Government Operations Committee on April 25th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll convene the meeting. Welcome to meeting 83 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Today we're pleased to welcome representatives from the Privy Council Office and the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat to our examination of the main estimates. There's a large group of witnesses, so I'll let the heads of the delegations introduce the guests they have brought with them.

I understand that Michelle Doucet, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Corporate Services of the Privy Council Office, will be opening.

Madame Doucet, the floor is yours.

[Michelle Doucet, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today.

I'm accompanied by three colleagues from the Privy Council Office: Mr. lan McCowan, assistant secretary to the cabinet, communications and consultations; Mr. Filipe Dinis, assistant secretary to the cabinet, business transformation and renewal secretariat; and Mr. Marc Bélisle, executive director of the finance and corporate planning division of the corporate services branch.

My introductory comments are about the 2013-14 main estimates for the Privy Council Office.

The overall reduction of $3.4 million to PCO's financial requirements, from $126.8 million as reported in the 2012-13 main estimates to $123.4 million in the 2013-14 main estimates, is mainly related to the following.

There were savings of $3.5 million from PCO's 2010 strategic review identified in the budget of 2011 and savings of $3.5 million from Canada's economic action plan spending review of 2012. Later in my remarks I will provide you with more details on PCO's work in this regard.

There were savings of $1.2 million related to the completion of the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River. Since the commission's work is now completed, funding for the commission is not requested in the 2013-14 main estimates.

There was a reduction of $1 million for the operation of the Office of the Special Advisor on Human Smuggling and Illegal Migration. This reduction was booked because at the time of preparation of PCO's main estimates, funding for this work had not yet been secured for beyond March 31, 2013. By way of an update to the committee, a decision has been made to continue with the work of the special advisor for the next two fiscal years at a cost of $1.3 million per year.

These reductions are partially offset by $2.4 million to support operational activities of the Business Transformation and Renewal Secretariat, BTRS, in supporting the Priorities and Planning Sub-Committee on Government Administration as it pursues government-wide opportunities for improved services and operational efficiencies. To this end, the new secretariat is working with departments and agencies to find whole-of-government solutions that improve the effectiveness and efficiencies of the government. It is also continuing the work of public service renewal and supporting the clerk as head of the public service. Funding included in these estimates is not a new draw on the fiscal framework since funds were transferred from existing reference levels of 25 departments last year, in 2012-13, and from 27 departments for this year and future years. The remaining funding for the operation of the Business Transformation and Renewal Secretariat has come from the former public service renewal group, which had been housed within PCO's senior personnel secretariat, but which has now been moved to the new BTRS.

The amount of $1.4 million is to continue to support the coordination of government-wide communications for Canada's economic action plan. The action plan was first introduced in response to an unprecedented global recession. Given persistent global economic uncertainty, the government is continuing to implement the economic action plan to help ensure a strong, stable economy for all Canadians. Budgets 2012 and 2013 emphasized the priority placed on the economy in the overall government agenda, with the focus on jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity. The EAP website was redesigned in 2012 to focus on jobs and growth and to ensure that Canadians are aware of EAP initiatives and how these initiatives apply to them. The EAP team within PCO continues to support the coordination of a government-wide communications strategy for EAP. The strategy serves to provide Canadians with access to up-to-date information on more than 300 federal programs, services, and initiatives announced in federal budgets from a single web portal rather than from the individual websites of almost 40 departments and agencies.

On a day-to-day basis, the EAP team is responsible for ensuring that the EAP website is as up to date as possible, using social media to highlight initiatives of interest to Canadians. This requires regular contact with departments and agencies in order to ensure that projects are added to the EAP project map and that initiatives, priorities, jobs, and growth-related news releases are up to date.

An increase of $900,000 represents the portion of wage and salary increases to be paid to employees during fiscal year 2013-14, in accordance with specific collective agreements, which have been recently ratified.

There's $900,000 for the government-wide coordination of the perimeter security and economic competitiveness action plan. In December 2011, the Prime Minister and the U.S. President announced their agreement on the action plans, which would implement their earlier February 2011 declaration on a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness, designed to speed up legitimate trade and travel and improve security in North America.

In early 2012, a small team was established within PCO to oversee Canada's implementation of the Beyond the Border action plan. This team ensures close, regular, and routine communication, coordination, and consultation with the White House national security staff who oversee the U.S. implementation responsibilities. Funding in the amount of $900,000 is sought for the operation of the border implementation team within PCO.

