Government Operations Committee on April 2nd, 2012

[John Williams]

There is—I'm sure they're still there, Mr. McCallum—within the government a division called program evaluation. They are professional program evaluators with a skill in evaluation. These are not just the same people within the department who are running the program to write a report on their own work.

They are, in essence, like internal auditors, but they are evaluators looking forward rather than auditors looking backward. The skill and the expertise reside within the Government of Canada to independently assess the effectiveness of programs. That is why you would table in the House of Commons—because you have no authority as a committee on your own—that the government perform an evaluation of the programs that are of interest to this committee and report back.

Now you would have something that's equivalent to an Auditor General's report. Perhaps there is even a lot more detail that gives you the analysis of the program—how good and how effective it is in serving the interests of why the program was created. That way, with real knowledge, you can make the recommendations, if you have any, as to change or focus.

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

Having spent some time in government and on the expenditure review committee, I don't remember this species of person called a neutral program evaluator. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would have thought that even if you have that person, the committee will get what the government wants it to get.

Why not use the Parliamentary Budget Officer or some other independent body that works for the committee—not for the government—to spearhead this thing, possibly in conjunction with these people you've described? I don't think you want all the determination of the reports to be put into the hands of the people running the program or even of the government.

[John Williams]

I agree, Mr. McCallum, and I'll say that when we wrote this report the PBO did not exist. I made my point that I think the Parliamentary Budget Officer should be an officer of Parliament serving this committee, very much like the Auditor General serves the public accounts committee.

Therefore, it would have the staff and the resources to do that program evaluation and also have the access to the documentation too. That would require legislation. The act for the Auditor General gives the Auditor General access to the documentation. The PBO would need that same kind of legislation.

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

I think we agree so far. I now come to some of the issues that my NDP colleagues have been raising. Why would the government want this committee to have that information in the first place?

The government would generally prefer to feed us stuff that it wants us to have, not give us a capacity to dig out stuff that they may not want us to have. They're doing expenditure reviews. If they want to get rid of a program or cut it, they can cut it without having some nagging little parliamentary committee telling it what to do and digging up dirty things that they might not want us to know about.

Why would the government want to cooperate with us on this?

[John Williams]

You can have government downsizing and government efficiency either as a political process or a managerial process. Every 10 or 15 years, along comes a time when the political hammer comes down and the government says it's going to cut. The Liberals have done it, and the Conservatives have done it. It will happen before that, and it will happen again after this.

Why do we have to wait for the political process rather than having an ongoing managerial process that ensures the programs are done efficiently, effectively, and well?

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

Again, we don't disagree. I think it's worth a try, and I'm not holding this Conservative government any more responsible than I would the government of which I was part. I do think governments tend to not want to share information unless they have to.

I think Tony Clement did indicate in his letter a willingness to cooperate with us, so I do think it's worth a try. My only point is that these things have been tried in the past, not always with success. I certainly agree with you that it's worth an effort.

[John Williams]

I have two points. First, it's not a case of sharing. Government doesn't share with government; government reports to Parliament. Remember that Parliament is over the government and can demand anything from government that it wants.

Second, when people are held accountable on the small things, it prevents the big things from happening. Therefore, some minor managerial problems within an institution the size of the Government of Canada are not going to bring down the government, but are going to keep it focused in ensuring good service for Canadians.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you. Your time is up, John.

We'll go to Bernard Trottier for the Conservatives.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Williams, for coming in.

I think you and Mr. Marleau have today maybe injected a different way of looking at the problem. We've been very focused the last couple of weeks on this question of a reconciliation between the budget and the estimates, looking at things like the timing of the budget or looking at the fiscal calendar, for example, and making that the focus—and some of the witnesses came in and talked about how they do it in other countries.

I suppose you could say there was this anomalous situation that the budget for the Canadian government isn't approved until about June and the fiscal year has already started, but as you pointed out and Mr. Marleau pointed out, the budget itself is actually more a longer-term policy document. Some of the changes won't even take place until 2013 or 2014, for example. So the need for reconciliation with the main estimates perhaps isn't there.

What you're suggesting is that we should really look at a different focus for a committee like this one, because ultimately, what's more important than that accounting exercise is the ability of Parliament to scrutinize government spending, and as you point out, hold government to account. What I'm hearing from you is, rather than have this broad but shallow look at the estimates that we tend to use right now, let's take a more narrow and deep look at the estimates and focus on a narrower program, for example, looking at the plans and priorities documents and the departmental performance reports.

Has that ever happened with this committee, where there was a decision to do some deeper, narrower dives, in your experience?

[John Williams]

I'm not aware that the committee has done that. That's why I recommended that you have an in camera meeting to take a close look at your mandate, because I think if you haven't read it, you'll find you'll be surprised how wide and deep and broad ranged your mandate is. Therefore, you can go anywhere you want.

That's why you'd want to either beef up the PBO or get the government to do these evaluations and provide you with the information, in order to do the deep analysis of individual programs that are of interest to the committee.

