Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Brian Pagan]

Mr. McCauley, thank you for the question. That's a very particular question and I'm afraid I don't have the criteria by which the department—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You can get back to me on how we're choosing, from which countries, and which organizations.

[Brian Pagan]

I'll direct that question to the department.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Coming back to a couple things in the Treasury Board estimates, there's the back office transformation. We've discussed this before. In this year, in the supps it's $11 million. How much more do we have to go? What's getting covered in that back office transformation and how much are we going to spend when we're finally finished?

[Renée LaFontaine]

It's very difficult at this point to talk about the total spend for the whole program. It's a transformation initiative that is involving four big back office areas of the federal public service, so the financial management systems and the business processes, the human resources ones as well as our—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Could you get back to the committee?

[Renée LaFontaine]

I could get back to you.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Wonderful.

In the same vein, with Privy Council Office, $32 million supports the Privy Council's information technology modernization project and other organizational changes. I'm just wondering what the other organizational changes are, and if that is in the same vein as the TBS back office transformation. It's on page 2-83 of the Privy Council estimates. Just get back to us if you don't know.

[Brian Pagan]

I have it. I'm just looking for my note here.

This funding supports modernization of their infrastructure as well as implementation of a business continuity plan to have alternate sites in the event that buildings close or systems are not available.

The system upgrades include developing what we call an e-cabinet capacity, so rather than all the binders I have in front of me here, we'll have all this information available on a tablet. It also includes the development of the GIC and Senate appointment website, and transition to a top secret network to be maintained by the Communications Security Establishment.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm out of time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Monsieur Drouin, you have five minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to get back to the new estimates process and aligning it with the budget, because it's the first time the Government of Canada has embarked on this. It's the right method. I believe it was the right move, but there will be a transition period.

Do you foresee any cultural changes with departments or issues that may arise in that change?

[Brian Pagan]

You're quite right to identify the fact that this is going to be a cultural change, a change in the way in which we do business and in long-established practices. We're aware of that.

We have engaged our departmental colleagues. The deputy has communicated with her DM colleagues. We've engaged the CFO community, and so we are building awareness of this, and in so doing, we're identifying established practices that will need to be changed.

The starting point and the reason we are able to bring people along on this is that the status quo as it existed was, if not broken, overly complex. We were making the process harder than it needed to be to bring information to Parliament, so, by properly sequencing the tabling of the documents, we're bringing, I believe, some much-needed clarity and coherence to the timing in which decisions are taken. That in itself is what certainly inspires us to keep going on this.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I completely agree, and I know other governments in Canada have done this as well, so it is the proper thing to do to bring more transparency to Parliament and effectively to Canadians.

You have engaged with the CFO community. Is there extra training provided to, maybe not the CFOs, but to those who will write the documents so that they understand the processes and whatnot?

[Brian Pagan]

At this point, because we're focusing on the timing, the challenges for us are fairly straightforward, and there's not a lot of training required. It is simply making crystal clear new timelines and making sure that departments organize their business to be able to reflect those timelines.

As you may recall, timing was one part of a broader reform agenda, and it remains to be seen if or when we'll move forward with other aspects of estimates reform such as, for instance, the introduction of purpose-based votes. Right now we are presenting the information by operating capital and grants and contributions. If we were to change that around and present information by the purpose of the program, then we would be in a world where there would be training required to make sure that departmental staff appropriately code the information so that it's fed into the systems the right way. We would also have to ensure that they aggregate the programs in the appropriate buckets so that it is consistent with what has been approved by Treasury Board.

That part of the agenda is for down the road. The president has been very clear that we have to get the timing right first. Then with the timing, we can look at some other possibilities.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Just one quick question, and I'm not sure if it's already been answered, but on slide 8, “Compensation and Benefits”, there's $1.3 billion, and on the previous slide we have.... I assume compensation adjustments would be included in there?

[Brian Pagan]

Right.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

And the Canadian Forces pay increase...?

[Brian Pagan]

Right.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

What's the third one, because we're not—

[Brian Pagan]

It's the public service insurance.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay.

[Brian Pagan]

What we've done on that slide, Mr. Drouin, is that we've aggregated the spending by theme, and pay and benefits is considered to be one theme.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

We are back to Mr. McCauley, for five minutes, please.