Government Operations Committee on March 5th, 2012

[Michelle Doucet]

Well, I can certainly speak to where we're at in terms of our employees as of March 1, because I have those numbers with me today. Where we will be at the end of the month is yet to be determined.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Okay. My time is up, so maybe I'll come back to that.

My final little piece is not a question. It's just a comment. For us to be better parliamentarians, I think that asking questions at the end of the year on how you're doing on what you've planned to do is appropriate. It may not have happened in the past, but I'm hoping that it happens in the future.

Next, Mathieu has five minutes.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the three witnesses for coming here today. I will ask a question that has already been raised by my colleague, Mr. Blanchette. My question pertains to the savings of $0.5 million directly linked to the Prime Minister's Office.

Has this reduction resulted in any lay-offs?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for your question.

The budget efficiencies that the Prime Minister's Office was able to achieve were as a result of reduced staffing and operating costs during the spring 2011 election period. During election periods, there is a greatly reduced level of activity in ministers' offices and in the Prime Minister's Office. I'm not aware of how that activity was managed in terms of layoffs, but certainly they were able to have reduced staffing and operational costs during that period.

My understanding is that there was a continued reorganization of staff and an elimination of unnecessary positions that would have been done within that organization, according to its judgment. Then, as I said earlier, the other savings were as a result of the elimination of non-essential hospitality and continued use of flight passes and other efficiencies.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

All right.

Obviously, if there is a decision to proceed with an austerity budget, Canadians understandably expect the Prime Minister to follow suit and reduce expenditures in his own office. We are talking about $0.5 million, a budget cut of 0.1% to the Privy Council.

Given the current situation, I would like to know if you foresee further cutbacks in the Office of the Prime Minister.

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for your question.

In addition to the other areas that I have outlined, it's my understanding that in the Prime Minister's Office their vigilance with respect to costs would have included purchases big and small, although I don't know how big the purchases are there, in supplies such as paper, toners for photocopiers—goods and services. I think they were extra careful with that this year.

I think they were also careful to make sure that the decisions they made were cost-effective and to use the best practices that Public Works has promulgated in order to make sure that the taxpayer gets the best value for money.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

I simply want to make sure that you understand the question. I would like to know your opinion, in particular, as to whether or not other savings could be found in the Office of the Prime Minister given this climate of austerity.

[Michelle Doucet]

I couldn't tell you that because I am not yet familiar enough with the operations.

As far as the Office of the Prime Minister is concerned, I do not know the situation.

I would only be able to give you my own views as somebody who would be able to do that in running an organization.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

All right. I am going to ask you another question which is quite similar to that put by our vice-chair. My question pertains to the supplementary estimate system.

First of all, I would like to know whether you use accrual or cash accounting.

[Marc Bélisle]

We operate in accordance with the Treasury Board Secretariat guidelines. We use a modified cash accounting system. In addition, at the end of the year we produce accrued financial statements.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, that answers my question.

If parliamentarians were to decide that from now on the estimates needed to be more detailed, broken down per program activity, would it be possible to provide us with this information? In order to do this, would you have to gather more data or supplement your staff? Do you have access to this information now?

[Marc Bélisle]

Yes, we are able to provide information per program activity. We do this on a regular basis.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Our next questioner is Kelly Block from the Conservatives.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much.

I want to join my colleagues in welcoming you here. We're doing a very interesting study on the estimates, so looking through them I'm able to look at them with a little more clarity as we provide this oversight to the Privy Council.

I want to go back to some comments you made as part of your opening remarks. You stated there were unforeseen complexities, which is why you're coming back to ask for a bit more money for the Cohen Commission. You cited two things: the infectious salmon anemia virus, as well as the challenges in preparing such a comprehensive report. Also, you noted an extension of up to about 13 months was granted to the commissioner already.

Were there an unusual number of documents and witnesses with regard to this commission?

