Evidence of meeting #39 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Matthew Kellway NDP Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
How far does the process take us in understanding these things? If we are to do our jobs as parliamentarians and understand this process that you have laid out, can we really understand what is happening in our departments, or do we need an entirely different level of information to understand those differences by department?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I think the information is there to understand everything or almost everything you need to understand as parliamentarians. The question here is connecting the dots and doing the analysis, because the information serves specific purposes. For instance, accrual information adds a full-cost dimension on performance, whereas cash information is key for the supply of cash departments. When you provide the two, a normal person would start to ask why those doesn't reconcile. So if you don't have the story or the data to make those reconciliations, it creates confusion, complexity, frustration, etc. But the information is there.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That is about it for your time, Matthew.
The clerk has just recommended that we title our report “Connecting the Dots”. It seems that you have to know some secret handshake or guess a magic name like Rumpelstiltskin so that all the information will be revealed. But we don't have the magic word so far, apparently.
Scott Armstrong is next for the Conservatives.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
With Rumpelstiltskin you might lose your first-born child, and we don't want that to happen.
My question is similar in nature. One of the things that makes it difficult to connect the dots goes back to the time disconnects, particularly in the area of the main estimates versus the budget.
Do you have any suggestions or analysis of the timing of those? Can we make or recommend any changes to try to reconcile those two documents so we can actually see what's happening in the current year? Does that make sense to you?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes it does. I don't have an analysis, but I look at this from two perspectives. From the departmental perspective we are positioned to provide information to serve parliamentarians' needs for decision-making when they need and want it. So that is not a big issue, aside from the workload, etc.
From the decision-makers and parliamentarians, the main estimates' tabling date is mandatory by the Standing Orders, whereas the budget timeline is not necessarily mandatory. So the budget could be tabled in February, March, or another time. If there is a need to have the budget at a different time from votes on the estimates but to have a more complete picture at the time of voting on the estimates, the budget could move to a different time.
There are other options you could consider, such as starting the year with interim supply, as we do now, and then voting later in the year once parliamentarians have a more complete picture, including on budgetary items. This will have impacts, of course, but the benefit would be a streamlining of the supplementary estimates exercise. Instead of having three you may need to have one or two, because a vote has occurred on a much more complete picture after the main estimates or after entering supply.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
So if we vote on interim supply as parliamentarians, we get a brief advance look and give the departments some leash to deal with them until later in the year.
Do you have any suggestions on how long that process could be? When would we be able to align the two? Would it be July, August, or September? We'd have to look at when Parliament sits as well. But in terms of the difference between interim supply and when we actually get to the full supply and vote on the whole thing in line with present spending, what kind of timeline are we looking at in terms of months?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The timing is a function, again, of going back to what is to be accomplished with what information. If the vote remains on the type of spending and at the same time we're asking for program information year-over-year, on an accrual and cash basis, etc., it will take more time to connect the dots. But if we say that Parliament wants to vote on, let's say, programs, and the rest of the information is supplementary and we are going to focus on...then the time should be relatively shorter.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Right. So really, we dictate what you report on by what we ask of you. Maybe that's the answer to some of our questions, that we should indicate what we really want to focus on, narrowing what you have to report back to us, so we can probably make a better judgment as to whether or not we support it.
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That is correct.
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That concludes your time as well, Scott. Thank you very much.
From the Liberals, we have John McCallum. You have five minutes.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you.
And thank you, as well, for your report.
In terms of connecting the dots, you seem to be saying that it's for us to figure out how to do that. I would have thought it was for you, or people in the public service who know much more about this than we do, to suggest to us how to connect the dots, or maybe even to produce additional documents that do connect the dots.
Is that a fair approach?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It is up to public servants to serve the needs of Parliament and support democracy. These exercises are prescribed and managed by central agencies to serve specific purposes. An example of these purposes is the quarterly financial reports. They are newly introduced, so we were asked to produce them. We produced them. We do the best we can to balance the amount of information we put in these reports without adding to the confusion.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
But are you telling us that it's up to us to figure out ourselves how to connect the dots? That's the impression I got. I'm not sure how we're supposed to do that without advice from people such as you.
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Due diligence is exercised at three levels at least. At the departmental level we exercise due diligence and we connect the dots from our perspective and in terms of what parliamentarians need in various documents. It is also exercised by central agencies. And third, it's exercised by parliamentarians and the supports made available to them, for instance, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, to make sure that the dots are properly connected for parliamentarians from an analytical perspective.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
I'm still confused. You're telling us the dots are already connected, if we were just to look in the right place. Is that what you're saying?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
If you do analyses and connect the dots, all the information is there. Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Liberal
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We are helping.... Sorry, I think that when the time comes for the main estimates for instance, we have no latitude as a department but to provide parliamentarians with the prescribed format, that being the amount that is reflected in the ARLU plus the Treasury Board submissions that are approved. It is an accurate, accountable, and transparent picture that we provide in the main estimates, and we say this is our planned budget as in the ARLU.
When the RPP comes, we supply you with the information, the additional information or additional approvals that are known to us. So the information is there now. That document, that planned document reflecting three years, is not subject to a vote by parliamentarians, although it connects the dots.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Okay. Perhaps I can change the subject.
On the subject my colleague raised about the timing of the budget versus the main estimates, quite a number of witnesses have suggested to us that Canada is one of the few countries that doesn't get this right, in the sense that the main estimates don't reflect the current year's budget. As one technique to solve this problem, from a technical point of view, if the budget were in, let's say, November or December instead of February or March, would that normally give enough time to get the budgetary information into the main estimates to be tabled by March 1?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It's one of the options, yes.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
What's the counter-argument? We've had a lot of people telling us to do that.
Why wasn't it done years ago if it's such a good idea?
Chief Financial Officer, Finance Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I think you would want to take that question to the Treasury Board Secretariat in terms of the decision-making on the timing of the budget's tabling. As I mentioned, it's not prescribed, according to my knowledge.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That concludes the time. Thank you, John.
Now we'll go to Mike Wallace for as long as we can.