Evidence of meeting #131 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 budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Shawn Tupper Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Economic and Regional Development Policy, Privy Council Office
The Department of Environment and the Department of Natural Resources are the two lead departments in doing that work with the provinces and territories. Your question in terms of the details of that costing would be better placed to those departments.
The work we do is to ensure that we provide connectivity, that we bring departments together. The convening role we play is to make sure that all of the elements of that plan are brought into consideration so that when the government is able to work with the provinces and announce costing, all of the considerations will be part of that.
Conservative
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
A year ago, on June 8 last year, I was at this committee and I was able to ask one of your colleagues about how the Privy Council Office deals with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and how it administers the budget allocated to it. She said that there is an internal services cost “that's built into what we call a fee, but it's actually an internal services cost.”
Can you tell us, for each fiscal year since the inquiry was launched, how much the Privy Council Office charged for the internal services cost of the inquiry?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I'll search and see whether I have that readily available. I can tell you that the books are not closed for last fiscal year, but in general the costs would be about $1 million a year for the support we provide.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
It's $1 million, plus or minus, per year. The first year was a shortened year, so it would be prorated, but that's generally what the costs are. It's within my team. We provide accommodation support, finance support, HR, IT, and information management, which is obviously quite important to what they do. We provide all those internal services to them as part of managing that $53 million, and it's really done at their request. They tell us what they need from an accommodation perspective, from an HR perspective, and whatnot, and we work with them.
That said, there are certain finance requirements in particular where we have to report. We have to do that work regardless of a request from them. Thus, the finance one is a bit more fixed compared to some of the other costs that we would incur. I'm comfortable saying it's approximately $1 million.
NDP
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I can give you the details on the year that has closed. I cannot give you the details on the year that just ended, as those books have not closed yet.
NDP
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
It's about $1 million over the course of the year, and you can prorate that by month.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Maclean's magazine reported last September that out of the $5 million spent by the inquiry, $2 million was taken completely by Privy Council Office bureaucracy. I've asked the minister this several times. She's never denied it.
Do you know where that dollar figure came from? Is it possible that this much, 40% of the inquiry's spending so far, could have been consumed by PCO service fees?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I apologize; I'm not familiar with that article.
Certainly that wouldn't be the case as of today. Perhaps there was an up-front cost related to accommodation that we did on their behalf. That's the only thing I can think of. However, $2 million out of $5 million does not sound like a number I've heard before.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
The contribution agreements negotiated for the national and regional organizations that are representing families and survivors in the inquiry play a very significant role. Contribution agreements have been negotiated, but we've been hearing from a number of organizations that the Privy Council Office was the organization responsible for the delays in getting the money out and the hurdles in finalizing the contribution agreements.
The next round of hearings happen next week in Montreal. We're hearing, anecdotally, that some organizations have had to pull out of that process because they didn't have any confidence that their costs would be covered.
Can you comment on that timeline and whether those public reports are true?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
In general, the process would be that the inquiry itself recommends an amount for each of the families. They send it to us with that recommendation. The Clerk of the Privy Council approves, and I sign the contribution agreement.
From my recollection, it's never taken more than a couple of days, at most, from the time we receive a document to the time we get approval. We move these extremely quickly. We view our role as being administrative in nature. We're not making a decision around whether we think one person should get the money over another. We're taking those recommendations and making sure that all the forms are properly filled out and that we have the information, for example, with the contribution agreement.
We've worked with the commission to develop template contribution agreements to ensure that it's expedited as much as possible. We meet every two weeks with a working group we've put together to make sure that any time there is an issue, we deal with it.
There have been times when there have been comments in the media. I'm not sure those are reflective of the views of the inquiry, either. We have a very strong relationship with them, in particular the executive director and the chief commissioner.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
The inquiry's interim report, from November 1 of last year, said that it takes four months to hire new staff and they have to follow PCO requirements for security clearances. They said, “This has seriously obstructed our ability to do our work in a timely way.”
They also referenced delays and obstacles in opening offices, getting computers, and even purchasing computer software. There has been no comment from government on that November 1 report so far.
What's the PCO's answer to those charges?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I believe my predecessor addressed some of those at a previous committee appearance, but I would reiterate that our service standards are fairly quick when it comes to all the things you mentioned.
Accommodation is probably the most complex, because there are a number of pieces to that. If you decide to move the office from one location to another, there are leases to negotiate and more complexities there. For HR generally, we're talking about three business days, when we get all the information, to produce a letter of offer.
For financial transactions, once we have all the information, it's very quick to do the payments. For security clearance, last time I checked, the average was 15 business days for a secret security clearance. I should note that the security clearance requirements are set by the commission. They have the ability to decide that they'd rather do reliability clearance, if they feel they need to do that more quickly.
On the whole, I would say that right now our relationship with them is very positive, and our service standards are something they're quite happy with. I have not heard any of those messages in the five months I have been working with PCO.
Conservative
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Is there any explanation for why there would be a delay between the Privy Council Office approval and either the organizations or the families actually receiving the funds you've approved?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I don't want to speak for the inquiry. I can't speak to what happens on their end between the time somebody requests the money and the time it's sent to us for approval. I can tell you that when we get it, we process it very quickly.
Once a contribution agreement is signed, it can take a couple weeks for the physical payment to go through the Receiver General. There are processes that exist, which is why we try to plan in advance, working closely with the inquiry.
I'd reiterate that we get things signed very quickly at PCO.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for being with us this morning.
I have some broader questions about some initiatives that the department is undertaking. There's a working group on law and policy. Can someone elaborate on that a little and inform us about what's going on there?
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
The working group on the review of laws and policies was set up to review government policies as well as operational practices and procedures, taking into account the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, section 35 of the charter, and the overall reconciliation agenda. The working group is made up of about six ministers, and they've had a few different phases of work. They've done extensive engagement and consultations with the national indigenous organizations and indigenous youth. They've had about 25 different meetings reviewing different laws and policies that exist or are being considered.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Okay, thank you for that.
What's the progress on the impact Canada initiative, generally speaking? Are we seeing positive outcomes? Is this meant to be an interim initiative, or is it meant to be permanent?