[Joe Wild, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office]

Yes. It's always tough to say “unusual”, but just to give some context, this is a commission that's focused on policy and scientific issues. I would say that could be a little bit of an unusual subject matter for a commission of inquiry. That said, the commission has heard from more than 160 witnesses. It has had more than 2,000 documents entered as formal exhibits. It has had more than 500,000 relevant documents produced by the government, including the Government of British Columbia. It's received more than 900 submissions from the public. It's produced 14,000 pages of transcript of testimony and evidence during its hearings. It's had 16 expert scientific research projects commissioned and submitted to the commissioner.

There are 20 participants who have been granted standing by the commissioner. It is a particularly, I would say, complex commission of inquiry, partly because those 20 participants aren't individual organizations. Some of those participants represent coalitions of many other small organizations. For example, there is a first nations coalition that comprises 12 distinct first nations and groups, as well as a conservation coalition that comprises seven groups and individuals. So all of this has certainly generated a significant amount of work for the commissioner. I think the commissioner has been doing his best to manage the costs of the commission as it goes through this work.

We did have, I guess, the unexpected story about the virus that you mentioned, and that did trigger the commission to have to reopen testimony, and it held an additional three days of hearings to look specifically into that matter. This was basically after testimony had concluded and the commissioner was kind of going away to draft the report.

The report is expected to be fairly large, mainly driven by just the sheer scope and complexity. We're talking about a river basin with watersheds that...if you took the area in square kilometres, you're probably talking about something the size of Spain or France. So it's a very complicated area and work. As I mentioned, I think that, as much as anything else, is what's driving some of the costs.

I would just note, though, that the expectation overall is that the commission will come in within the budget. So while there are increased costs this year, the commissioner remains confident that the commission will deliver its final report within its budget.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

I'm just wondering if you could tell me what is involved in establishing a budget for a commission such as this.

[Joe Wild]

That was a pretty, I would say, complex piece of work for this particular commissioner, and it involved a fair amount of front-end work by the commissioner and the council team that he put together to try to sort out how many parties were going to be participating, and even just to get a sense of the scope of documents that would need to be reviewed and how many days of hearings were going to have to be conducted. All of these were things that were being discussed early on, after the commissioner was appointed, as he started to get a feel for things and started to sort out a budget.

It's difficult to nail down a budget until, of course, you get through your initial set of hearings on standing, and figure out which participants are actually going to be granted standing. Then you have to sort out which of those participants are going to receive funding, all of which contributes to the overall cost and budget for the commission. I don't know the exact amount of time it took, but it did take some time to sort out what the commissioner thought would be an appropriate budget. As I said, he's confident at this stage that they can deliver within it.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much.

Next is John McCallum from the Liberal Party.

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

Thank you very much.

And thank you all for being here.

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but I wanted to come back to this $500,000 in the Prime Minister's Office. You mentioned a number of factors, but one of them was the election and the layoff of staff during the election. Was that a big fraction of the $500,000? How much was saved due to the election, compared with other factors?

[Michelle Doucet]

I should clarify that, in terms of the lowering of the staffing level in the office during the election, I don't know the mechanism that was used for how they managed that, whether it was layoffs in particular. I just wanted to provide that clarification.

I don't have the exact monetary amount here with me in terms of what component of the staffing reductions is part of the $500,000.

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

I wonder if, after this meeting, you could at some point provide us written information on that in as much detail as possible. How much of the $500,000 was election related, how much was due to other things, and what were those other things?

[Michelle Doucet]

I'm happy to see what I can provide for you.

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

Thank you.

Related to that, we had a question on the order paper a while ago about savings due to strategic review. We received an answer giving savings in each of three areas: Prime Minister and portfolio ministers' support and advice, $743,000; cabinet and cabinet committees' advice and support, $52,000; and internal services, $325,000. Those were strategic review savings.

But the people didn't answer the second part of my question, which was to describe in some detail what these savings consisted of. The first part is Prime Minister and portfolio ministers' support and advice.

Can you tell us how much of the cut was in the Prime Minister's Office, and how much was in other ministers' support, and which other ministers? If you don't have that information now, could you get back to us on it?