Government Operations Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

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

Everything is like that.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Do you think I should come here to explain every expenditure for every department, line by line?

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

You are the minister in charge. Your department has to know what is going on.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

We respect the departments and their employees. And that is why we told them managing their budget was their responsibility.

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

Mr. Minister.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

And they will do it. This is not their first year doing it. It was the same last year, as well. All the figures are there.

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

Stop skating around the issue. You cannot give me an answer. There is no plan.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Bourgeois.

Thank you, minister.

Mr. Holder, eight minutes.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for attending this morning.

As I've heard the discussion to this point, it's becoming very clear to me that the dialogue is much more along partisan lines. I'd like to stick to the facts and try to be as clear as we can.

When I listen to my constituents in London, Ontario, like all Canadians, they've had to be in a position of being very mindful, because like of all us, they have gone through the worst global recession over the last couple of years. We're coming through it, I think. The jobs recovery is certainly one indication of that, and yet I still believe it's a fragile economy. What's becoming clear to me is that while Canadians have an expectation of themselves in terms of trying to balance their own personal budgets, they're asking our government, and all members of Parliament as part of the participatory process, to ensure that we restrain government spending in times of recovery.

We've been asked to provide balanced and restrained spending. My sense clearly is that the government is doing what Canadians are asking us to do.

As I reflect on this, one of the things I hear from constituents is the issue, Minister, of what is the impact on them of cutting services. I'd like to get a sense of what the government's position is relative to that. The other thing that's been fairly clear to me this time around in terms of our approach to balancing the budget—and I'm really combining two questions into one, if I may—is the issue of transfer payments to the provinces. That's the other point. It's that trickle-down concern that provinces have, that municipalities will have, that taxpayers will have.

Those are the two issues I would ask you to comment on: the issue of cutting services that Canadians expect of us and the transfer payments to the provinces.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Well, the two you've mentioned go hand in hand. We are not reducing any of what's called the statutory spending. That is spending that is required related to health care, spending on our seniors, amounts they might receive either under the OAS or the GIS. That is not reducing those types of payments to people. Canadians do not have to fear.

I'm not being partisan; I'm being factual when I say the Liberal government in the mid-1990s took a very different approach. They went after the provincial transfers. That was their right to do that. We disagreed with it, of course. I was involved in provincial government at the time. To wake up one morning and without warning get the notice that our health care transfer had been cut by over 30% was somewhat of a shock. That's a plan they chose to use. I'm not being partisan in saying that. I believe that hospitals and health care systems in some provinces are still trying to deal with that today.

To answer that question in terms of services to Canadians, we are increasing, for instance, the health care transfer by 6%. We have added to the EI program as we've gone through the global recession. There have been additions. For instance, there is the work-sharing program. As we've travelled across the country, we've found it to be very successful and very well handled by businesses that have been able to keep employees on a work-sharing basis. They keep people who have developed the training skills necessary for the job. We've seen increases there. We've seen increases in the EI program for people with what we call attachment to the workforce, people who had been employed for many years and through the global downturn had been thrown out of work.

When it comes to programs for people and those services, they are not just being maintained; in most cases, they are increased. But when it comes to government operations, how departments run their shops, that's what we've frozen for three years, and they have to accommodate that, as Madame Bourgeois has rightly pointed out, within also having a 1.5% increase. I don't think that's an easy thing to do. Our government managers and employees are working hard to do that.

Again, if you do the comparison back to the mid-1990s, it's certainly nowhere near what we saw in terms of what happened in the public service, especially in 1995-96. Some people would like us to go further. We think we can manage without doing that, especially when you consider there's been an overall increase in the public service since we have formed government. Some would say the increase in hiring has been too much. Some would say it hasn't been enough. Let's have the debate, absolutely. We have seen an increase in hiring.

For instance, in the numbers for broadly the public service in our armed services, we said we were going to increase the number of full-time people in the armed services, and that has gone up. We said we would put in place a fund that would increase the number of RCMP officers across the country by a total of at least 1,500. We acknowledge we did that. More people were hired to work on the EI programs as we went through the global downturn. Sometimes we forget these things quickly. We faced the problem in the United States with the famous demand that all Canadians have to have passports, and the incredible pressure that put on our passport offices. More civil servants were hired.

There's been an increase in the civil service. We felt those increases were necessary. We are asking now that these departments hold the line for three years.

As you know, we're imposing also a freeze on all members of Parliament in terms of our salary. All hospitality, conference, and travel budgets are being held for the next three years at 2009 levels. We've frozen our budgets ourselves. We've just finished the budget for this year for ministers' offices. There's been an $11.4 million reduction for ministers' offices as we move into this year.

