Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon to you all. I am pleased to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
I was recently appointed as the new assistant deputy minister for the corporate services branch for the Privy Council Office, as of January 23, 2012. Today, as the chair indicated, I am accompanied by Mr. Joe Wild, the assistant secretary to the cabinet for the machinery of government. You may recall that Monsieur Marc Bélisle, who is here with me, appeared before you in November 2011 with regard to the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B) for the Privy Council Office. He is the PCO's deputy chief financial officer and is here with me today in that capacity.
My introductory comments pertain to the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C) for PCO. Without further delay, I will speak to the distinct items included in these estimates for PCO.
PCO is requesting a net amount of $883,000, which is composed of two specific items. PCO is also requesting an amendment in its vote wording.
The first item, in the amount of $1,383,000, is for continuing the activities of the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River. The commission was established by an order in council 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 indicated that a final report would be submitted to the Governor in Council by May 1, 2011. An extension was granted to the commissioner, up to June 30, 2012, due to the unforeseen complexity of the issues the commission has been mandated to investigate, along with the sheer volume of documents requiring review, interviewing witnesses, and conducting hearings.
Following the extension, additional funding was sought in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B). However, the commission's financial needs for 2011-12 have further evolved in response to two matters. The first one occurred in the fall of 2011, when new evidence arose suggesting that a new fish health issue, the infectious salmon anemia virus, has potentially been found in wild sockeye stocks, and the second matter relates to the challenges the commission is facing in preparing its comprehensive report.
The funding requested in these supplementary estimates is to allow the commissioner to undertake a focused and limited investigation of the new fish health issue to ascertain the current state of knowledge about whether the virus is present in British Columbia waters and, if so, what can be done about it. This will result in increased costs for commission counsel, transcript preparation, translation services, and the contribution program.
The funding will also allow the commissioner to produce a final report, which is much longer than originally anticipated due to the scope and complexity of the issues that need to be addressed. This will result in increased costs for writing, drafting, editing, translation, and printing.
The second item is a return of $500,000 to the fiscal framework due to savings identified in the day-to-day operations of the Prime Minister's Office in 2011-2012. The Prime Minister's Office was able to achieve this reduction through continued reorganization of staff and re-examination of spending to find further efficiencies.
In June 2011, the Financial Administration Act was amended to include a new section to allow departments to provide internal support services and receive internal support services from one or more other departments. This new legislation applies to departments that do not have the legislative authority and require the authority to re-spend the revenues collected for internal support services.
Since the PCO provides some internal support services to a few entities in the amount of $75,000 for 2011-12, the PCO needed to amend its vote wording in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C) in order to be in accordance with the amended FAA.
The revenues will be recorded under PCO in order to recover all costs incurred for the delivery of these services. As for the expenditures, they will be recorded under the supported entities for their share of costs incurred by PCO to deliver these services. These organizations will need to pay these costs within their existing reference levels.
In closing I would like to thank you for giving me and my colleagues this time to inform you of the ongoing initiatives in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C). We will be pleased to respond to your questions.
