Government Operations Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2017

[Patrick Borbey]

That's subject to Treasury Board approval through the annual reference level updates. It's just a technical issue. All departments and agencies contribute to the money we then invest in maintaining and upgrading our resourcing system, so that's their share. We manage that on behalf of the collectivity.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It would just technically be cleaner accounting, I think, if you could get—

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You wouldn't have to....

We always like having you before our committee.

[Patrick Borbey]

It's a pleasure.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I'm going to speak with Ms. Ramcharan.

I don't have the acronym yet, because it's a new one. I'm pretty good at acronyms, but what are we calling the new national security committee?

[Kami Ramcharan]

It's NSICOP.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

NSICOP sounds pretty good, actually. It's on at 10 a.m. Wednesdays on your local channel.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I notice there's funding of $2.2 million. Is that covering the operating costs until there is budgetary permission voted on that hasn't happened yet, or is this start-up capital as well as operating costs? Will some of it be paid once that committee is fully funded?

[Kami Ramcharan]

The money we have right now is for a couple of things. One, because the NSICOP, the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians, hasn't received royal assent, there needed to be a department that could start things going. We have monies associated with salaries for the members as well as the chair and the executive director. Once the executive director is there, we expect him or her to get royal assent. They will have access to all of their money for the next five years.

The $2 million-plus we have is really a portion for salaries of roughly about $300,000. It's not big. Most of it is about accommodation, the fit-up for their space. Should we not spend that money by the time they receive royal assent, all of that money will be transferred directly for them and will be under their control.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Right. But is there any—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll have to cut it off there, but thank you very much for that.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We now have Mr. Shipley for seven minutes, please.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much.

Let me go, first of all, to Madam Fox.

Thank you so much. It's interesting. I think you're the only one who's not asking for more staff, but I was curious that you said in your opening statement that there is a shortfall and the money is needed for extra salaries, so we get that, but if the amount agreed on was higher than anticipated, why would that be?

[Kathleen Fox]

When we were provided information early on during the collective bargaining process to commence estimating what the retroactive and future increases would be, it was based on the assumption of 0.5%. The actual collective agreement increases assigned to date were 1.25%, and it also included, in some cases, additional signing bonuses or increments. That's why the total impact of the collective agreements was higher than anticipated and affects not only the current year and the future, but also the retroactive payments we were anticipating paying.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate the explanation. It maybe raises some concern in terms of the negotiation when you have that much time to prepare—and it's not your fault or concern—when you're projecting 0.5% and you get 1.25%. Anyway, I'll leave it at that right now.

My next question is for you, Ms. Fox. I just want to follow up on what happens through the Transportation Safety Board when an event happens. We could talk about the flights that Mr. McCauley talked about or Lac-Mégantic.

You raised the report. You raised some recommendations based on the events that have happened. Can you talk to me about how that gets acted upon when it goes to Transport Canada? Do you put in recommended timelines for when that action should take place?

[Kathleen Fox]

When an occurrence happens, we make a preliminary assessment as to whether we're going to conduct a full investigation or not. We want to make sure that we're going to spend those resources wisely in conducting a full investigation. We collect data, we analyze the data, we write a report, and we publish it. That's a long process.

The report has findings, which are lessons learned from the accident, and there might be recommendations. We don't make recommendations on every report. We make recommendations when we've identified high-risk, systemic deficiencies that need to be addressed that aren't currently being addressed. If we make a recommendation to, in this case, Transport Canada, the minister has 90 days to respond as to how and if the department is going to address the recommendation. We assess that. We're not prescriptive in our recommendations. We don't put in timelines. We recognize that some of these are going to take a while because they might be changes to regulations or standards, they might be new technology, or they might require extensive consultation and might require harmonization with other countries. However, that is the general process.

If we look at all our recommendations issued since 1990, not all of them have been addressed at Transport Canada, but roughly three-quarters of them have been fully addressed and have been assessed our highest rating of fully satisfactory.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

In your mind, is the 75% a good percentage, a good assessment in terms of the reaction to compliance?

[Kathleen Fox]

We would like to see higher numbers. If we look by mode, we've issued about 20 recommendations in pipeline, and 100% of those have been addressed. In rail and marine, we're in the mid to high 80% that have been addressed. Aviation is lagging at around the low sixties. That's the area where we're trying to get more attention, either from the regulator or from industry, because industry can take steps to address these recommendations without waiting for the regulator to act.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's interesting, because I think you said earlier that—I forget the word—accidents or incidents of air travel were decreasing. Is that correct?

[Kathleen Fox]

That is correct, but I would make a distinction here between an accident and an incident or occurrence. We also investigate occurrences where safety might have been at risk but it didn't necessarily culminate in an accident. In the example of two aircraft that came closer together than they should have, we would investigate that, but there was no accident.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay.

My next question is for Madam Ramcharan.

I'm trying to get a handle on something that's new in the present government in terms of the mandate tracer initiative to see if the ministers are keeping up to their commitments. Do you have any idea of what the cost of that might be?

[Kami Ramcharan]

Not specifically. We didn't seek additional resources to do it. When we're working with Canada.ca, the government instituted a process where it centralized all the web service's functions into one area in order to make it more cost-effective for government, so the costs we have right now in terms of developing that website have all been in-house resources. It has been part of the existing resource package that we have. We have used resources that we have access to in terms of developing it, so we don't have a specific cost for it.