Finally, there is $200,000, as the Canada–Australia exchange program has ended. This means that PCO is no longer transferring funds to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to support program costs, leading to a net rise in PCO's reference levels.

This completes the variance explanation between the 2012-13 and 2013 main estimates.

As I said earlier, I will now discuss the way the Privy Council Office, or PCO, has implemented and will continue to implement the savings forecast in the Economic Action Plan 2012 Spending Review.

PCO will contribute $9.2 million by 2014-15 to help the government return to a balanced budget. Savings in 2013-14 will amount to $3.5 million, or $4 million if we take employee benefit plans into account. Please note that savings of $1.3 million were part of PCO's 2012-13 supplementary estimates (B), as that information was not available when the main estimates for 2012-13 were drafted.

To achieve these ongoing savings, which will contribute to deficit reduction, PCO is changing some important operational elements, as I have mentioned in previous appearances. Here is some detailed information about that.

The federal-provincial-territorial functions have been further integrated within PCO, and a new federal-provincial-territorial relations secretariat was created over the summer. It is managed by a single assistant secretary who reports to the deputy secretary of the plans and consultations branch. Additional responsibilities have been assigned to other PCO secretariats in charge of policies, with regard to the evaluation and integration of intergovernmental perspectives in the government's public policy study. That will help us avoid overlaps and unnecessary duplication between elements of intergovernmental affairs and other PCO secretariats. It will also allow us to benefit from multiple perspectives.

The cabinet system has been streamlined. We have reduced the amount of work done by the cabinet, and we are actively managing the agendas and documents, while prioritizing a clear decision-making process. That will help strengthen the overall integrity of the cabinet's decision-making process. The implementation of that approach began and was completed in 2012-13.

The communications function is being modernized and streamlined. PCO has adopted a new approach to media monitoring and analysis.

The National Security Advisor's directorate will save money by cutting a few administrative support positions and reducing travel costs. It will also consolidate security operations programs with minimal or no impact on operations and restructure the commissioners network contract so as to staff it on a permanent and full-time basis. That will lead to greater efficiency and further savings.

The Public Service Renewal Branch, which is now part of the Business Transformation and Renewal Secretariat, will achieve administrative savings as of 2013-14.

The Corporate Services Branch has streamlined its activities in order to save money and carry out its targeted transformation. PCO has achieved administrative savings in the following two areas. First, subscriptions to print media have been reduced by 60% and replaced with digital versions, which are exchanged more easily. The correspondence service used by PCO's senior management has been modernized thanks to a review of its main functions.

Document management is an example of targeted transformation under which the department is implementing the Government of Canada's Directive on Recordkeeping. That will enable PCO to dedicate its resources to the management of records with business value rather than to reproductions and other low-value information. As a result, storage costs will be reduced, and the capacity for finding and reusing information will be strengthened.

In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide you with information on the part of the 2013-14 Main Estimates that applies to PCO. We would be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Madame Doucet. That's very interesting.

We're going to hear from the Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat as well. Then we'll address our questions to both of the groups when he has finished.

Mr. André McArdle, Secretary of the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, welcome.

[André McArdle, Secretary, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With me are Monsieur Daniel Plourde, the assistant secretary and CFO, and Madame Anik Lapointe, our director of corporate services.

We welcome the opportunity to appear before your committee. Because the secretariat is very unlike other federal agencies, I would like, with your permission, Mr. Chair, to give the committee a brief outline of who we are and what we do.

We were established pursuant to an agreement at the first ministers conference in May 1973. Following that decision, an order in council was passed on November 29, 1973, to designate the secretariat a separate department for purposes of the Financial Administration Act.

Although the secretariat is a federal department, in practice it is an intergovernmental agency whose operational budget is co-funded by the provinces. Our 33 full-time employees are made up of federal, provincial, and territorial public servants.

The secretariat has the capacity to serve approximately 100 conferences per year. The secretariat reports to all governments annually. We report to Parliament through the President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

Our mandate is to serve federal, provincial, and territorial governments in the planning and conduct of senior-level intergovernmental conferences. Our primary objective is to relieve client departments of the numerous technical and administrative tasks associated with the planning and conduct of such conferences, thereby enabling them to concentrate on the substantive issues. We serve conferences in virtually every major sector of intergovernmental activity. Our services are available across Canada.

