Government Operations Committee on April 24th, 2013

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Minister, your department has accomplished an enormous amount of work to balance the budget.

I would like to know what measures were taken to reach that balance? Can you then tell me which measures were more difficult to implement and which may have exceeded projected budgets?

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

Of course, the main estimates 2013-2014 provide information on budget expenditures in the amount of $252.5 billion. Voted expenditures were in the order of $87.1 million and statutory expenditures stood at about $165.5 million. This year, the main estimates, of course, indicate a significant decrease in voted expenditures over the last four years. This is in line with the exercise in expenditure containment carried out by the Government of Canada.

So we are making progress. I think you can see that. If you compare year to year, we have been able to constrain spending and identify priorities, and that is now starting to be expressed in the documents before you. We will continue to do so.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Minister, it is clear that the government supports Canadians. There was a slight increase in health transfers, senior benefits and EI payments. Why?

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

Our promise to Canadians is that these transfers will be protected. Of course, there will be cost increases. This year, for example, there was an increase of 6% in health transfers. Our government promised to protect these transfers. We must also protect transfers to individuals. In our budget, there was a decrease in certain expenditures, but at the same time, we have to consider services which are essential to Canadians in order to protect their health and their employment opportunities.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Jacques. That concludes your time.

And that concludes our first round of questioning.

I know we have the minister for a few more minutes, and there is one question I would like to ask, dealing with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I noticed quite a large number there. For reference, it's in section 2, on page 22, and it's a figure of $41.9 billion, not $41.9 million.

We don't understand the main entities that are responsible for this repayment. I thought CMHC had a huge surplus because nobody defaults on their mortgage any more because interest rates are so low.

Why is there this massive amount of money for repayment? Who is repaying it, and to whom?

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

I think Mr. Matthews seems to have his response ready before me, so I'll defer to him.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

If I could refer members to that page, that's actually a repayment related to non-budgetary items, so that's money the government has loaned out and that's coming back in.

If you recall the economic action plan, one of the challenges facing the financing industry was that banks were having a hard time getting capital, which was then impacting their ability to give loans to businesses and Canadians. If you think about CMHC, the government was the ultimate risk holder for their mortgages anyway. What happened was that the government bought back some of their insured mortgages. In the insured mortgage program, if I recall correctly, just under $70 billion in debt was bought back, and the banks are now paying that back over the next couple of years.

It's actually a revenue generator for the government because there is a fee charged for that. It's improved the bottom line for the government over the years of the program. So that's money that's coming back into the system and not going out.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Good. That's a clear answer to a question.

Thank you.

Mathieu Ravignat, five minutes.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The point with advertising isn't the Liberal-Conservative race to the bottom and who is worse when it comes to spending on advertisements. The issue is value for money.

How can you justify carbon copies of advertisements for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and vacuous propagandistic advertising as value for money for taxpayers?

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

Well, I think we do have a duty to inform Canadians—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Well, then, inform.

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

—which we are doing. I would put it to you that decisions in budgets or public policy positions that will help the economy are important to Canadians. You have the right to disagree with that, but that is our position. This is important for Canadians. If you're going to have an accountable government to stimulate that dialogue, we try to drive people to websites or other tools to seek more information. Canadians will make their own decisions.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That would be fine if you're informing Canadians about changes to service and programs, which your advertisement campaign rarely does.

But let me move on to something else. I'd like to ask you about relocation of public servants. I'll do so in French.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Each year, between 15,000 and 20,000 federal employees move, and these moves are done under an integrated relocation program. This sole source contract, which was renewed in 2009 despite the fact that there were investigations which reveal that there were conflicts of interest involving senior officials, could cost Canadian taxpayers over $30 billion. This contract is set to expire in 2014, and so, Mr. Minister, do you intend to put in place a specific review process to make sure that, when the contract is awarded again, it is fair and equitable?

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

Thank you for your question.

I do not have an answer to your question at this time, but I may be able to provide you with a response fairly soon. I will be pleased to do so.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

All right.

I would greatly appreciate a commitment from the minister and the chair with regard to obtaining this reply.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

My only concern with that is that normally it would be fine, but I think it falls under Public Works more than under the Treasury Board Secretariat.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Those are rules with which the Minister of Public Works must comply. They were established by Treasury Board. I am wondering whether Treasury Board plans to review its own rules?

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

All right. Thank you.

We will look into that and provide you with an answer on that subject.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

All right. Thank you.

I will now move on to my next question.

In 2012, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told us about a new legal and investment office that was set up to defend government interests during the various legal disputes with the public service unions.

Here is my question. How much money did the government spend in legal fees because of disagreements with the public service unions?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

I can't find the number right now. We have a legal services unit, and when we're taken to court for various reasons, we have 15 lawyers who deal with it. I think you're asking about the litigation management unit.

[Christine Walker, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Treasury Board Secretariat]

The litigation management unit was established for charter challenges. There are 27 collective agreements and 18 bargaining units. One of the reasons for establishing that unit was to have continuity for litigators—but those are specifically for charter challenges.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

All right, thank you.

I would appreciate it if you could provide us with the amount that was spent.

Minister, I have one more question for you.

You mentioned that you were planning to review the issue of employees' sick leave. Do you truly plan to change our public servants' sick leave when collective agreements expire next year?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I'm not going to explain our entire collective bargaining strategy. I hope you don't mind, but at the same time, we always look for ways to be fair to our employees. The question that really should be asked is whether the current system is helping people who are sick and whether there are better ways to do that.

I would say to you that the current system has a number of gaps that can make it difficult for public employees who become sick at the beginning of their careers. The system is not very fair to them right now. I would put it to you that there are ways to make the system fairer, more balanced, and more responsible, not only to the taxpayer but also to employees dealing with some of these issues.