Government Operations Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[Alex Lakroni]

I'll try to answer your question, but I'm not an expert in electronic payments. What I can tell you is that the Internet is the tool of choice, the tool that Canadians and the business world chooses for doing business with the federal government. They want to make sure that access is secure and that all private information is protected. It is in this context that $16.5 million is required in these supplementary estimates.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Basically, the actual question is this: in your selection criteria for the new generation of cyber authentication, what importance have you given to the upgradability as such, so that you don't have to come back additional needs in a few years, very soon, to get up to date with new technologies. We know that things change quickly.

[Alex Lakroni]

As I said, this entire business element is now under Shared Services Canada, and the deputy minister is Ms. Liseanne Forand. I think she was invited to appear before this committee. She or her staff will be here on December 8. It's a relevant question. I think they would be in a better position to answer.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I believe that concludes your five minutes. Thank you very much.

The last questioner today will be Bernard Trottier, for five minutes please, Bernard.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I would like to ask some questions about the Office of Infrastructure.

Recently, the Office of Infrastructure of Canada requested another $709 million for the infrastructure stimulus fund. This was to complete some projects that had been identified in 2009, and some in 2010, I'm sure. Could you explain what happens?

I know that the deadline was extended past October 31 of this year of 2011. What were some of the factors that would have contributed to the postponement or the delaying of the deadline to complete these projects?

I know that in some of the discussions I've had with provincial and municipal counterparts in Ontario and in Toronto, there was a certain amount of fatigue on the part of the provincial and municipal counterparts, in that they couldn't get the funding ready and so on. Could you maybe describe whether that was a contributing factor? Or were there other factors that led to this extension of the deadline?

[John McBain]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

Certainly, your observations are what I have heard in meetings in terms of the issues. For PWGSC itself, however, our funding connected with the economic action plan ended on March 31, 2011, so our program was wrapped up and has come to a conclusion. We are not involved with infrastructure spending, or funding with provinces or municipalities, but in the meetings I've been at, those organizations have described exactly the scenario that you paint.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

Were there other factors that contributed to this extension beyond just the partners...? Were there factors within the federal government itself that led to some delays there?

[John McBain]

Not to my knowledge.

In regard to the economic action plan, speaking as someone who works in real property, obviously, starting from zero and accelerating up in our industry is a difficult thing. I know there was an issue on start-up. We were able to succeed because we were working within our own portfolio. When you're partnering with other organizations and other levels of government, it adds an additional challenge.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

Changing lanes a little bit, I'll move to the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. I'm a member of Parliament in the city of Toronto and I'm really interested in hearing about some of the things that were going on. There's an additional request for $7.5 million around economic and community development in regard to talking about innovation and economic diversification.

Can you describe some of the details behind that and just give some concrete examples of some things that might be behind that funding in the supplemental estimates?

[John McBain]

I'm sorry. That's not part of our supplementaries.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I see. I'm sorry.

[John McBain]

I'm not familiar with that, so I couldn't speak to that.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

Then I would want to discuss anything related to extensions to deadlines within Public Works itself. What are some of the projects you've been working on and what are the postponements or delays? You mentioned a number of projects coming in on time and on budget, but I imagine that there are a number of projects that got postponed. Are outside factors or internal factors resulting in delays when it comes to Public Works projects?

[John McBain]

It's an excellent question.

Again, in the world of real property, there are unknown factors.

I can cite a dam that we did a number of years ago. We did all our boreholes and we did all our testing and preparation, but it wasn't until we completely removed all the overburden that we found a large key in the bedrock, which required many more tens of cubic yards of concrete than had originally been estimated.

Those sorts of things happen. They cause delays. You have to get revised approvals and revised authorities.

On program approvals, while some of our estimates, as colleagues have noted, bring funding to the department, getting the programs approved in terms of their architecture, their structure, and their staffing, can delay when we have to implement them and when we can start up. In that case, we ask for money to be reprofiled.

There's an amount in the supplementary estimates that was supposed to be reprofiled last winter, but the election curtailed that, so it is being reprofiled now. That's why you see some of these fundings and some of these delays.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

My final question actually has to do with what you mentioned in terms of the budget. As you know, there was a certain delay in getting a budget passed in the spring. That was passed in June. Now we're working on getting a budget implementation bill passed.

Can you describe any impacts these measures or these activities in the House of Commons and in Parliament would have on your ability to execute these projects?

[Alex Lakroni]

That's a very good question.

I would say that when these events happen they rarely occur exactly the same way. As I mentioned, because of our capacity, we are revenue dependent. We are used to adjusting to fluctuations in markets and managing the unknown. When reprofiling doesn't happen one year, then it happens the following year.

What needs to be retained here is that we manage our projects on a multi-year basis, on a multi-year cycle within a one-year appropriation, do what doesn't get done one year gets done the following year. But we have strong governance, we have excellent performance on our projects, and we adjust as the events change.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Is that it, Mr. Chair?

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You're well over time, but thank you very much.

I'm going to suspend the meeting briefly and thank our guests and our witnesses from the Department of Public Works and Government Services for a very useful exchange.

Thank you very much.

We'll suspend for two minutes while we invite our witnesses from the Privy Council to come to the table.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We'll call to order again this seventeenth meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We've invited representatives from the Privy Council Office to defend their supplementary estimates, so we'll welcome: Mr. Marc Bélisle, the acting assistant deputy minister of corporate services; Mr. Bill Pentney, deputy secretary to the cabinet; and Mr. Yvan Roy, deputy secretary to the cabinet and counsel to the Clerk of the Privy Council.