In addition, the secretariat is the custodian of a unique collection of federal, provincial, and territorial archives. This collection is made up of documents tabled by delegations at conferences served by the agency since its creation in 1973.

I would like to emphasize, Mr. Chair, that the secretariat does not convene conferences; we respond to decisions taken by governments to meet on national or specific issues. Decisions concerning the location of such meetings, their number in a given year, and their timing and duration are all factors beyond our control. These, however, directly affect the level of our expenditures in each fiscal year.

We are fully committed to meeting the federal government's priority of returning to a balanced budget and of transforming our service delivery model while evolving alongside the changing needs of our clients. Furthermore, we are dedicated to supporting the federal, provincial, and territorial clerks and cabinet secretaries and their efforts to modernize and transform how intergovernmental business is conducted by introducing new and efficient methods of collaboration.

Following Budget 2012, which resulted in a 10% reduction in the secretariat's annual budget over three years, we committed to supporting government initiatives to modernize and transform our services and to evolving with the changing needs of our intergovernmental clients.

In the wake of those changes, the secretariat has decided to review its organizational structure and employee workloads and responsibilities, so as to better adapt its structure to the cyclical requirements of intergovernmental conferences. That will help reduce its payroll. In addition, we are actively participating in interdepartmental committees, with the objective of studying, collaborating on and finding innovative solutions to develop shared service opportunities that affect small agencies' internal services.

We have implemented interdepartmental agreements with other agencies and departments to obtain support in areas of special expertise, such as human resources services with the shared services branch of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Moreover, the secretariat is part of the first wave of Workplace 2.0. We are currently reviewing and replacing telephones and computer equipment to adapt to the mobility principles established by Workplace 2.0 and the vision of Shared Services Canada.

With the goal of aligning our services with the vision of the federal government and the objectives of the federal, provincial and territorial clerks and cabinet secretaries, the secretariat has undertaken a major service transformation program. Special emphasis has been placed on transforming and modernizing our delivery model through projects using new technologies, including videoconferencing and web tools.

We are pleased to announce that, as of April 1, 2013, the secretariat has the capacity to provide videoconferencing services to its federal, provincial and territorial clients. We are currently working on developing virtual conference services, which will be up and running starting in April 2014.

Our agency truly encompasses the spirit of innovation and the essence of shared services in the federal government by offering increasingly important cost efficiencies and economies of scale. In addition, we also offer the clear advantage of confidentiality, continuity, neutrality, and expertise when organizing intergovernmental meetings.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I'm proud to say that 2013 marks our 40th anniversary. The service we provide assists governments across Canada to move towards more effective and efficient intergovernmental collaboration. Those collaborative relations are an integral part of the successful functioning of the Canadian federation. This is precisely why federal, provincial, and territorial governments have been relying on the unique expertise, experience, and professionalism of the secretariat for four decades.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, sir, for that overview of the very important work you do. We appreciate that.

Now we'll go right to questioning.

For the NDP, Linda Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to the gallery of witnesses. We appreciate your cooperation.

I'll go right into your report on plans and priorities and the estimates. As a committee, we greatly appreciate that we get the RPP now so that we can compare that with the budget. It was one of our recommendations and is very appreciated.

At page 12 of your RPP, you have attributed your reduced spending in part to a decrease in legal costs related to public inquiries. In fact, you allocate zero dollars for the 2013-14 fiscal year for public inquiries. Often what governments think about doing is they might have a holding amount of money in case a public inquiry is called.

How has the stated objective of reducing spending by limiting costs for holding public inquiries factored into any advice you might have provided in response to the call for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and children?

[Michelle Doucet]

I particularly appreciate the focus on one of our five program objectives, which of course is commissions of inquiry.

If you look back into the work that PCO has done over the past number of years, we have supported the establishment and operation of a number of commissions of inquiry, and as I stated in my opening remarks, the last one finished just this last calendar year with Justice Cohen submitting his report at the end of October. The commission then took a couple of months to wind down.

Presently, we have no commissions of inquiry in our work plan, in our estimates process, or in the RPP, and that's what we have reflected in the documents we put before you. However, should the government make a decision that it wished to establish a commission of inquiry, it's part of the Privy Council Office's mandate to support that decision. We would respond accordingly. That would be an in-year decision, and any resources that would be required to support that would have to go through the expenditure management process, including the estimates process, therefore coming before this committee before they would be approved.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

As a general rule, PCO was not allocated a lump of money in the case that it may have a responsibility for overseeing a commission of inquiry.

