Government Operations Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[Bill Pentney]

The expenditures are not linked to the election campaign. They are linked only to the Canadian government's advertising plan. It is a matter of benefits for Canadians. It is a study that we just launched.

There's no relationship whatsoever to the election campaign. This relates to the Government of Canada advertising that continues today and will continue for the remainder of the fiscal.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That concludes your time, thank you.

Mike Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests for coming.

I don't have a huge lot of...the money is small, but interesting, let me put it that way.

In vote 1 you have $10.6 million for the commission on the decline of the salmon fishery on the Fraser River. Has there been money already allocated to this commission or is this brand-new money?

[A voice]

You're talking about the...?

[Marc Bélisle]

This is new money.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. That's point A. So B, why is it in the Privy Council budget and not in Fisheries?

[Yvan Roy, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet and Counsel to the Clerk of the Privy Council, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office]

Maybe I should take this one.

The commission of inquiry, as part of its mandate, actually has to look into how the fishery was managed in British Columbia around the sockeye salmon. It would be completely inappropriate for—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So it would be conflict of interest issues...?

[Yvan Roy]

Absolutely, for Fisheries and Oceans to be managing the commission, so to speak--not that we're really managing it, but we're getting the money and helping with how the money should be allocated.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. Here's question number three, then. If I do the math here, we have the $10.6 million for it and then, at the bottom of the page, we see that the contribution program for the same inquiry is included in that $10.6 million. That contribution is coming from where?

I don't understand why there's a separation of $3.1 million from this $10.6 million. I don't understand what's going on there.

[Yvan Roy]

The $3.1 million you're talking about, which is called the contribution program, is included in the $10.6 million. The $3.1 million we're talking about here is actually for the assistance given to groups that have been given party status before the commission so they can retain professional help to allow them to make their case in front of the commission. There are 15 of those groups that have been given grants and they have hired lawyers.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. So of the $10.6 million, we're giving to groups that are going to testify assistance to the amount of one-third of that, basically?

[Yvan Roy]

That's exactly right.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay.

My next question then, is that for the transfers to the Treasury Board and the transfers to Foreign Affairs and International Trade, I'm assuming that in the main estimates you asked for the money and now you're transferring the money over to those different departments. Is that right?

[Marc Bélisle]

We already had the money in our main estimates.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

For those specific purposes or for other purposes?

[Marc Bélisle]

For the Canada-Australia program, we had that amount in our main estimates. The other amount we had in our budget for PCO, the whole budget of PCO.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So at the time when we approved your mains.... Here's my bottom line--

[Marc Bélisle]

Okay.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

--that you have to explain to me: how come TB didn't ask for this money in advance? I think they would obviously know about the conference. Also, why didn't Foreign Affairs ask for the money about missions abroad? I don't understand why we have to go to other departments, including PCO, and ask them to send money to these other departments because “we're now doing this...”.

[Marc Bélisle]

It's always a question of timing.

In this case when we did the main estimates, we didn't know that the person was going to be staying an extra six months. We now know it; therefore, we're doing the transfer in our supplementaries (B), to be able.... The Canada-Australia program is an exchange program whereby people from Canada go to Australia for about 24 months to get an exchange of information between the two countries in how they operate. But their living expenses, those transfers, are all managed by DFAIT, so we need to transfer the money to DFAIT because they're the ones that maintain or do the necessary work internationally.

As for the other, for Treasury Board Secretariat, we had the OECD conference from October 18 to 20, and the secretariat expenditure was being paid by the host country. The mechanism to be able to transfer that money was the contribution program. PCO does not have a contribution program; TBS had the contribution program, so we were able to transfer the money to them.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

You're basically refunding them for money they've spent?

[Marc Bélisle]

They were going to spend, yes.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Finally, why was the Old Port of Montreal Corporation in your bailiwick to start with?

[Marc Bélisle]

It's because of a transfer of minister. Minister Baird was transferred from the Transport portfolio to the position of leader of the government in the House of Commons, and he took that portfolio with him. Therefore, since we support that minister, it became part of the portfolio of PCO.