Evidence of meeting #121 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I can't speak to spending but I can speak to the budget that's allocated.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Maybe you could provide to the committee the spending breakdown that I've asked at a later time?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Okay.
I'll turn it to my colleague who I think can answer part of that.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, I can answer that question.
To date, the secretariat has spent $593,000. Of that $444,000 is salary and $149,000 of that is non-salary.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
What's budgeted then $974,000 what's the breakdown of the budget then? Obviously you've spent $550,000 of it. What's the annual budget then broken down between salary, travel, hospitality etc.?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
How that is broken out is the $974,000 to date which would be at the end of January, 2019 that is the break down where $444,000 is for salary, and $149,000 in non-salary spent to date, thus far. There are still a few months remaining in the fiscal year.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
I'm sorry?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Do you think it would be similar ratio going forward do you think?
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you very much.
I guess my first question is just to understand a little better the vision and the mandate for the LGBTQ2 Secretariat is and how it's meant to work with other departments to try and ensure that LGBTQ2 issues are represented within the work of other departments.
It kind of says that it's suppose to support the Prime Minister's special advisor on LGBTQ2 issues. How does that work? Does the direction for the secretariat come just from the special advisor or....? What's the kind of meat of their work if will?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, to date the secretariat does have the principal role of supporting the special adviser. It also has the mandate to integrate further in an intersectional thinking way, complementing gender-based analysis, for example, and our approach in federal government.
In the beginning, one of the main priorities for the secretariat was to advance the apology, which the Prime Minister delivered in the House of Commons on November 27. It was also involved in the settlement of a legal case. Those two moved forward.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
In the design phase of the secretariat, was there ever talk about what the benefit would be? I'm trying to understand what exactly the role of a secretariat is with a special adviser as opposed to having a secretary of state or a minister of state with a ministry of state. Were other models considered? What's the benefit of using a secretariat as opposed to other ways of trying to advance LGBTQ2 issues within government?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
All machinery considerations, Mr. Chair, are the Prime Minister's prerogative. It is up to the Prime Minister to decide the type of machinery or arrangement that he or she would like to put in place to support priorities. In this case, the Prime Minister provided a mandate to MP Randy Boissonnault to be the special adviser on issues, and he has a mandate to engage and advance thinking in this area.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
I do appreciate that it's ultimately the prerogative of the Prime Minister to decide. I guess I'm just wondering if there was consideration given to other administrative models. If so, if you're doing a cost-benefit analysis of different models, what would the advantage of a secretariat over those other models have been?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, while that sounds like a reasonable question, that really would be advice to the Prime Minister, and it's his prerogative. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to speak to that.
NDP
Conservative
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much for being here.
I'm just trying to get a grip on the role that the PCO plays in different areas, and to provide non-partisan public service support to the prime minister and the cabinet in the decision-making structures.
When the decision to purchase Phoenix was made, were you engaged with it? When the previous government purchased Phoenix, were you engaged in that decision-making process?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I was not at PCO at the time and so I can't comment on the exact process, but if there are new funding requests, generally they would have to go through cabinet for cabinet approval. A memorandum to cabinet would have gone through, and PCO would have provided advice at that time.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
The PCO would have provided advice, but we can't ask you what advice they provided because that's cabinet confidentiality.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Right.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Fair enough.
When a department comes to ask for money—for example, in a case like PSPC, which was going to change the payroll system and fire 700 employees—who does the due diligence? Who determines the mandate, timelines, deliverables, and some of the risks involved in it?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
An MC is ultimately written by an individual department and outlines the rationale behind it, the different options that exist, the risks associated with that, and ultimately provides a recommendation. All three of the central agencies—Treasury Board, PCO, and the Department of Finance—play a role in that process to challenge costs, challenge assumptions, and ask the tough questions around fiscal responsibility and whatnot, so all of those central agencies would have been involved in analyzing the business case and asking those questions, and PCO would make a recommendation to cabinet as to what our opinion is as a department. Ultimately, cabinet makes that decision.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Would the committee be able to access the decisions or the due diligence that was done in the previous era when Phoenix was implemented?
