Government Operations Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I just want to get to the lapsed funding. I think it's $1.7 billion. Again, this may sound like a broken record, but this came up in our estimates last time about the infrastructure, the lapsed funding. PBO says it was $1.7 billion. Is that lapsed and re-profiled or lapsed and gone back?

[Brian Pagan]

That's lapsed and re-profiled. The government's commitments to infrastructure are very clear, and in most cases there are actually signed agreements with the provinces for these projects. Our challenge in the infrastructure space is that—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I know it's difficult to get out.

Of the $10.3 billion that was lapsed in 2016-17, how much of that was re-profiled and how much has just lapsed and gone back into general funds?

[Brian Pagan]

I'm afraid I wouldn't have that detail on hand, Mr. McCauley, but we can endeavour to get that for you. I think it's fair to say a good portion of the lapsed funding is subsequently re-profiled because it remains for legitimate programs and services such as infrastructure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. I just want to read a comment from the PBO report.

[Brian Pagan]

Sorry, we have that number. I'll check it.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Go ahead, finish it, then.

[Brian Pagan]

Do you want to speak to that, Darryl?

[Darryl Sprecher, Senior Director, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Sure.

The total we have for re-profiled funds that were frozen was $2.1 billion, give or take.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

The PBO commented that in your 2017-18 departmental plan, “Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat committed, by May 31, 2018, to include 100 per cent of budget initiatives in the next available estimates,” which we've discussed already. It continues, “This would require the Government to incorporate Budget measures in the corresponding estimates over several weeks, rather than several months.”

Is that going to be doable?

[Brian Pagan]

That commitment is aspirational. It's what we want to achieve. We set a very high bar. Mr. Drouin spoke to the cultural changes. We acknowledge the need to work with departments and change the understanding of timing and get them into a position where they can bring things forward quickly. We are working with Finance to—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How realistic is it? It's not judgmental. I know it's turning a huge ship around, but how likely is that to happen?

[Brian Pagan]

There was also mention of the fact that other governments have done this, so we have looked at what other governments are doing.

I was at a conference this past August in Winnipeg where I met with provincial counterparts to better understand how they are doing their budgeting process. There is a range of measures available to us that include more timely TB approvals and some other ways of presenting the information to Parliament. We are looking at those, we're studying those other alternatives, and it's part of our ongoing dialogue with the president and with the Department of Finance.

It's challenging. I would not pretend otherwise, but it is doable and we are working our hardest to make sure that we can improve the process beginning in 2018-19.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great.

Just going back to the supplementary estimates (B), and Foreign Affairs, there's $18.3 million for co-location and a relocation project at the chanceries. What is a “co-location”, and what are we spending $19 million on?

[Brian Pagan]

Right. In New York, Global Affairs Canada has representatives both to the UN and to another office in New York. What we're doing through this co-location project is that we're bringing those two offices together into one. Instead of paying two rents, we'll have a single property.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How much are we saving on rent by spending $19 million?

[Brian Pagan]

I would have to get that information for you, but there was a cost-benefit analysis to support this and those savings are part of the justification for moving forward.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Can you get back to us on what the rent was and what it will be with the co-location? Is it the same amount of bodies all moving to the same larger building?

[Brian Pagan]

I would have to get that information for you. I don't think there's a change in the mission structure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have 20 seconds.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll just say thanks for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll now go to Ms. Hutchings. Welcome to our committee. You have five minutes.

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

Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

It's great to have you folks here today.

I'm going to put a little regional focus on this. I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador, and as all my colleagues from coast to coast to coast have said, the RDAs, the regional development associations, are very important. Looking at the estimates, on page 7, the estimates by organization, there's a huge increase for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. It's about 14%, which is wonderful.

Then you reach over into InfoBase, the website, and it's great. There's lots of information, and my understanding is that there's been a big improvement, which makes it easier for folks to get the weeds out of everything. But it's not really quite clear what that $43 million is going towards.

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you for acknowledging the work we've done on InfoBase and what a treasure trove of information it is. I would really recommend the site to the committee.

I'll approach this in two ways. First of all, in these supplementary estimates, we're seeing an increase in ACOA's appropriation of $40.5 million, and that's for two initiatives: the innovative communities fund and the business development program. Those total $23.9 million. The innovative communities fund is oriented towards the non-commercial, not-for-profit sector, more in rural communities, and the business development fund is for small and medium-sized enterprises. It provides interest-free, repayable loans. That's $23.9 million for those programs.

Then we have a reinvestment of receipts from repayable contributions. For instance, the business development program in the past advanced money, and that money is now being repaid, so we see a reinvestment of those receipts totalling $16.6 million as part of ACOA's appropriation.

That's the supplementary estimates (B).

In terms of being able to follow this money in InfoBase, we aggregate requirements and break them out by program, and we update this information consistent with supply exercises. We started the year with our main estimates numbers. When we tabled the supplementary estimates in May, we updated InfoBase to reflect that spending and we would have updated InfoBase two weeks ago to reflect supplementary estimates (B).

We take those amounts, those reference levels, for ACOA, which are approximately $350.4 million now, and we disaggregate them by the aggregate programs, and by that I mean we don't itemize—

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

You don't get into the projects.