Government Operations Committee on April 25th, 2013

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Perfect. That's all I needed to know. That's a very clear answer. Thank you for that.

I'll go on to my next question. Yesterday I was with the President of the Treasury Board and his staff. We got into a discussion about the difference between internal services, savings to internal services and savings to backroom issues. You've been asked to do your part. What's your understanding of the difference between backroom savings and internal services savings?

[Michelle Doucet]

I spoke a few minutes ago about what internal services are at the Privy Council Office. Because we don't have programs per se, we don't have back-office costs associated with programs.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Can you tell me what you consider those back-office costs to be?

[Michelle Doucet]

In fact, I can't, because I'm not involved with them; that's why I'm not in a position to speak to them.

The only thing I will add is that back-office costs associated with programs would involve an element of internal services costs, because internal services costs are common to everything we do.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Okay.

Is there a correlation between the $2.4-million increase for operational activities carried out by the Business Transformation and Renewal Secretariat and the cuts in the public service? I assume that, the more cuts are made to funding, the more need there is to readjust and plan the work involved. Is there a correlation?

[Filipe Dinis]

Mr. Chair, there isn't a correlation. The $2.4 million that is reflected are funds related to the creation of the transformation organization. There is no impact on the fiscal framework. This is funding that is coming from 27 or so departments. They're making a contribution to the organization. It's also a component of our budget.

Just to reiterate, there is no impact on the fiscal framework. It is a contribution, and it leads to our efforts in working with all departments in the federal public service in advancing the agenda of providing services to Canadians more effectively and more efficiently, and also looking for opportunities to find some savings in our operations in the federal public service.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you. That's good.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ravignat.

I actually have the next round of questions, so I will proceed from this position of supreme control.

I'd like to start with you, Mr. McArdle, if we could. You mentioned that with the Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat you're helping facilitate 75 to 100 conferences per year. I presume these are conferences at the ministerial level, the deputy ministerial level, among bureaucrats across the country. There's a lot of work going on under the radar screen, without the need for a photo-op necessarily.

Could you give us a recent example of some positive public policy change that has resulted from intergovernmental meetings that you've helped facilitate and organize?

[André McArdle]

Obviously the secretariat is involved in the process side. We are not involved in the results of the discussions, other than helping out with the communiqué. But if you're looking at the number of sectors that we do serve, and there are approximately 30 sectors of intergovernmental activity, a lot of it is in, for instance, energy, mines, with environment ministers, with agricultural ministers. There are many agreements that come out of these meetings. We are proud to be able to assist them in reaching those agreements by offering the necessary administrative support services to those conferences.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Very good. Thank you.

Madame Doucet, an element—formally or informally—of the PCO mandate is also intergovernmental relations. I'm curious to know whether the PCO and the intergovernmental secretariat complement each other as opposed to duplicate each other.

[Michelle Doucet]

Of these myriad preparations that I did to come before you today, I'm afraid I don't have that one in my little basket of tricks. It may be that Mr. McArdle is better placed to answer that question.

[André McArdle]

Thank you.

In light of the neutral and impartial nature of the secretariat, we do have a very efficient link with the Privy Council Office. For instance, I report to Parliament through the President of the Queen's Privy Council, not through the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. In essence, the message we wanted to send from the central agency is that there is that neutrality factor.

But we do complement each other. We are involved in process and they are more involved in the substance side of things with regard to intergovernmental strategy and relationships.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

That's a very helpful clarification. Thank you.

Mr. McCowan, the EAP—the economic action plan—website portal sound like a very good and positive initiative, and one that perhaps consolidates and streamlines information across government departments. Could you elaborate a little on that and give some specific examples of the information that's provided to the portal?

[Ian McCowan]

Yes, I'd be happy to.

As you alluded, it's an attempt to consolidate and integrate information about programs, services, and initiatives that would otherwise be scattered across the government, to put it in one spot for citizens so they can effectively do one-stop shopping. We're talking about everything from apprenticeship grants to hiring credits for small businesses. There are lots of programs and initiatives out there, as you're aware. This allows citizens to go to one spot and see it all in an organized and integrated way. I was on the website yesterday in anticipation of today's appearance. To give a couple of other examples, they're featuring the volunteer firefighter tax credit and the Canada job grant.

