Government Operations Committee on March 5th, 2012

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Fine, thank you.

I like to read the Official Languages Commissioner's report from time to time. This is something that is very important to me. These reports have already established the necessity to be more proactive in order to preserve the vitality of minority francophone communities.

Under the supplementary estimates, approximately $20 million have been set aside for the office's programs. Has that amount increased?

[Marc Bélisle]

You mean the Official Languages Commissioner's budget? This is not a budget that is administered by the Privy Council Office. We only deal with vote 1c.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That answers my question. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Bernard, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You are doing a very good job filling in today for our normal chair.

Thank you to the officials from the Privy Council Office.

I think most Canadians wouldn't have a clue what the Privy Council Office is. Could you just give us a quick summary of what exactly it does?

[Michelle Doucet]

I would be delighted to do that since six weeks ago I had to do the same thing for my children.

The Privy Council Office has three main functions. The first is to be the Prime Minister's department. All ministers in government have a department. The Prime Minister is no exception. The Privy Council Office is the Prime Minister's department. It is the obligation of the officials who work there to provide advice to the Prime Minister.

The second function is to be the secretariat to cabinet along with the myriad of cabinet committees that support cabinet decision-making in the federal government. With the exception of the Treasury Board, which is supported by the Treasury Board Secretariat, Privy Council Office is the secretariat to the cabinet and its cabinet committees.

The third function is to provide leadership to the public service. The Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the public service. The Privy Council Office provides him with specific support in his role as the leader of the public service, and also works closely with other central agencies that provide central agency human resources strategic advice.

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

That frames my next question, then. What's the size of the Privy Council Office with respect to what's been the trend over the last four or five years?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for that question. I would be happy to speak to size for the past three years. I didn't quite go back to five years, but I have three-year figures with me. I'm going to start as of April 1, 2010.

I'd like to frame my answer in the same way Marc talked about how our funding is structured. We have a core group of what we call indeterminate employees, who are permanent public servants. Then, we also have what I would call a temporary workforce. I'll frame my answer in that respect.

On April 1, 2010, PCO had a total of 1,039 permanent and temporary employees. Of those, 866 were indeterminate, or permanent public servants, and 173 were in various categories of temporary employees—not necessarily temporary to the public service. For instance, that year at the Privy Council Office, we had 66 employees on assignment from other departments.

The following year, at April 1, 2011—and I'm going to use the same frame for my answer—Privy Council Office had a few more employees. We had 1,063 employees. Of that figure, 890 were indeterminate PCO employees, and 173—the same number as the year before—fell into that more temporary category. Again, to be precise, of those 173 temporary employees, 75 were full-time employees from other departments on assignments with us.

I have numbers as of March 1 of this year for you. Our numbers have gone down. The overall number is 1,017 public servants, 855 of which are indeterminate public servants whose home is PCO. The remaining 162 either don't have their home at PCO or are temporary public servants. Again, in that temporary group, 67 are full-time public servants on assignment to PCO.

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

Thank you very much for that. Those are small reductions. I think that's probably just more business as usual, some retirements and things like that. We're talking about some more upcoming transformational changes. I know you don't want to speculate. I know things are still being worked on in terms of the strategic and operating review, but going back to business as usual, could you describe what happened, why the reduction went from 1,063 to 1,017 in the last year? What kinds of things would cause those reductions to occur?

[Michelle Doucet]

Certainly we have been implementing our strategic review and making a link to the excellent question about morale in the workplace. We've tried to do that by way of attrition wherever possible, because that is certainly the least painful form of workforce reduction. Then there's also been the impact of winding up exercises of which Marc spoke. As the Afghanistan task force has drawn to a close, folks have found other jobs or have retired. It's the same with the work on other temporary initiatives like the Olympics and the G-8 office. To the extent possible, we've taken advantage of not replacing when folks leave.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much. Thank you for those answers.

Our final questioner for five minutes, if he uses it all, is Mr. McCallum.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

I won't use it all. I have one, or at most, two questions. I'd like to start by reading to you Standing Order 81(7):When main estimates are referred to a standing committee, the committee shall also be empowered to consider and report upon the expenditure plans and priorities in future fiscal years of the departments and agencies whose main estimates are before it.

