Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Brian Pagan]

Not to my knowledge, and again, I have not been part of discussions on this initiative. Your questions might best be directed to the department that made that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Luckily the minister will be with us for the second hour, Mr. Blaikie, so you might have an opportunity at that time.

We're now going to Mr. Ayoub.

You have seven minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

I would like to talk about the targeted admission of 300,000 immigrants in the coming years.

A total of $196 million has been requested to date in 2017-18 to support the targeted admission of 300,000 immigrants in 2017. As stated on page 1-12 of the 2017-18 Supplementary Estimates (B), the RCMP is requesting $347,367 to support biometric screening and identification of immigrant applicants.

How many immigrants have been admitted to Canada in each of the last three calendar years, and in the 2017 calendar year to date? How many of them were refugees? What is the total amount of funding requested by the RCMP for the targeted admission of 300,000 immigrants?

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Ayoub.

I have a few key facts, but you would have to ask the RCMP for the other numbers.

As to the immigration levels, the figures for 2016 are as follows.

I'm sorry. I'm going to do this in English. There were 296,346 landed immigrants, of which 58,435 were refugees.

For 2015, there were 271,845 landed immigrants, of which 35,922 were refugees. For 2014, there were 260,404 landed immigrants, of which 28,622 were admitted under the humanitarian class or were refugees.

The total amount of funding requested by the RCMP can be found in the 2017-18 Supplementary Estimates (B), but you would have to contact the RCMP for the amounts for the previous years.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Okay.

If I understand correctly, the $347,000 requested by the RCMP in Supplementary Estimates (B) corresponds to the original planned increase in the 2017 budget.

[Brian Pagan]

In fact, it's $347,000.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Yes.

[Brian Pagan]

It's not millions. It's thousands.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I'm sorry if I said “million”. Maybe it was the translator.

[Brian Pagan]

As a result of changes to the immigration plan and the development of new technologies, the RCMP has identified new tools—biometric screenings and some IT systems—that need to be upgraded to allow them to accommodate this volume. What we're seeing is an incremental increase of $347,000 to their budget for this purpose.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I expect these technologies will speed up the processing of applications and the verification of identity when there is a mass arrival of immigrants, as was the case this summer. We could ask the RCMP that later on.

I would like to move on to another matter that involves infrastructure, namely, the Champlain bridge in Montreal.

To summarize, an additional $100 million is being requested to cover unanticipated costs. I would like to know what falls under unanticipated costs. The Champlain bridge project will cost several billion dollars, so I would like to know what kind of unanticipated costs that $100 million will be used for. Could you give us a few examples of those unforeseen events?

[Brian Pagan]

Yes, sir. Thank you for your question.

In any major government project, there are always all kinds of unforeseen events.

We are also dealing with foreign suppliers. We have exchange rate risks. There are interest rate risks. There can be inflationary risks in terms of employment and contracts. If key suppliers go out on strike in the middle of a project and they come back and we have to pay them more money, there are risks related to that. Then there are specific project risks, depending on the type of project. If we are rehabilitating buildings in the parliamentary precinct, for instance, there can be risks related to lead pipes and old fashioned plumbing, and there can be asbestos.

In the case here of infrastructure.... The point here, Mr. Ayoub, is that for all of these projects there are considerable unknowns, so we would build in contingency at the very beginning of the project when it's approved by cabinet, by the Minister of Finance, and by Treasury Board. There are known costs, and then there are certain amounts set aside for contingency to factor in the unknown costs. That's simply prudent project management.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Is there any planning ahead for those unknown costs?

[Brian Pagan]

We use our experience every year to improve the ability to anticipate unknown costs, but by definition, unknowns are unknown. We cannot project with perfect clarity the value of the Canadian dollar, interest rates, what we may find when we—

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Can we have the information on how much the unknowns would be from the beginning of that project until now?

[Brian Pagan]

Yes. We can certainly get that for you. What I can tell you on the specific projects, Mr. Ayoub, is that in the case of the new Champlain Bridge, part of the project dealt with acquiring land and buildings removed from the bridge, and part of our costs here relate to dealing with contamination in those buildings, which I imagine is asbestos.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you for the information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to our five-minute rounds of questions, and I understand it's Mr. McCauley for five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks. If we could go back to the funding you were talking about, the training of 75 people. What exactly are we going to get, or are they going to go through for almost $50,000 a person? Is it like an MBA type, or...?

[Renée LaFontaine]

No. Actually it's a program that is focused on our senior management competency. Depending on the level, we have different programs for the more junior executives, and more sophisticated programs for the more senior.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What would be in the more sophisticated programs then?

[Renée LaFontaine]

When we're preparing these employees for their senior leadership roles at the ADM level, we're focused on the key competencies. I'll pull out the list. Excuse me. I'll just—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Maybe you can provide it to the committee afterward, so we can get to other questions.

[Renée LaFontaine]

Sure. Mr. McCauley, if I could just add, it's not $49,000. We'll get you the exact amount per employee.

There are two points I wanted to add that I didn't have a chance to say last time. First, as you know, this is the departments' money, which they are spending to train these executives. We're centralizing it and creating a standard program. That's one point.

The second point is that part of the funding, and I can get you the detailed breakdown, is related to the performance management system that we use to identify these candidates when they're ready for this training. Part of it is that there's a bit of an IT-enabled component there.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great.

One of my favourites in the estimates, when it comes up every year, is the Department of Agriculture's, and I'll read it: “Grants to foreign recipients for participation in international organizations supporting agriculture”. It's sending foreigners to foreign agriculture conferences. It's almost $3 million. I'm curious. How are we choosing these foreigners to go to foreign agricultural conferences? What benefit is it to Canada?