Government Operations Committee on Feb. 25th, 2014

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly. Thank you for the question.

The vast majority of this funding relates to actually rates of pay. I did mention the nine agreements in the core public service, but just to refresh, those were aircraft operators; correctional services; executives; FIs, our finance group; foreign service officers; ship repair east and ship repair west, which are two separate bargaining agents; and then a group called technical services. That's the bulk of the nine agreements.

On average, and there are differences in each agreement, the compensation went up by about 2%. This is the most common in terms of rates of pay. Executives were lower than that at 1%. The terms and conditions of employment that changed were not across the board. They were specific to a couple of agreements. If I look at the correctional services item for our prison guards, for instance, there was a 2% raise there, plus I believe a one-time allowance of $1,750. That's an example of something that's not part of their base pay but relates to terms and conditions of employment. That was reached through that negotiation settlement.

If I were to look to our finance folks, they had an allowance in the past that was temporary in nature because it wasn't a permanent adjustment to their salary base. If you have a temporary adjustment that is around long enough, you eventually say that we should probably make this part of the permanent salary. We took one of the temporary allowances, and we rolled it into their salary and made it part of the base itself. That would be another example of an adjustment that was made.

Those are the two off the top of my head that are different in terms of allowances, but the bulk of this funding relates to the actual economic increases that were negotiated. On average, it's 2% with a few outliers as well.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

Treasury Board is requesting the $73.3 million for vote 15c, which is a centrally managed vote. Can you tell us what the purpose of the centrally managed vote is?

[Bill Matthews]

Central votes are a little special, so thank you for that question. These are votes where we actually take the funds and allocate them out to departments. Parliament approves Treasury Board Secretariat to receive money on a central vote. Then Treasury Board Secretariat, through Treasury Board, allocates it out to departments. It's a central vote in terms of the authority, and then as things occur, Treasury Board Secretariat will basically allocate money from a central vote to departments.

If you think about this one, correctional services is the easiest one. There was an agreement reached for our prison guards. We can calculate the economic increase and the resulting impact on their expenses, 2% plus the allowance. When you do that math, you figure out how much extra money that will cost the department, and the money is transferred from the central vote out to correctional services. We would do similar calculations for all of the other agreements that are reached.

We have other central votes, but the one you have focused on is related to compensation.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, sir.

That's all I had, Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Mr. Aspin, your time has expired.

I now yield the floor to Mr. Martin for five minutes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair—

[Bill Matthews]

Excuse me, Chair. We had two follow-up questions that we have answers for. Can I maybe intervene now? One was for Mr. Martin, and one was on CFIA. Can we maybe provide those answers?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Yes, you can do that immediately.

[Bill Matthews]

I'll take the first one, and I'll turn to Marcia for the second one.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Martin asked a question on liabilities.

We were looking at market debt, foreign debt versus Canadian currency. I'm looking at the public accounts. At the end of 2013 total payable in foreign currency was about $10.8 billion and in Canadian currency was $657.2 billion. The vast majority is in Canadian currency. Of a total of $668 billion, $657 billion is payable in Canadian currency. The balance is payable in foreign currency. It's quite a heavy weighting towards Canadian currency versus foreign currency.

That was the first question Mr. Martin had asked. There was a second question on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which we'll take now.

[Marcia Santiago, Executive Director, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

There was a comment earlier about an apparent reduction of $2.5 million related to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In fact, that amount isn't a reduction. It's a transfer. What happens in this case is that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is transferring an amount of $2.5 million to Shared Services Canada. What is going on in this transaction is that CFIA is requesting that Shared Services Canada procure hardware and software in support of IM/IT requirements for CFIA's food safety action plan.

It's not really a reduction in CFIA's authority. What they're doing is they're asking Shared Services Canada to purchase equipment for them so that they can continue implementing their own program.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for those two clarifications.

I now yield the floor to Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you for that, Mr. Matthews. Most of our debt is held domestically then by domestic banks in Canada?

[Bill Matthews]

It's possible that you could have debt with a foreign bank but that it's payable in Canadian currency. What I've given you is that it's payable in Canadian currency so there's no foreign exchange risk, but I can't say who is actually holding it.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You can't say who is holding our debt or how much is held by Canadian banks.

I want to start again with a fairly narrow question and then, if there is time, a more macro question. You're trying to package this change to short-term sick leave as sort of a net benefit to public servants, but surely there's a quid pro quo. I mean there's another side to this coin. They currently earn one and one-quarter sick days per month, which is not overly generous in my estimation. That will have to be reduced to show any savings. Is that the intent going into this round of bargaining, to reduce the number of sick days per month that employees earn and to therefore save?

[Bill Matthews]

If we're looking at negotiating a short-term disability program—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It would take the place of that one and a quarter days' sick leave.

[Bill Matthews]

The current sick leave regime, as you mentioned, has one and a quarter days...or 15 days a year. That is the alternative to that. If you're negotiating a new short-term disability plan, that would be on the table, but I can't comment as to how the negotiations will go.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You said about 11% of employees don't have enough accumulated sick days to bridge?

[Bill Matthews]

Eleven per cent have no banked sick days at all. So 11% of employees, if they take one sick day, are not paid for it. EI doesn't kick in for one day.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

They've used up their days already.

[Bill Matthews]

They've used up their days. We have 60% who don't have enough to carry them through to long-term disability.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Are you allowed to use those one and a quarter sick days if your child gets sick, for instance?

[Bill Matthews]

There's a separate allocation called family related leave, which I believe is a week a year if I recall correctly. That's what you would use if you have to take care of a child or something like that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Would that disappear as well then when you negotiate this new short-term sick leave?

[Bill Matthews]

My understanding is that what's on the table is the sick leave regime itself, which implies sick leave for employees.