Government Operations Committee on June 20th, 2011

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I can maybe jump in here and say that in some cases, because we had a hiatus—which is important for democracy, and I'm not belittling that by any stretch—definitely when you look at some of the projects we had committed to.... I will speak as a former industry minister and tell you that, for instance, we had committed to a digital economy strategy for spring. Well, that has been knocked off its schedule just because we had, really, a two-and-a-half-month period of electioneering plus the reconstitution of the government.

In terms of essential services, I would say the answer is no, because that's the way warrants work. They are there for essential services provided by government, but in terms of government agenda, we are working very hard to get back on to the government agenda that was enunciated in budget 2011 part one and was re-enunciated in budget 2011 part two.

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

Thank you. Those are all the questions I have for now.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

I believe Alexandre will start the NDP's round.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Minister, a few minutes ago, you told us that our perception, our view, was wrong and that funds had not been diverted from the Border Infrastructure Fund to the G8 Infrastructure Fund.

I refer you to page 37 of the Auditor General's report. In 2009, Parliament approved vote 55 in the amount of $83 million for the Border Infrastructure Fund. We have since found out that the $45,758,945 spent on the…

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm sorry, Alexandre.

Is that a point of order?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, may I just interject on a point of order right now?

As the honourable member knows, there's another committee called the public accounts committee, which is responsible for reviewing the Auditor General's reports. I sit on that committee normally, and I think that the question you're getting into is really a matter for the public accounts committee to deal with when it reviews the Auditor General's reports. You're really talking about something that happened in the past. It's retrospective. What we're trying to deal with right now is the budget and the estimates that are at hand so that we can get those passed as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Just to be clear, what is your point of order? Relevancy? Jurisdiction?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

It's not relevant to this committee. It's the public accounts committee that deals with questions of that nature. It's the Auditor General's report in a retrospective manner. We will be dealing with that in the public accounts committee in due course, and your colleague, Mr. Christopherson, is chairing that committee.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Allow me to rule on the point of order.

From a point of order point of view, you're saying that this committee doesn't have the jurisdiction to ask that question. Is that your main point?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

That is going to be dealt with at the public accounts committee. It's an issue of the Auditor General's reports.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Under the direction of the clerk, Andrew, if you were going to intervene with a point of order about relevancy, it would have been really early on in the meeting when we started talking about G-8 and G-20, which really has nothing to do with the main estimates for spending next year.

But we've allowed that to dominate this whole meeting, and now he's drilling down a little bit into the budget line that gave rise to the legacy fund. From a jurisdictional point of view, I think we set the precedent by allowing ourselves to talk about this for the last hour.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

This is a different question, because this is specifically going into the Auditor General's reports. It's simply duplicating what another committee's responsibility is. I don't think it's the jurisdiction of this committee to go back and to look at something retrospectively. We're trying to deal with the budget and the operations.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

To be fair, though, more than a point of order, I think you're making a value judgment as to the quality of the question.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I'm just asking the chair to consider my interjection. Let's stick to what's relevant to this committee, which is passing the budget and the estimates for this year.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I appreciate that.

I am willing to go as far as to ask Alexandre to connect his line of questioning to the main estimates or the supplementary estimates. They are the topic of the meeting.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was indeed referring to—

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Could you repeat the question?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Yes, I can.

I was referring to vote 55, Voted Appropriations, whereas $83 million was allocated to the Border Infrastructure Fund to reduce congestion at the border. One realizes, indeed, that a part of this $83 million was used and injected into the G8 Infrastructure Fund. You talked about it a great deal in the media, but this was not authorized by parliamentarians themselves. You raised the question yourself earlier. We see that this amount was spent on certain facilities, in Muskoka in particular, in your riding.

I would like to know how you justify this transfer of funds that was not explicitly authorized.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Let me say first of all that it's really not my place to say, because I did not make that decision. That was made by the minister responsible for infrastructure. I think if the minister of the day responsible for infrastructure were here, Minister Baird would say--because it was his decision—that he received advice from officials that this was a procedure that had been used for 99 years in various types of activity of the government to roll up smaller funds into larger funds where it merited to do so, and he took that advice. He now says—and he agrees with the Auditor General, just as I do—that in circumstances like this it is better to be more fulsome in description than less. It has fallen upon my responsibility as President of the Treasury Board to have a government-wide edict on this and policy on this for the future.

So I take your point. You're asking me why I did that. I didn't do it. John Baird did it. He said he did it on the advice of officials because that was the way it was done for 99 years. Now we know that in 2011 we shouldn't do things the way they were done in 1912, and we will govern ourselves accordingly.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Nycole Turmel, we have two and a half minutes left.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I would like to go back to the 700 positions that will be cut in public works. If I go back to what you said, Mr. Minister, you said the review will be made in each department to save money over the next three years. How did you come up then with the 700 figure, including 92 auditors, if you are to do a review? How did you choose that number? And will it be like that in each department, where you will cut the jobs and then after that ask them to do a review?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I think for the importance of clarity we should understand that Madame Turmel is talking about the strategic review that was done over the last year, not the strategic operating review that is going to be done over the next year.

You're asking me a question about a particular decision that was made on the strategic review. I'm going to have to rely on Michelle a little bit to answer that question.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you, Minister.

I believe you're referring to a program called consulting and audit Canada. Is that correct? If that is indeed the case, it is an organization or a group—and my colleagues from public works would be in a better position to respond to you—that offers audit services on a price point basis. It is not a group of auditors that is embedded in organizations. We have those across the Government of Canada. We have departmental audit committees now in each organization. They provide advice to deputy heads on the financial controls and management of their organizations. Each organization has a chief audit executive. They are staffed by certified practitioners who provide internal audit services to their organizations.

This particular group acted as almost an inside-government consulting service. It is a service we can procure from the private sector quite effectively, and we continue to do so. In this instance, it is deemed to be an area in which the government is no longer required to provide services because they are either inside departments and organizations or they are easily procured in the private sector. So from that perspective, we are not affecting the capacity of organizations to perform audits. We have some very well structured audit committees, many of which—in fact most of which—are chaired by people outside the public sector so that they can in fact give us advice on how we manage and how we establish sound financial controls.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Madame d'Auray, I have to ask you to wrap it up there. We are well over time.

Minister, you said you could stay for an hour. It has been an hour. The next questioner is a Conservative, a five-minute round. I don't know how your time is. Are you able to stay for a few more minutes?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I'm infringing on some other responsibilities, Chair, so I thank the committee for its forbearance.