We saw an example of this with Mr. Wallace using the report on plans and priorities in conjunction—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

With this year's, not next year's.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

—with this year's estimates, yes. In future meetings we'll be talking about next year, and we will have access in a number of weeks—I don't know exactly how many—to the main estimates, or have hearings on them in the coming weeks. We're told we aren't going to get the report on plans and priorities until, I think, May 7. So that means if we hold the hearings on the main estimates in a few weeks from now, we will not have access at that time to the RPPs, which the standing order says we have the right to have access to.

On the other hand, if we delay hearings on the main estimates until May 8, we're getting very close to the end, so the amount of time committees will have to hear the main estimates is very truncated.

I know that's not under your control, but would you be able to provide some of the information that will be in the RPPs coming out officially on May 7 prior to that—obviously not budget sensitive information because the budget may not have happened, but other kinds of information that is less sensitive, which is likely to find its way into the RPP—which could be useful to this committee in considering the main estimates.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

What was your question?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

The question is whether they can provide information in advance of May 7 on some components of what will be in the report on plans and priorities. I think there are employment trends and things of that nature that could be useful.

[Joe Wild]

I will boldly dive into these waters, as best I can.

As the member points out, we don't really control the cycle. The cycle has always been, and has always created some tensions and issues around what information and whether the information is timed properly or not. RPPs have always had some separation between when main estimates get tabled and when the RPP is available.

That said, once the main estimates are available, members can ask any question they wish to ask of public servants, such as us, when we come and appear to explain what is in those main estimates. That's the best vehicle that I can think of in which we would then be able to answer any specific questions about why there may be changes proposed around some of the votes, and also provide some of the detail around which program activities some of that money may be going to, which is in essence what the RPP tries to explain.

You may not necessarily have it in a written form, in that I don't think there's a mechanism whereby we would be able to produce an RPP version that would be available prior to the RPP being tabled. Certainly we would be able to answer questions about what the plans are that inform why additional funds may be sought or why votes are decreasing. We'd certainly be able to give explanations, and as I say, I think we'd be able to do so in line with the program activities of the organization.

I don't know if that's helpful or not.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Under the circumstances I'd say that's a good answer. Thank you very much.

I have one last question. When we eventually receive these RPPs on May 7, will they contain information on your department regarding the cuts—the strategic and operational review?

[Michelle Doucet]

My assumption is that the RPP will be structured to support whatever decisions are announced broadly in the budget. I have no further information or guidance on the level of specificity or granularity at this time, although I certainly understand why you're asking the question.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

What you are saying, if I understand you correctly, is that the RPPs, at least the overall numbers, will be consistent with what the budget does, but you don't know the details that they'll get into. Is that what you're saying?

[Michelle Doucet]

I'm saying I can't imagine having an RPP—if the RPP comes after the budget, and the budget is now scheduled to be tabled on March 29—that would be broadly disconnected.

[Joe Wild]

I think that's something we will probably need to take back to Treasury Board. I'm not sure whether the RPP will be prepared on anything other than the mains. Of course, the mains are before the budget, so I'm not sure if the budget will get caught up until the supplementary estimates.

I think that's a specific question we will have to take back to Treasury Board to see where they're landing, in terms of lining up the actual documents.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

That one answer was not quite as good as your previous one, in terms of usefulness.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I want to thank you for coming today. You are the first group this committee has seen. We are working on a study on the process of estimates. I'm hoping in the future the questions will be just as indepth as they were today, and staff, not just you but every department, will have to be ready to come to answer questions.

You are absolutely right. The difference between what is in your books under yours is a Treasury Board central vote, which was pointed out to me. Just for our own information, we need to have a footnote that says to look at the TB central vote for those answers. That's all I'm looking for—those kinds of things.

I appreciate the scrutiny you had today, and you won't be the only ones who will have these tough questions.

Before we end this, as we know, we're not big fans of deemed. So I need someone to move that vote 1c under Privy Council in the supplementary estimates (C), 2011-2012, in the amount of $883,395, carry and the chair report the vote to the House.

Will you move that for me?