Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Brian Pagan]

Exactly. This is very much a work in progress. We've been at this for four years, and I think it's fair to say we've made progress every year in terms of the granularity of the information provided. We're working really hard right now to incorporate results information. Departmental results reports were tabled by the president in the House today. In the coming days, we will be updating InfoBase to reflect that results information by program. We hope to get to the point where we could follow initiatives at the most granular level.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

We know better is always possible.

[Brian Pagan]

Our approach is increasingly sophisticated. We have a great team in my shop that's developing InfoBase, and we are acquiring more and more data every year, more information that can be developed for that InfoBase site. It's very much a work in progress. I don't think we'll ever be at a point where we sit back and say that InfoBase is complete. It is almost by definition an ongoing project.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I have a very quick question about the way the information is presented to us. You've provided it based on the size of the changes. You've highlighted those that are above $100 million. That's one measure of what's material.

Another measure of what's material is which one has shown the greatest percentage change in respect of its normal budget. In areas where the changes are due to projects maybe going off the rails, or the unexpected, are there any you would like to highlight where there has been a large percentage change vis-à-vis the base budget that we should focus on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll have to, Mr. Pagan, get you to provide that to us in writing, since we are out of time.

We have one three-minute intervention left on this particular round, and that goes to Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This is just in the spirit of following up on some regional concerns in the Department of the Environment estimates where there's money for the Lake Winnipeg basin program components. I'm interested in getting a little more detail on what exactly.... There are three separate votes that together total close to $11 million. I'm just wondering if we have more detail or information on how exactly that money is going to be spent. Is it primarily on research, or are there action items that might help save the lake?

[Brian Pagan]

We do have some detail on that. Darryl is looking to pull it out.

My understanding is that it's related to some flood remediation work.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Even if you just want to follow up in writing, that would be fine. I know it's hard to find stuff in the binder on short notice.

There is another quick question I am curious about, and I maybe will talk a bit about it with the minister as well. There is money in the Administrative Tribunals Support Service for the RCMP. It says “to support the implementation of a new labour relation regime within the RCMP”. Can you explain exactly what the need for this funding is and how it's anticipated that this money will be spent?

[Brian Pagan]

Mr. Blaikie, as a result of recent legislation, the RCMP will now have collective bargaining rights. We anticipate a need to be able to deal with the public service staff relations board to administer some of that collective bargaining process with the RCMP. This is funding to simply reflect what we anticipate will be some increased work load or volume as a result of collective bargaining rights being extended to the RCMP.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Would that come largely out of trying to resolve disputes where they don't settle something at the table, or is that...?

[Brian Pagan]

Exactly.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we will suspend for a couple moments while the minister and other officials come to the table.

Mr. Pagan, thank you, and thank you to your officials. I understand that you will be with us, as well, for the second hour.

[Brian Pagan]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

The other witnesses are excused for now.

We'll reconvene in about two minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, I think we'll reconvene now. We're just running a couple of minutes over time.

Again, I remind all colleagues that we do have another committee coming in here at one o'clock sharp. We'll try to stay on time.

Minister, thank you very much, once again, for appearing before our committee. Without any further ado, I'll ask you, if you wish, to introduce the witnesses and your colleagues sitting at the front with you. Then you have approximately 10 minutes, I understand, for your opening statement.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to be here, back at your committee, again.

I'm joined here by Joyce Murray, our parliamentary secretary; Yaprak Baltacioglu, secretary of the Treasury Board; Brian Pagan, assistant secretary of the expenditure management sector; and Renée LaFontaine, chief financial officer of Treasury Board Secretariat.

I'm here today to talk to you about the supplementary estimates. With these supplementary estimates, the government is seeking Parliament's approval of funding to address matters of importance to Canadians.

This funding is specifically to support infrastructure, to create more opportunities for aboriginal persons, and to provide home care and mental health services.

The funding set out in the Supplementary Estimates will also serve to follow through on the government's plan to grow and strengthen the middle class in Canada.

We're seeking parliamentary approval of $4.5 billion in additional spending for 71 organizations. As you know, supplementary estimates present information to Parliament on spending that was either not ready for inclusion in the main estimates or has been since refined to account for new developments in programs or services.

This monitoring ability is one of the most important roles we as parliamentarians serve for our fellow citizens. To do this well, parliamentarians must have access to accurate and timely information on government spending.