We're taking a number of steps on the operational side to maintain the costs. We have to, we believe, get to that deficit balance position. We are on track to do that. Outside external observers say we are on track. The International Monetary Fund, as a matter of fact, says we're ahead of what the PBO says.

We'll know in 2014. I think we'll know before then whether we're going to be able to maintain that. The proof will be in the pudding at that point. But we are on track right now.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Minister, one of my colleagues previously asked how the government could presume to have the budget without a plan and indicated that there is no plan. It seems to me, having been in business for as long as I have been, that you can't get to an end result without a plan.

I'm not sure about the comment, but I'm struck by what you said about balancing the budget. My practical question is, if I recall what you said, unless there were some kind of cataclysmic or global event that could prevent this from happening, do you have any sense what it might look like, if that were to be the case?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

That is a fair question. If I could predict that, I would probably be working somewhere else, having a lot more people and a lot more income than I'm getting right now. But that is a fair question, and that's why we have to be prudent. We think we're going to be able to achieve that. There could be things that take place. There are some things going on right now in other countries that can have huge impacts on the energy supply; for example, what is going on in the Middle East right now. We have no idea where that's going to go. So we need to always be prudent in case there is something absolutely unforeseen, and I think we are following a prudent path.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Holder.

Mr. Martin, you have eight minutes, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Minister, let me start with your own comment, when you opened your remarks, that the IMF complimented Canada for its miraculous recovery. You pointed out that they're not known for making divine pronouncements. To continue the religious analogy, you seem—

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

That was their analogy, not mine, for the record.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You seem determined to beatify and even canonize our Minister of Finance, and you seem equally determined to vilify and discredit and even demonize the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I notice an aggression just below the surface in your remarks every time you speak about the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Let me tell you, as the oversight committee for the Treasury Board—the committee that you answer to, the committee that you come to asking permission to spend money—we don't know whom to believe. The public has a right to know, Mr. President, what the government's plans are to dig us out of this deep deficit hole; yet it's been like pulling teeth to try to get that information out of your office and out of government departments.

With the economic stimulus spending, you guys were announcing it from the rooftops. You were spending a fortune bragging about how you were going to spend our way out of the recession. But the flip side of the coin, the economic strategy to dig us out of the deficit we're in now, is now a cabinet confidence; it's a deep dark secret.

So you're asking Canadians to buy a pig in a poke. You're asking us to believe you on face value with no corroborating information, because you've denied us the very numbers we need to measure the veracity of your modelling. You're asking us to believe that within one four-year election cycle, everything will be rosy, whereas the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has no axe to grind—an independent analyst—says something wildly different. And the IMF, frankly, says something wildly different. They don't agree with the little chart and graph that you just circulated. You just circulated your ideas; you didn't circulate the contradictory ideas from the independent IMF and the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer.

So you can see how it is that we're frustrated and confused and maybe just as angry as you are at having your numbers challenged. We're angry that we're not allowed to even see those numbers. We're asked to take your word for it, when the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer whom we, as Parliament, put in place to check in an independent way the veracity of your models and your numbers...they slam the door in his face. They won't give him the numbers he needs.

And when he does manage to cobble together the numbers, they contradict yours by a long shot. So it's no coincidence that in the weeks leading up to a federal election, you're telling Canadians to give you one four-year election cycle and you will get us out of the red and into the black. Well, nobody else believes that. And in the absence of any numbers, I don't see how you can expect us to believe it.

Let me ask you a question, then, about the—

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Expect a long response, too, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, you sat here and gave us a pretty good scolding and talking to, Mr. Minister.

Let me ask you, then—and I remind you that you're under oath....

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Oh, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

No, I don't want any dancing around this question. Has your office or the Privy Council done a detailed estimate of the costs associated with the Truth in Sentencing Act and an estimate of the cost associated with any other major change to the Criminal Code?

It's a straight question, so let's have a straight answer.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Well, Mr. Chair, I'll give very clear answers.

The member, whom I consider a friend, is also known as a master of hyperbole. We also know that hyperbole is often the refuge we take when we don't have data to support our grandiose statements.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You won't give us any data.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Chair, first I'll ask whether the member has looked at the data I've already sent. I don't want to insult him by saying that he's under oath.

Have you?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Our committee certainly has.

Answer the question. Have you done a detailed estimate of costs associated with the Truth in Sentencing Act?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Pat, I'm asking whether you've looked at this. Have you looked at this?

Okay. There is no answer. Let that be on the record. Thank you.

I haven't looked at it all; I could say no. You could say that.