Welcome, gentlemen, and thank you for being here.

If you have a brief presentation, please proceed. Then we'll move right to questions.

[Marc Bélisle, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

I am accompanied by Mr. Yvan Roy, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and Counsel, Privy Council Office, and by Mr. Bill Pentney, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultations.

My introductory comments pertain to the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B) for the Privy Council Office and, as we have several distinct items, I will speak to these without further preamble.

PCO is requesting a net amount of $11.4 million which is comprised of eight specific items.

The first item, in the amount of $10.6 million, is for continuing these activities of the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River. The commission was established by Order in Council P.C. 2009-1860, dated November 5, 2009, under part I of the Inquiries Act, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. The Honourable Bruce Cohen was appointed as commissioner.

The mandate of the commissioner is to identify the reasons for the decline and the long-term prospects for Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks and to determine whether or not changes need to be made to fisheries management policies, practices, and procedures. The commissioner's original terms of reference directed him to submit, on or before May 1, 2011, a final report or reports in both official languages to the Governor in Council. An extension was granted to the commissioner and he must now present his final report to the Governor in Council by June 30, 2012.

The second item, in the amount of $1 million, is for the Office of the Special Advisor on Human Smuggling and Illegal Migration, created in September 2010. The funding will be used to coordinate the government's strategy and response to migrant smuggling by sea and to establish a governance structure to enable the Special Advisor on Human Smuggling to provide overall coordination at all levels: operational, policy development, and strategic development.

The successful prevention of human smuggling requires close cooperation with international partners. A multi-faceted approach is required that includes prevention and international cooperation. Since his appointment, Mr. Elcock, the Special Advisor on Human Smuggling, has met with officials in several countries to discuss cooperation to combat human smuggling.

The third item, also in the amount of $1 million, is for continuing the activities related to the implementation and coordination of the government-wide communication strategy for Canada's economic action plan. This amount of $1 million relates to PCO's 2010-11 EAP surplus that was carried forward to 2011-12 to enable PCO to continue to coordinate EAP communications.

The fourth item, in the amount of $0.2 million, is to fund the advertising initiative “Advertising Corporate Identity” under the government advertising program. The purpose of this initiative is to reinforce the government's identity in print, broadcast, out-of-home, and new media advertising so as to ensure clear recognition and maximum take-up of Government of Canada programs, services, and benefits.

The fifth item in the amount of $42,000 relates to an adjustment to savings identified as part of the reduction in the budgets for the Offices of the Ministers and Ministers of State, which were part of the 2010-11 supplementary estimates (B). The total reduction was in the amount of $1,638,000. The original reduction amount was $1,680,000 but the reduction was overstated by $42,000; therefore, PCO's reference levels have been adjusted to reflect the accurate budget reduction.

The sixth item is a budget reduction in the amount of $1.1 million for the 2010 strategic review.

The seventh item is a transfer in the amount of $70,000 to the Treasury Board Secretariat for activities in support of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

And finally there is a transfer in the amount of $139,000 to Foreign Affairs and International Trade to provide support to departmental staff located abroad under the Canada-Australia Exchange Program.

In closing, I would like to thank you for giving me this time to inform you of the ongoing initiatives in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B). We would be pleased to respond to your questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bélisle.

The first questioners, then, will be from the official opposition.

Ève Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

In your presentation, you spoke about the government's communications strategy. Here, in the third item, is a request for $1 million.

What does this communications strategy consist of? What is its purpose? In other words, how will this million dollars be invested?

The fourth item shows an amount of $200,000 to fund the advertising branding initiative. So we are also talking about a government advertising plan totalling $1.2 billion to be used to reinforce the government's identity through advertising in the media.

I'd like to know where this money will be invested. Will it really be used to reinforce the government's identity? Could you tell me more about this communications plan?

[Bill Pentney, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultations, Privy Council Office]

Thank you.

As you know, Canada's Economic Action Plan was created to react to a global economic crisis. The June 2011 budget continued to adapt the action plan, and the government adopted an integrated and coordinated communications plan. The purpose in this case was to better inform Canadians about the benefits and services provided by the government and about the economic aspects in the budget. So the $1 million is the continuation of this integrated and coordinated communications plan intended to help Canadians know about the benefits contained in the budget. It's an adaptation, and its title refers to that of the budget. So it is…

the next phase of Canada's economic action plan. The communications activities are to coordinate and integrate in a continuation of the economic action plan.

As for the branding exercise, it is an exercise intended to verify whether adjusting our branding will make it possible to keep Canadians better informed.

Every federal government poster or statement advertisement has what's called the Canada word mark, according to the federal identity program: that little “Canada” word with the flag. Studies over the last several years have indicated that Canadians' awareness of and recall levels for advertising has remained relatively flat. One of the ways of delivering value for taxpayers' dollars is to try to ensure that when the government is buying advertising, Canadians are getting the information and are understanding that the information comes from the federal government and that it's talking to them about benefits they can get from the federal government.

This amount of money is being used to try to examine whether there are ways of enhancing that recognition so that Canadians will understand more easily the benefits that are being offered to them and will get greater access to them. It is an exercise to try to determine whether there are ways through advertising to make better use of Canadians' dollars.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Since these estimates have been determined during the election period, I would like to know exactly whether this money was really used to reinforce the image of the government in power at the time of the elections or if it was used for the election campaign, to let people know about the government's plan if it were elected.