Government Operations Committee on March 28th, 2012

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly I think we're on record as recommending that parliamentary committees should review documents such as the reports on plans and priorities and the performance reports of departments and organizations. We certainly believe that the committees should be using those documents as primary documents to hold organizations and departments accountable for their performance.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you for sharing New Brunswick's experience with us; it was very interesting.

You have no doubt been in contact with your counterparts in the other provinces. Do you have other information or other good examples of what other provinces are doing? That could be useful for us in our study.

[Michael Ferguson]

At the risk of offending provinces—I won't name any specifically—certainly my belief is that some have very good budgeting practices that are very consistent with their accounting practices. I think there are others that still need some improvement, perhaps, in some of their budgeting practices, so because of that I won't actually name names.

I think if you went through the different provinces, you would find some that have some very good budgeting practices.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have about 45 seconds left, Mathieu.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Could you cite an example or choose an example that could be useful for us?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll hazard a guess--or not a guess, but I'll take a chance on it. I would suggest probably looking at Alberta and British Columbia in particular probably as potential good areas. That doesn't mean I'm saying all the rest are bad; I'm just picking those two out as two that come to mind as having good practices.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you for that. I understand the tight spot I put you in.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mathieu.

Now we have Peter Braid for the Conservatives for five minutes.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ferguson, for being here this afternoon, and welcome.

Mr. Ferguson, in your opening presentation you indicated that between 1997 and 2006 the use of supplementary estimates doubled. I realize that this was before your time, but do you have any insight into why that occurred?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, it is before my time. I believe that it was a time of rising surpluses, and that probably contributed. It's my understanding that contributed to the ability to have supplementary estimates.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Right. Thank you.

We've talked today about the difference between a cash and an accrual basis of accounting. You've spoken about some of the benefits of the accrual basis. I want to ask what would be involved in the transition from a cash basis to an accrual basis. What steps would be involved? What timeframes would be involved? I presume you can't just fall off a cliff from one to the other.

[Michael Ferguson]

Without having reviewed it, I wouldn't be able to give you an itemized list, but certainly in making that type of change, there would have to be a transition. We made the recommendation to government that we feel that an accrual basis would be appropriate for the main estimates, and I think the government has said that they would look at that. I would expect that one of the things they would have to consider would be how to actually do that transition. I wouldn't expect it would be something you could make a complete change to in one cycle. It might take more than one cycle.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Was it an accrual basis in New Brunswick?

[Michael Ferguson]

Yes, it was on an accrual basis.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Ferguson, we had an interesting meeting earlier this week with the witnesses who participated. One was an academic in South Africa who participated by video conference, and he brought a global perspective. He explained to us that in New Zealand and South Africa, one of the changes they've made is moving from voting on estimates, the approval of votes, to approving actual programs or outputs.

I wanted to share that with you, and ask if you had any thoughts on that recommendation or proposal, moving from an approval of votes to an approval of actual programs or outputs.

[Michael Ferguson]

Without really understanding what he was seeing as the difference, and what exactly he was envisaging there, it's not something I could comment on.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Peter.

Now we have John McCallum for the Liberals for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

I notice that in your presentation you say the last time your office did an audit of the expenditure management system was in 2006, six years ago. Especially in light of this study we're doing, would you think it might be time to do another one quite soon?

[Michael Ferguson]

It's not something we currently have in our audit plan. Certainly it's something we can consider as we're doing future plans, but it's not something we have yet agreed to do.

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

Okay, so in terms of the kind of audit you do, you've already proposed the accrual system. In terms of our own efforts to make proposals to improve the system, do you think an audit by your office would help in that regard, or not particularly?

[Michael Ferguson]

I think the main issue would be one of timing. I'm not sure exactly when it would be by the time we got it into our process, went through the audit, and presented a report, even if we started right away. My concern would be that the timing of our audit wouldn't coincide very well with when this committee might be thinking of actually reporting.

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

Do you know if your office has any plans to do an audit of the green infrastructure fund?

[Michael Ferguson]

It's not something in our plans right now, but I know that it is part of our considerations. But we haven't made any decisions.

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

Okay, I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much.