Again, it's a question of trying to do it in a way...knitting together almost 40 government departments' worth of information. As I think my colleague Michelle mentioned in her opening comments, it's about 275 programs, services, and initiatives that we’re up to right now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

That's great. Thank you.

A final question, Madame Doucet, with respect to the important work that's happening vis-à-vis human smuggling. Could you elaborate on that particular initiative, the status, and some of the follow-on work that will continue?

[Michelle Doucet]

In my opening remarks I spoke about the decision that's been taken to continue to support for another two years the work of Ward Elcock as the special adviser.

Mr. Elcock took office on September 15, 2010, with an overall mandate to coordinate the government strategy in response to migrant smuggling. So what is he doing? He's been working with key domestic and international partners to coordinate Canada's strategies to prevent human smuggling. He's demonstrating Canada's commitment through engagement with foreign governments in transit countries, in particular, and partner states to facilitate those relationships and to facilitate cooperation.

He provides advice and recommendations to the national security advisor to the Prime Minister, Stephen Rigby, and implicated ministers in terms of advancing Canada's strategy. You might be curious which ministers are implicated: the Minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; the Minister of Defence, in his capacity as the minister responsible for the Communications Security Establishment; and the Minister of Public Safety, in his capacity as the minister responsible for the RCMP.

So together with those departments, Mr. Elcock essentially works to try to reduce the likelihood of boats showing up full of illegal migrants.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Peter Braid]

Thank you.

I have exceeded my time.

Madam Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate all the information that's provided—we're provided with information backwards and forwards—but I have to admit I'm still having difficulty going back and forth between the way you're reporting in your reports on plans and priorities, where money is allocated, and what your mandate is.

I'll give you an example. If I go back to page 10 of your RPP, you gave a really good summary, and under 1.4, “Commissions of inquiry”, you say that's aligned to the government's outcome of transparent, accountable, and responsible federal government. So zero dollars are allocated for the next three budget years, obviously anticipating there will be nothing, because there's something allocated for everything else.

Yet when I go to page 17 of your RPP, you have a separate heading, 1.1.4, “Legislation, parliamentary issues and democratic reform”, where it says you were carrying out a mandate on that, and yet I don't see any specific dollars allocated.

So my specific question on that is, in light of the recent decision of the Federal Court on the requirement to provide information to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, do you foresee that there might be some role for the PCO to be advising the various ministries under that mandate? I can't see clearly where money is allocated to that, but maybe it's somewhere in the budget. If so, and if there are PYs and money is allocated, can you tell me if you foresee...? Under that mandate for the PCO, would that be a role that the PCO would be doing across ministry advice?

[Michelle Doucet]

I will do part of the answer to your question. I am going to talk about the mandate of the Privy Council Office. With respect to numbers, I'll ask my numbers expert to jump in, as I always do.

I'm not in a position to speak about what the role of the Privy Council Office would be in response to requests from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We, like other departments, take those as they arrive and deal with them on the face of them. My understanding is that there are none immediately before us at the moment, but when they arrive we will deal with them as a department, as the Privy Council Office, as do other individual departments.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

So you don't provide cross-ministry advice on how to respond.

[Michelle Doucet]

No. The Privy Council Office would respond as its own department, the Privy Council Office per se, in the way that we did to his request in September. We put our response on our website.

With respect to your question, I think your question was around the number, the money, the funds allocated for 1.1.4?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes.

[Michelle Doucet]

I'll ask Mr. Bélisle to answer that question.

[Marc Bélisle]

Those funds are all integrated within our PA 1.1, in which, when we report, we always roll up all of these funds together. They are funds for that particular area, but they're all within the PA 1.1 that we're reporting on. It's all embedded.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Okay. The two don't quite seem to match up.

On 1.1.3, “Intergovernmental affairs”, I've noticed that you provide that your role is professional non-partisan advice, support, and maintaining effective federal-provincial-territorial relations. I'm a little bit surprised that, in light of the two summits with the first nations, where there was an undertaking that there would now be a dialogue on a nation-to-nation level, it doesn't seem to fall under that. Is the PCO provided with no supervisory or advisory role in that direction?