Government Operations Committee on March 10th, 2015

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Bill C-51 gives some pretty considerable new powers to CSIS, yet there is a miniscule increase in the budget for security agencies.

Were you not expecting Bill C-51? What's going on?

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

I think you would be the first to object if we assumed that Bill C-51 has passed Parliament before it has passed Parliament.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

True enough, but in the eventuality that it will pass, which is likely, would you not want to build in greater expenses?

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

If Parliament decides that Bill C-51 is enacted into the law, and it is signed by the Governor General, then of course any incremental costs associated with that would have to be supplied to Parliament in due course, absolutely.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

So wait for the budget is your answer.

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

That and/or supplementary estimates (A) or (B) or (C).

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Natural Resources is being hit with a $320-million cut, which is pretty significant. I think only the Treasury Board is being cut more. That's 12.6% of its budget and mostly in energy efficiency practices. That's not a surprise from our perspective.

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

I guess we're more efficient now.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Is that it?

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

No.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

You're confident that—

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

I'm being facetious.

Certainly in the case of Treasury Board it could well be the case that a number of our commitments such as the commitment to fund out the severance is ending, so your ongoing commitment to continue to include amounts in the Treasury Board budget declines as a result. That one I do know.

In terms of Natural Resources, perhaps my colleagues can help me.

[Bill Matthews]

There are two items I'll flag for you.

Part of it is statutory. A net decrease of $110 million is related to the Atlantic offshore accords, and that's a statutory amount calculated by formula. The other big decrease is $110.8 million related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada as well as the next-generation biofuels fund. Those are the two areas.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That's quite helpful. Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

Aboriginal Affairs...$133.4 million mostly in first nations education. You may or may not know this, but the Pontiac has two first nations, Kitigan Zibi and Barriere Lake. Barriere Lake hasn't had a school built since 1985. They send most of their students off reserve to Maniwaki to be educated.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say there's a crisis in first nations education, so why choose to do this?

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

I don't know the particular case of your constituency, but we were all disappointed, of course, when the education deal with first nations across the country fell apart. I know that our aboriginal affairs minister is working very diligently to find partners in first nations communities across the country who are willing to participate in what was a groundbreaking partnership on ensuring both more funding for first nations education and more accountability for the results of that.

Perhaps I would recommend that you speak to the minister, and perhaps there might be some programs that are available for your riding.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We'll have to leave it at that. Thank you.

Next up for the Conservatives is Mr. Brad Butt.

You have five minutes, please, Brad.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here with us today.

Before I ask my main question, I just want to give you a chance, Minister, to state again on the record how the sunsetting issue works. I think there's a lot of misinformation that these are cuts to programs.

Can you just clarify again exactly what is meant by sunsetting provisions? One of the officials I think said that some of these programs are designed for five years and then they lapse. I want to give you an opportunity to explain very clearly on the record what the sunsetting of programs means, and that it's not cuts to programs. Programs have lapsed because they have achieved their objectives or they have done what they were supposed to have done within that period of time.

I just want to give you this opportunity.

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

There are many sunset programs, so I can't generalize completely on it. They fall into different categories. Some programs are experimental in nature, and were deliberately designed to not be part of the base budget of a department, because we wanted to assess the success or failure of that program within a discrete period of time, let's say five years. That's why you have the rolling funding and the five-year's assessment of success or failure. If it's failure, you fix the program, or it may be there is no need for that program. It was time-limited in terms of what it was needed for. If the program is successful, the funding could be repeated for another five-year period or whatever is deemed appropriate. It really depends on a case-by-case basis.

Of course, that provides a review process, which is carried out by Treasury Board, and then Treasury Board recommends to Finance, on our review of a program that is in the final year of its funding, whether it is meeting its objectives and whether it should be continued. Quite frankly, many of them are continued because they are achieving goals that are important to Canadians and to society, and that will be ultimately reflected in the budget.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much.

The other committee on which I serve, Minister, is the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, which is now under Employment and Social Development Canada. It runs a myriad of programs.

I do have to mention, being a member of that committee since shortly after I was elected to Parliament in 2011, the transformation I've seen within that department and the number of programs and services that have better reflected, in my view, the reality of the labour marketplace: the new Canada job grant, apprenticeship loans, some of the changes we've made to the employment insurance program, and other things that I think are important and reflect the reality of life in 2015 in Canada versus maybe 20 or 30 years ago.

The amount of $2.6 billion has been allocated in the main estimates for ESDC. Can you explain what that entails? What's involved in that budget number?

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

Sure. I can give you some generalities, certainly. I'm not the minister of that department, but I can absolutely give you some generalities.

It's largely due to the $1.4-billion increase to old age security. As well, $483 million goes to the guaranteed income supplements. Again, that relates to the actuarial changes in our society. We have more elderly and therefore more beneficiaries of these programs. As you've already alluded, $499 million is related to the Canada job fund. That job grant number is part of how we are accelerating the potential training of individuals in our society for the jobs that are available in or near their communities.

That is the $2.6-billion number broken down for you.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

One of the other programs we have struggled with—and I'm sure your numbers reflect this—is the issue of student grants and student loans. Did you want to touch on that just a bit? As far as I know there's been some talk about defaults and payouts and subsidizing these kinds of programs. They're important programs because they are providing financial assistance to students to better their education, obviously, to make them more successful in Canada's workplace. That's what we want. Do you have any comments about the default rate and how that fits into some of our numbers?

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

Well, no one likes to see default, but the good news is that represents a relatively small percentage of the total amount of funds allocated for the program, and it happens only after considerable effort has been put into trying to recoup the money. In some cases, there is a recognition that we're not able to do so without expending more money than the loan is worth. That's the calculation.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I think we'll have to leave it at that, Mr. Butt. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister.

Next for the NDP is Tarik Brahmi for five minutes.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I expect that you know that the issue of rail safety is paramount in Quebec, especially since the Lac-Mégantic catastrophe, when 47 people lost their lives and the downtown area of a medium-sized city was completely destroyed. This is a particularly important issue. Unfortunately, the problem is in the news again because this weekend on the Toronto-Winnipeg line there was a catastrophic accident, both ecologically and economically disastrous. There is enormous traffic on that line, which is unique in rail transport.

The Transportation Safety Board is asking for a $300,000 adjustment for the safety investigation into the Lac-Mégantic railway accident. Does that represent the total cost, or will there be additional costs for the investigation? Finally, will the measures that will be taken pursuant to the conclusions of the investigation mean that there will be additional expenses that have not yet been forecast?

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

I can answer in a general way. Of course, there will be additional costs. This is a tragic event and the government will do what it needs to do to ensure public safety.

Ms. Baltacioglu may wish to reply, as she was once Deputy Minister of Transport.