With that in mind, Mr. Chair, we want to make it easier for Parliament to hold government to account. We are always open to the views of parliamentarians about how to go about this. For example, when I came to the committee in March to talk about supplementary estimates (C), Mr. McCauley made two specific requests about the detail and format of the information that we provide. The first request was to break down funding for horizontal initiatives by department, and second, to provide certain information in an Excel format.

I'm happy to say that we've now delivered on both those requests and we're working on more significant changes. To that end, the House recently agreed to change the date by which the main estimates were tabled, from March 1 to April 16. The date that the estimates should be sent to the House by the relevant standing committee moves from May 31 to June 10. This will begin in the fiscal year 2018-19.

Having main estimates follow the budget makes a great deal of sense, on which I think there is broad agreement, and reflects practice elsewhere. In fact, having the main estimates before the budget—I think that I said it at this committee—was asinine and denied Parliament the opportunity to really scrutinize the main estimates in a properly sequenced and logical manner. Adjusting the dates will ensure that the estimates are more closely aligned with the budget. This will help members conduct more detailed reviews of the estimates and to follow the money. In fact, the PBO noted, in its report released earlier this week, that:

Parliamentarians will note that the Government has decided to table these Supplementary Estimates several weeks earlier than usual, thus providing them with greater opportunity to scrutinize proposed spending.

Ultimately, the more information that parliamentarians and Canadians have, the more they will be able to hold the cabinet and government to account.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that I am committed to working with all parliamentarians to continue to strengthen the estimates process.

My officials and I would be delighted to have your questions now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Minister. Thank you for your brevity. That gives all committee members more time for questions, which we will begin right now.

You may not see it, Mr. Minister, but I'm actually doing a happy dance inside because we normally don't have ministers who are quite as brief in their remarks as you.

We'll start our seven-minute round with Madam Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brison.

Mr. Minister, thank you for being here with us today. I would also like to thank the officials with you.

This morning, we heard testimony about compensation adjustments for public servants. That is clearly a very important item in the Supplementary Estimates (B) this year. These pay adjustments for public servants are the result of the recent ratification of collective agreements, but it is a bit unusual for the amount to be so high for a single year.

Can you give us more information about those agreements?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

When we formed government, in November 2015, we inherited an unfortunate situation. The former government had ignored its duty to negotiate in good faith with the public service. So it was our duty to negotiate with the unions that represent public servants. And we have been very successful. With a lot of work, Treasury Board has negotiated collective agreements with 90% of unionized public servants. This is very important because it has helped us restore a culture of respect towards the public service. We will continue to work closely with the unions that represent public servants.

Moreover, this amount includes a retroactive period, as stipulated in the agreements that were ratified.

In fact, the previous government had created a situation whereby there were, in some cases, four years of retroactivity. There had been some collective bargaining agreements.

The collective agreements that were signed with certain unions had expired four years earlier.

Retroactivity, going back four years, creates a situation where you're going back, and if there's a pay increase, it goes back four years. That created the volume, both of transactions and of the quantum of the—

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Excuse me, Minister, are you telling us this now adds to the Phoenix problems?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Very much so.

The Phoenix system doesn't handle additional transactions very well. It also doesn't handle retroactivity very well. We inherited two situations that were difficult. One was a situation where we had a responsibility to restore a culture of respect with the public sector, to negotiate in good faith, and to achieve collective agreements. We did that, and are doing that. We also inherited a pay system that isn't doing what it ought to, which is to pay people accurately and on time. It's a pay system that does not handle either retroactivity or additional transactions well.

It was, in some ways, a perfect storm of two converging bad situations. The extra burden of the volume of transactions created by the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements has added to the queue in the Phoenix system. I know that my colleague, Minister Qualtrough, is going to be meeting with you sometime in the next period to discuss that. The situation is completely unacceptable, as was the situation of public servants not having collective agreements for up to four years, but we're working and doing our utmost to fix it.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Minister, for that.

On that note, there is a better way of doing things. These large, transformative IT projects that attempt to do all kinds of things in a bid to save a few pennies are penny-wise and pound foolish, one might say.

We had some testimony a few weeks ago from Mr. Murphy regarding the “agile” method, tackling things in small, manageable pieces. With the time that we have left, could you talk a bit about the TBS initiative?