Evidence of meeting #10 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Secretary, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat
Well, it gives us flexibility because, as I mentioned in my opening speech, we have no control over the number of conferences that we do in a given year or their location and frequency.
For instance, we just did a first ministers meeting, which cost the secretariat close to a quarter of a million dollars, and of course the Prime Minister has talked about another first ministers meeting in the fall.
This gives us the required flexibility to be able to finance these meetings.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
As I mentioned, the current government seems to have a fairly ambitious agenda for intergovernmental relations. Among other things, it has promised an enhancement of the Canada pension plan, which would of course involve the agreement of most provincial governments. Do you feel confident that this $6 million will be sufficient to cover all of those meetings?
4:05 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4:05 p.m.
Secretary, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat
That's an interesting question. If you've noticed, our statistics for last year show that we did 115 meetings, but of these 115 meetings, 40 were teleconferences, and two of them were virtual. In line with not only the orientation of federal government but also the provinces' orientation toward being more cost-effective with regard to intergovernmental machinery, of course the costs have gone down.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
If I may, I will shift over to the Transportation Safety Board.
With your estimates, I'm struck by the fact that they actually have gone down a bit in recent years. How would you account for that, given events such as Lac-Mégantic and the overall level of concern about rail safety and other matters in your portfolio?
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Like other government departments and agencies, we have been affected by budget cutbacks and reductions over the years. However, that has not impacted our ability to conduct investigations, the quality of our investigations, or the timeliness of our safety communications.
We also have a mechanism to go to, to provide a submission to the Treasury Board, and through the supplementary estimates to obtain additional funding, when we have a large investigation or a flurry of smaller investigations that go beyond our baseline of activities. In the case of Lac-Mégantic, we did in fact apply for additional funding in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 fiscal years. But, no doubt, we have had to make some internal efficiencies and take steps to deal with the reductions we've had.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Could you maybe talk more about those efficiencies? You sound very confident that the budget cuts haven't had any impact on the organization's ability to do proper investigations. I guess I'm wondering what was cut.
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Well, to be clear, we've managed through the reductions. It has reduced our flexibility, as I indicated in our remarks.
Perhaps Monsieur Laporte can give you some more specifics about where the reductions have been effective.
4:05 p.m.
Jean Laporte Chief Operating Officer, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
A large part of our reductions have been done on the administrative side. We've reduced eight administrative positions, two management positions, and three investigator positions. We've shifted to electronic communications and distribution instead of printed material. We've reduced our travel by using video conferencing. We've reviewed the management of our standby and overtime costs, with more robust oversight and prioritizing projects and initiatives, essentially.
As Madam Fox indicated, we've taken all the steps possible to avoid reducing the number of investigations that we undertake in a given year for fiscal reasons.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
I just want to make sure I understood correctly that you have eliminated three investigators. I have a hard time understanding how that would not reduce the capacity to conduct investigations.
4:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
If we look historically, we've always had a number of vacant investigator positions just because of ongoing attrition. The positions we eliminated were positions that had been vacant for a few years. So there has been no net impact in terms of the delivery of the mandate.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
But if the positions had been vacant, then there were no savings from eliminating them. Is that fair to say?
4:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
The budgets still include those salary dollars. Those salary dollars were lapsed at year-end, because the positions were vacant. When the time came for the cuts, we basically eliminated those positions and reduced the budgets.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Okay. Great.
One specific aspect of your main estimates that really jumped out at me was the reduction in funding for pipeline investigations. It's reduced by more than half between last year and this year. I just wonder if you could shed some light on that decision.
4:05 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Currently we have no pipeline investigations ongoing. Last year we completed two pipeline investigations.
The way we proceed for pipelines is that because there are very few occurrences that we investigate, we allocate a notional amount that covers the salaries of two investigators who are dedicated to pipelines so that we have the capacity, the readiness. Then, in the year when we launch an investigation, we reallocate money between programs—i.e., from aviation or from marine to pipelines—to cover the cost of the investigations as the costs are incurred.
So that we don't have money that's sitting there unused, we reallocate and move money around, as required.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Our final seven-minute intervention will come from Mr. Whalen.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Ms. Cahill, I just wanted to get back to the question you were responding to from Ms. Ratansi earlier. I'm wondering if there was anything else you wanted to add on the staffing policy framework, the benefits, and the implementation plan for the staffing policy framework.
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, the new framework was established on April 1 of this year and at this point we're just a month into it. So we have not been able to assess the real challenges or the benefits, but I'm sure that as we proceed with more staffing action, we'll definitely be able to have a better assessment.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Further to that policy, at what stage in the policy development process was the gender-based analysis plus examination undertaken? Is there some way you can provide the committee with a copy of the analysis of the gender-based analysis plus that was meant to have been done in connection with that policy?
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultations and Intergovernmental Affairs, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, the policy was developed by the Public Service Commission. The Privy Council Office, amongst other departments, provided input into that via the Human Resources Council across government, so they would be best placed to respond to that specific question. But, indeed, as was noted, employment equity and other considerations are part of the staffing policy.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Perhaps you could provide the committee with that. I'm trying to get a sense from all the different policies that are made throughout government—and certainly over the past number of years, the last five years perhaps—to see exactly where in the policy stage the gender-based analysis was undertaken and how it affected the overall decision-making and the policies. It would be helpful to see that.
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultations and Intergovernmental Affairs, Privy Council Office
Certainly. If it's the will of the committee, we can follow up with the Public Service Commission and provide the information to you.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
In respect of the Transportation Safety Board, I will just follow up a little further on Mr. Weir's questions. I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador. Safety in the fishery is very much a concern. It's considered one of the dangerous professions in the country. I noticed there were recommendations made by your organization just a couple of years ago that already got implemented by the Ministry of Transportation.
How many investigations are you doing per year on the marine occurrence side, and what percentage of overall marine accidents in the fishery are investigated by your department, say, as a percentage?
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Mr. Chair, in the marine mode last year, in 2015-16, we conducted 15 investigations. They average between about 12 and 15 per year. A lot of those are fishing vessel accidents, as opposed to involving other types of marine vessels. Fishing vessel safety is on the TSB watch list of those issues posing the greatest risk to Canada's transportation system. There are a number of recommendations that have been made over the years with respect to fishing vessel safety, some of which are still not implemented. As I mentioned in answer to another question, each year we reassess Transport Canada's response to our outstanding recommendations to see what progress has been made. We were concerned about the lack of progress on some of those recommendations. We made some of them unsatisfactory. We're just finalizing our reassessment for this year, and we will be making those reassessments public in the next few weeks.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
The second part of my question was, what percentage of overall marine incidents would be investigated if you're doing 12 to 15 per year? Is that really a representative sample? What's the sample size that these would be pulling from?