Government Operations Committee on May 12th, 2015

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Have you finished, Mr. Brahmi?

Okay, thank you very much.

Then we'll go to the Conservatives, Mr. Chris Warkentin, for five minutes, please.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My colleague Mr. Kerr talked a little bit about the study we're doing with regard to standards, and we're very interested in the work PCO is doing in reducing the encumbrances on businesses. We heard from the Standards Council of Canada that it has become increasingly frustrated with what it believes is one of the larger impediments in the whole process, which is the Canadian General Standards Board.

Can you confirm whether or not the secretariat will be looking at some of the current structures we have in Canada vis-à-vis those in the United States? It's my understanding that the United States' standards development organizations are basically industry led. They have commonality amongst Canadian and U.S. partners. We have this unique thing in Canada with a board that's purely Canadian and has no U.S. involvement. Can you speak to what the secretariat has been doing with regard to the board and whether or not they have any opinions with regard to that board?

[Michelle Doucet]

I can't speak directly to your question but I do have some context that may be helpful to you, so let me take a stab at that.

As I said, the work of the RCC started in December 2011. It started because there was a fair amount of common ground between the two countries in having highly evolved regulatory systems. Here we are in May 2015, and I think the folks at PCO would tell you that they've learned lessons out of this exercise. They've obviously worked with their American counterparts, but they've also worked closely with industry in both countries.

First of all, they've learned that relationships, coordination, and planning matter, so in both the initial action plan in 2011 and in the forward action plan announced last August, you're going to see an emphasis on that. Following on that, it's really important to work together to pick and choose the priority areas of work and then take a comprehensive approach. When I was here before, I talked about the 29 working groups, and this time I'm talking about 24 areas of broad regulation.

It's not by chance.

These are conscious choices of areas that folks across the board want to work on because they think that they can make real differences, and I gave a couple of areas of possibility with paint and lipstick earlier.

Stakeholders are key, which means that transparency is a must, so you're going to always see posted on various websites updates on what's happening. For instance, the stakeholders met, I believe, in the fall to talk—and you're always going to hear what we heard and what we discussed. I think that's helpful in having conversations with other stakeholders.

Finally, one of the big lessons learned when you're working on this kind of structural progress is that you need a high level of commitment, which is why our organization and the RCC is based out of PCO. It reflects the government's priority on this, and in the United States it's based out of the White House. There's attention being focused on government-to-government considerations on perhaps less interesting but really important things like information-sharing and funding mechanisms. When push comes to shove, how are we actually going to work together?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

The work continues. Do you have any sense as to when they'll have a report out or if they'll have any information that they'll be sharing with Canadians with regard to the progress?

[Michelle Doucet]

I don't have that with me here today. In the past they have reported at least a couple of times a year. In the fall there's usually a report because they usually have a big stakeholders' meeting where everybody comes together, and then again in the course of the summer. That's my understanding, and that pattern will probably continue. I would also say that, as we indicated in our opening remarks, funding for the RCC continues through to 2016-2017. Is that right, Karen?

[Karen Cahill]

It's until 2017-2018.

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That concludes your time, Mr. Warkentin, I'm afraid. You may get another round.

Next, for the Liberal party, we have vice-chair Mr. Gerry Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses.

I'd like to inquire about the role of the Privy Council Office in the function of media monitoring, public opinion polling, and government-wide advertising.

Would you be able to give the committee an overview of PCO's role in those three initiatives, as well as a comparison of recent years of budgetary commitments provided for PCO or in partnership with Treasury Board or other departments for those three initiatives?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

I think I can be helpful on that, and I'll try to be concise as I give you my explanation. I may run out of time in getting to all your questions, so let me start.

PCO's role in government advertising and public opinion research and media monitoring is set out in the communications policy, which is one of the policies from the Treasury Board suite of policies. It's a broad and long policy. It's about 50 pages long and it sets out the roles of various departments and pieces of government and, in particular, the PCO's role in all Government of Canada advertising and public opinion research. PCO's role is designed to comply with that policy.

Let me speak to one very important or foundational tenet of that policy and then I'll start with government advertising in particular.

