed questions were put to them eight weeks ago to give us that basic information, and the answer we get now is, no, they are not going to give a parliamentary committee this basic information about how they plan to balance the books.

We can't work this way. Essentially, we're being denied the basic tools that we need to do our job. I don't think there's anything more I can say about that.

I will use the minutes I have left maybe to talk about the very impressive study you've done on the efficacy of the stimulus fund, etc. I appreciate that very much, but it concerns me that even by this report—which may in fact have a bias in it, as my colleague asked, because I would suggest that some of the beneficiaries of the stimulus money may be reluctant to complain about the administration of it for fear of reprisals for future funding opportunities, etc.

Having said that, though, it does concern me that 1,054, I believe, of the projects may not be completed in time, and that we still have no concrete measurement about the job creation benefits, except that you point out that some of the types of projects that they fast-tracked are the least likely to yield meaningful $50,000-a-year types of jobs. Can you expand on that any further?

[Kevin Page]

It's just our own lapse estimate. I meant to point out earlier that we're talking about our own estimates. We got some partial data yesterday from Infrastructure Canada for September. As we look at the infrastructure stimulus fund, we looked at March 31, and we think there are some 940 projects at risk, which is about 24% of the overall number of projects that were in the program. We think the potential federal lapse could be as much as $303 million, which would be about 8% of the federal money. Then of course there's what the potential impacts would be for provinces and municipalities. Actually, our numbers aren't even that fundamentally different from what Mr. McCallum received through his order from departmental officials. Still, it's a significant number of projects and a significant potential for lapse.

Chair, on the survey, the reason we did this survey, particularly through the course of 2009, we were saying to parliamentarians that not only do you need information on the announcements and how money is flowing, but you need to have some sense of impact. That's one of the reasons why we did this survey. We went to independent authorities, experts, to do the surveys, just to provide parliamentarians with the sense in real time of program evaluation around the infrastructure stimulus fund.

I think there are some positive conclusions to this report. I think unemployment...it's a mixed picture.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Regan, five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Since Mr. Calandra doesn't think you should be commenting on what he has to say, I think I will for a moment.

It seems to me that all of us owe to our electors, whether they voted for us or not, a certain degree of respect. That respect includes that we as parliamentarians ought to do our jobs of holding government to account, and, particularly when the government will not provide us with the basic information required for us to assess what they're claiming in terms of their spending plans, I don't see how we can do that.

I'm appalled, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Calandra, for example, suggests that his electors would accept the idea that the Parliamentary Budget Officer, acting on behalf of parliamentarians, can't get any information from the government, and that we as parliamentarians—all of us—would be voting on these things in spite of the fact that government will disclose no details.

Let me ask a few questions.

Mr. Page, do you have any idea what departments have done to achieve the savings they're projecting, if anything?

[Kevin Page]

We have not been able to get any information in response to our request on the plans for savings.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Do you have any idea what the impacts of these reductions will be on existing departmental operations?

[Kevin Page]

Because we can't get the information, we can't do the analysis to give you a sense of what the risks are and what service levels are, or even whether there is a fiscal risk of not being able to achieve the savings.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Do you have any idea how the reductions will affect corporate risks as measured by the management accountability framework?

[Kevin Page]

No, we can't do that assessment either without the information.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Do you have any idea whether these savings are one-time savings or ongoing?