[Michelle Doucet]

That's correct.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I notice that in the last year the estimate was $1.2 million and was reported as $11.2 million. We seem to be underestimating the actual cost to deliver these.

My second question is about advertising. It's a bit of a puzzle trying to figure out who exactly in the Government of Canada is responsible for advertising. The chart that Public Works and Government Services has provided helps somewhat. I noted in there that PCO is given a very clear mandate to provide oversight, chair the government advertising committee, secure approval for a government advertising plan, and recommend funding allocations.

Despite the reported 10% reduction to the PCO secretariat over three years, your report on plans and priorities at page 16 reports an increase of $1.4 million to supply a government-wide communications strategy for the economic action plan.

I would have to say that the feedback I'm getting from my constituents, on viewing the most recent ads, is that there doesn't appear to be a lot of content there.

The Gomery report, of course, which came out of a lot of concern about the spending of dollars for advertising and promotion, recommended that the government amend its definition of advertising, conform to accepted industry standards, and promulgate a new policy. Those recommendations were in response to the Auditor General's report in 2003, where calls were made for mandatory auditing of advertising spending, value-for-money evaluations of all advertising campaigns, and periodic audits by the Office of the Comptroller General and the Auditor General.

My question is this. Have any or all of these measures been instituted, and if so, can you provide us with the audit and the value for money for the War of 1812 ad campaign?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Sadly, the question took most of the time, so give a very brief answer, if that's possible.

[Ian McCowan, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Communications and Consultations, Privy Council Office]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My apologies. There were a number of elements to the question. I'm going to try to cover them all, and if I miss anything, please circle back.

First of all, in terms of the overall responsibilities around Government of Canada advertising, as you are probably aware, the communications policy of Treasury Board sets out the roles of the various actors, including our own. So there is a well-established frame that sets all that out, but as you say, there are a number of people who are involved at different stages, so it is a bit of a puzzle.

In terms of the $1.4 million and the EAP component that's part of this main estimates, which you flagged, that's not related to EAP advertising at all. Virtually all of that relates to the EAP website and is specifically for a relatively small team to run the EAP website. The purpose there is basically to centralize the provision of information. We have more than 275 programs, services, and initiatives involving almost 40 government departments there. It's an attempt to basically do an efficient distribution of information about a variety of things—for example, the apprenticeship grant and stuff like that. In terms of Canadians' interests, things in the zone of getting a better job have a high level of interest. But that's our effort there in terms of that element.

There were a couple of other elements to your question.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm afraid we're going to have to wait. Maybe in the context of answering other questions you can finish your thoughts, but we're well over time for that time period.

[Ian McCowan]

Sure.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Next, for the Conservatives, is Mr. Jacques Gourde.

Mr. Gourde, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

My first question is for the Privy Council Office representatives.

Could you explain to us the key points of your report on plans and priorities and your expenditure planning for the current year?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

I will begin by explaining our plan. I will then yield the floor to my expert on figures, Marc Bélisle, who will be able to tell you about our planned expenditures.

The RPP is the Privy Council Office's expenditure plan. The committee is probably well aware that it's based on the program alignment architectures of the PAA. Using the PAA, it provides details of the Privy Council Office's main priorities by our strategic outcome. We're a relatively small department, so we just have the one strategic outcome.

We have five program activities, and then we also try to give you a sense each year of what our planned or expected results are. As well, we try to give you a sense of what we think our risks are going to be. Obviously, we give you some details on resource requirements, including planned spending and other financial information.

The RPP talks about the three main roles at the Privy Council Office. It does that every year. Those roles have not changed. I've spoken about those in previous appearances, that we provide non-partisan advice to the Prime Minister and cabinet. We support the smooth functioning of the cabinet's decision-making process, and we foster a high performance and accountable public service.

I spoke of PCO's one strategic outcome, which is that the government's agenda and decision-making are supported and implemented and that the institutions of government are supported and maintained.

What gives life to our PAA are our four priorities. The four priorities that were in last year's RPP are the same this year. They are to support the Prime Minister in the exercise of his overall leadership responsibility, to focus on key policy and legislative areas and strengthen medium-term policies and planning, to support the management and accountability of the government, and to strengthen PCO's internal management priorities.