The policy says that the government has a duty to advise Canadians and to communicate what it's doing on its priorities and the actions it is taking. Based on that, decisions around how government advertising is conducted are played out pretty much like decisions for any other government priorities. It starts with cabinet; cabinet makes a decision on advertising priorities, what the priorities are, and what level of funding should be attached to them. Departments work with Treasury Board Secretariat to get the required management approvals to implement advertising activities. Then the line departments are individually accountable for carrying out those advertising activities. They are assisted in that by the Department of Public Works, which helps them with what I would call accountability mechanisms.

For instance, on an annual basis the Department of Public Works publishes the amount of money spent for the fiscal year before. The other thing that Public Works does is that for major communications advertising files it has guidelines in place before you go out on how to make sure you're going to get the best value for your money. And then after the fact, it has standard evaluation criteria. So all advertising campaigns are evaluated through the standard criteria. You can see that there is the usual rubric of accountability mechanisms around the expenditure of public funds.

In terms of how much was spent, I have an overview for the last five years. Again, you'll find these figures on Public Works' website. In 2009-10, during the global economic recession and the government's expenditure campaign as well as an H1N1 pandemic that required extensive advertising—I think that was the high-water mark—$136.3 million was spent on government advertising. The next year in 2010-11 those expenditures dropped to $83.3 million. In 2011-12 they decreased to $78.5 million. In 2012-13 they were $69 million. In the last report published, which was 2013-14, and I believe that report was just published in April of this year, they are reported as $75.2 million.

With respect to finding information on public opinion research, departments file that information in a place that you might not necessarily think to look, so I'll highlight it for you, and that is Library and Archives Canada. Information is publicly available on that.

Finally, to talk about media monitoring at the Privy Council Office, the Privy Council Office has as part of our main work a branch called PCO communications. Pursuant to the communications policy, it supports the government in implementing its priorities. It provides communications advice and coordination, and to do that it obviously has to monitor the media cycle, which as everybody knows is 24/7.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Byrne, that was a simple question and a very complicated answer. Your time has expired.

Thank you very much, Ms. Doucet.

Thank you, Mr. Byrne.

Next for the Conservatives, we have Brad Butt for five minutes, please, Brad.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, ladies. Thank you very much for being here. It's my first time as a committee member having you here for the main estimates, and I certainly appreciate the thoroughness of the presentation.

I want to go back to the Regulatory Cooperation Council. You have indicated that there is a $2.1 million funding increase in the operations. What specifically is that for? The reason I ask is that I have met with at least a dozen businesses in my riding that would love to see this process happening a lot faster. They are bringing products in from the United States. Canada is a small market, so when they are making a product for 300 million people in the United States and then they have to completely change everything to sell it to 34 million people in Canada, it's not sustainable. You gave a couple of examples, Michelle, of the lipstick. We know this is a problem. Is the increase in funding to speed this up? Is that our goal in trying to do this, or is it not a factor of money? Is it just a factor of these various sectors having more meetings, having better coordination, and, sector by sector, working better so that we can get harmonized standards across the border?

[Michelle Doucet]

I would characterize it as a continuation of funding, as opposed to an increase per se. The continuation of funding for three years—because this is a sunsetter program, and we have funding contingent for three years as per the supplementary estimates (C)—is a sign of the success of the work that is being done. Now, stakeholders are rightly impatient in terms of the pace, but I think the system is surprised with how productive the work has been.

I remember when it was announced in 2011, and everybody was paying attention to the Beyond the Border action plan because it had the kind of words that get headlines—“border security”, “economic competitiveness”—and “regulatory alignment” was, you know, a bit less sensational.

The very satisfying thing about the work that the RCC has done is that it has made a lot of progress on the initiative. The fact that departments in the Government of Canada such as Health Canada and Transport Canada are actually going to have senior public servants who will have, in their performance agreements every year, the requirement to deliver on the plans that are put together in negotiation with the United States means that we have an embedded commitment in the day-to-day lifeblood of what the government does in this regard.