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

To Mr. McCallum's point, there could be some reluctance on the part of the government to expose itself in certain ways, and so I guess there's going to be some importance as to which programs you chooses to investigate. But I like your suggestion that if you look at some of the smaller areas of spending, the bigger pictures tend to take care of themselves.

What would be the right mandate for choosing which programs to look at, what to dive into?

[John Williams]

I don't know that I'm going to go there, Mr. Chairman.

But you're right that, if you have a new process, everybody stands back and says they don't think it will work. They don't want to go down that road, but after a while it becomes part of the process and it's an ongoing affair.

So here is the opportunity for the government operations and estimates committee to start something new that makes a contribution to the governance of this country, to ensure that people are well served by the taxes they pay and the programs that are delivered to them. You can make a meaningful contribution in this way, and therefore that's why I recommend it rather than the superficial look at a stack of documents this big that represents $270 billion worth of expenditures. There's nothing in there that allows you to ask an intelligent, meaningful question. But if you had the program evaluation, you could do that.

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

I just have a quick follow-up.

How many programs, ballpark, would there be, if we're looking at more of a sampling approach to studying the estimates?

[John Williams]

I've no idea. I could throw out a guess and say 1,000, but I really have no idea.

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

So in a given year a committee like this could look at, in terms of doing a significant material dive into that program, maybe 10 programs, maybe 50; no, probably not 50.

[John Williams]

No, you wouldn't look at 50, but if you looked at 10....The other thing, of course, is the randomness. As I say, if you change the motivator, you change the results. This is why I wanted the Auditor General to do these audits on departmental performance reports and to pick two at random every year.

If you're coming up next year and you're going to be reported to Parliament as having written some self-serving fluff—which is what I called them—then you're going to be on the hot seat before the public accounts committee and that's not a great place to be. So you put the effort into writing a good report.

It's the same with the management of the programs. If you think you're going to be sitting right here trying to explain to some parliamentary committee why your program is being poorly and badly managed, you're going to think you'd better do something before you get there. It a motivator. Change the motivators and you might get better results. It's great.

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

So in a way it's—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Bernard. You're well over your five minutes.

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

Thank you for your input.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We have time for one and a half rounds—maybe even two full rounds.

Mathieu Ravignat is next.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Since you are from the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption, I'd like to ask you to talk a little about the relationship between corruption and this committee. Specifically, what major changes would be necessary to ensure that this committee can play a role in avoiding corruption?

[John Williams]

I appreciate the question very much. On the concept of avoiding corruption, when you are held accountable you tend to do things right. Here we are in a democracy. We have the media reporting what goes on in committee. We have television, and so on. The public knows what is going on here. If they don't like what's going on here, they have the opportunity to change it at the next election. Or if they like what's going on, they can send you back again.

In dictatorships around the world there is no accountability, and when there is no accountability people steal the cash by the billions of dollars. When they steal the money their people are destitute. When you look around the world and see all the poor people on television who are starving and dying of this, that, and the next thing, it's because of bad governance, not a lack of aid. Why is it bad governance? It's because the people cannot hold their governments accountable.

Nobody has ever voted for poverty. Why is half the world poor, and a billion and a half people destitute? It is because they cannot exercise accountability over their governments, as we do here in Canada. What we're trying to instill around the world is accountable governance.

This committee is about accountability. You look at government spending and approve it or don't approve it. If you can get the House to agree with you not to approve it, then we have an election and fight it out. That's the way we do it in this country. It's called accountability. We let the people ultimately decide.

But in far too many countries around the world that opportunity doesn't exist, and people are left in absolute and total poverty with no capacity to demand services from their governments.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

It was interesting when we had a delegation here a few months ago from Kenya. They were setting up a number of committees, and they came to study what our committee does. I'd have to say we had some difficulty explaining to them exactly what we do, and—rightfully so—they had some difficulty understanding what we are about.

Have you heard of this committee and the structure in Canada being served as a model for other countries, and has it been properly exported in that way?

[John Williams]

I haven't heard about the estimates committee and the process here within the Parliament of Canada being used elsewhere. We are a strong and prosperous nation because of the fundamental concept of parliamentary committees investigating and reporting on specific issues to the House, and the House having the capacity to hold the government accountable, in full view of the public.

When we look around the world at Kenya and elsewhere, they have very serious problems regarding services to the people, because the people cannot hold the government accountable. If they had an estimates committee that reported to the people that the government was taking the money and going away with it, and corruption was rife....

Talk about Kenya, I believe the last I heard, an MP's salary in Kenya was greater than an MP's salary in Canada. But they have to pay for the funerals of the constituents, and this and that. They run an informal welfare program out of their parliamentary offices.

We don't do that here because we demand accountability. Over there they can shell out or maybe not shell out the money, and if they don't, it's theirs. It's not accountable. It's not transparent. It is unethical, and that is why we are prosperous and they're not.