I spoke of risk. Risk is always contextual, and PCO's context is complex, fast-paced, and rapidly changing. This year we've made slight adjustments to our risk profile. It's similar to last year's, but perhaps a bit more succinctly stated. We talk about risks to the policy and legislative agenda, to security and economic management, and other risks to PCO operations. We talk a bit about how we're going to deal with that.

Then the RPP takes us to the planning highlights of the PAA framework. In these highlights you will see the continuation of much of PCO's core work. You'll also see, in terms of what's new and notable, the work of the Business Transformation and Renewal Secretariat—my colleague Mr. Filipe Dinis is here today, in case you're interested in that—as well as that of the border implementation team. Of course, there are PCO's ongoing efforts to implement the strategic review that was announced in budget 2011 and the deficit reduction action plan, DRAP, announced in budget 2012.

The last thing I would note that's mentioned in our RPP, in terms of the overall plan, is that the Cohen commission of inquiry has concluded. I've already spoken about that in answer to Ms. Duncan's question.

Marc, did you want to speak a bit about the numbers?

[Marc Bélisle, Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Planning Division, Privy Council Office]

Yes. Thank you.

By the way, maybe just a little snapshot: as you see in our RPP, we had forecasted spending of about $138.8 million in 2012-13. We're going down in 2013-14 to $126.8 million.

Just to give you a quick overview of that difference, it's basically our strategic review cut. The third year of application is being put into full force. We have our second year of DRAP cuts. There's human smuggling. As we mentioned in the opening, at the time of the writing of the estimates the funding had not been confirmed for future years, so that was a decrease. We also had the RCC program, where we also had funding only for one year and not for future years at the time the estimates were prepared. Also, some of our eligible refundable salaries are a bit lower in future years.

As you know, in collective agreements there's a clause that people can have a choice, when they renegotiate collective agreements, to get the payout of their severance pay. We had a couple of prior years of some peaks when people did take their cash, but that will be going down in time. That's also being reflected in our figures.

There are smaller differences in future years. When you compare 2013-14 to 2014-15 and 2015-16, our differences are much smaller. If I only take 2013-14 to 2014-15, that's basically the budget 2012 cuts that are coming into play in the third year. That's the biggest difference. Then in the third year we have sunsetting programs, which will be the economic action plan and the border action.

That just quickly explains our financial situation.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That's very helpful. Thank you.

I'm afraid that uses up all your time as well, Jacques. Thank you.

Next, for the NDP, we have Mr. Denis Blanchette.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests.

My first question is about your forecasts. There is a small difference between the forecasts you presented at the beginning of last year and this year's forecasts. The actual spending was much higher.

What guarantee do we have this year that you will be closer to your forecasts than you were last year?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

It's an excellent question. Forecasting is a practice that we and all Government of Canada departments take seriously. Every year we have a sense of the central battle rhythm of our operations. I spoke earlier about the core work of PCO not being fundamentally changed from last year over this year in terms of its essence to support the Prime Minister and the clerk and cabinet.

With respect to doing our best to adhere to forecasts, first we put together a plan for the year that also looks forward to their internal spending plans for the next couple of years. Marc and his team visit on a regular basis with all the folks who are in charge of what we call responsibility centres—the folks who manage the budgets within the department—to go over what they're planning to spend their money on: how many people are they going to hire, what's their planned staffing, will they have to travel to further the government's objectives, and will there be key gatherings of provincial, territorial, or international officials that need to be supported?

We put together a forecast based on that. We do that at the beginning of the year, and then we check in at a minimum on a quarterly basis. As the year progresses, that gets a bit more intense.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I understand all that, as those are principles of healthy management, but some organizational history needs to be taken into account. Administration cannot be based only on sound management principles, as in your case. You also have to take into account who you are, what you do and your mandate. In addition, you said in response to another question that the context was complex.

If we look at your actual spending compared with what you had planned for this year, we see a reduction of 7.5% in adopted budgets, and that is a fairly significant drop.

Are you relatively certain you will be able to reach that target?

[Michelle Doucet]

I will begin with a bit of a bureaucratic answer, but I'm a bureaucrat, so I can say that.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It isn't a dirty word.

[Michelle Doucet]

We always try to do our best, but particularly within the context of the PCO's complex environment, certainty is a bit elusive at times. We do take into account the behaviour of the organization more and more, and, as you say, the past historical context, particularly when we adapt quickly to new initiatives that are added mid-year. If a new priority arises in June, for instance, that would require the organization to adapt.