I think that is really encouraging. At some point, the sunsetter program which supports PCO's work.... We coordinate all the departments together, and we coordinate the negotiations with our American counterparts. At some point, we are going to be a bit like Nanny McPhee, you know. Departments are going to get so good at this that they won't need us anymore. They will want us, but they won't need us anymore. I think that the feedback loop between industry and what their needs are can never go away. It's really important for that to stay robust and vibrant, always.

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

Do we have some sectors and some departments that are just more keen to get this work done and others that are just stuck in the world of inertia? From the feedback I am getting, I get the sense that there are some sectors that are much more proactive in getting these things done and harmonized between the two countries, and then others where nothing seems to be moving ahead at all.

What do we do to get those foot-draggers more actively involved? Is it your role through the Privy Council Office to light a fire under some of this stuff, or is that really department- or sector-driven?

[Michelle Doucet]

I am not an expert on regulatory sectors, but I have had some experience with complexity. One of the other members of the committee asked about the pre-clearance agreement under the Beyond the Border action plan, which was a bit of a counterpart to the Regulatory Cooperation Council, where stakeholders also rightly have high expectations about progress. The pre-clearance agreement took three years to negotiate because it was complex. There were hard pieces to figure out, such as the rules to govern the border guards on both sides. What is the legal framework to govern the behaviour of border guards on both sides?

Similarly, in the regulatory sector—as I think we all behave when we start off with something new—you get at the low-hanging fruit, and then you get to the hard stuff. The hard stuff takes time because it is complex, whether that's because of capacity, the inherent nature of the work, or perhaps the changing nature of technology. I can't speak to whether there are foot-draggers, but I can tell you that the work they are attacking now is the harder stuff, the complex stuff. I think you will see that the government in the line departments coordinated by PCO is very committed to making real progress.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Butt. You're well over time.

Thank you, Ms. Doucet.

That concludes our first round of questioning. We'll have time for three more five-minute rounds. Yes, I think we should at least that.

So, Mr. Ravignat, five minutes to you please.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Could you indicate whether or not there's been any evaluation or re-evaluation of government advertising at the PCO recently?

[Michelle Doucet]

As I described in my earlier answer, the decisions around government advertising are taken by cabinet, with a management precision added by the Treasury Board. I can't speak to cabinet deliberations, so I'm not in a position to talk about whether they have made any decisions in that regard. I am in a position to describe the cycle, as I have earlier, and the management rubric around it.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Perhaps you're in a position to tell me whether or not PCO staff have recently given any advice to cabinet on government advertising?

[Michelle Doucet]

Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, I'm not in a position to speak about the advice that we provide to ministers at the Privy Council Office.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

There was a 149-page document on using the tag line strong, proud and free, I believe it was. That 149-page document was coming from the Treasury Board to my understanding. It's been very difficult for us to get a copy of it. It was sent to cabinet to give them advice on whether or not to use that tag line in government advertising.

Did the PCO office have anything to do with that document?

[Michelle Doucet]

Let me talk a bit about what PCO's role is in advertising, because I worry sometimes that PCO's role sounds a bit murky when we say that we provide advice to the Prime Minister, coordinate cabinet committee meetings, and support the clerk in her role as the head of the public service. Let me give some precision in the area of government advertising.

The Privy Council Office plays a central role in the coordination, review, and management of government communications pursuant to the communications policy, including advertising as determined by the Prime Minister and cabinet. Our responsibilities include supporting and monitoring the implementation of cabinet decisions across government.

Cabinet takes the decisions. We support the monitoring and implementation of those decisions, providing institutions in government with advice, and support, and approval of their communications planning and management, including in the area of advertising. We coordinate and support the planning of the horizontal or government-wide communications by designating lead institutions and assigning special responsibilities.

I spoke earlier about the expenditures in 2009 for the H1N1 pandemic campaign. You can appreciate the need to have a government-wide approach there, and similarly, in the Ebola crisis that was playing out late last summer and through the fall.

That's a bit of a summary of what PCO's role in advertising is.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

I would assume then that you do provide advice on the usefulness of advertising to various departments and ministries.

[Michelle Doucet]

As I said earlier, I'm not in a position to talk about the exact nature of the advice that we provide to ministers.