Government Operations Committee on May 8th, 2018

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

Absolutely, and with a very limited turnaround time. The act specifies that the period begins on the 120th day before the polling date and ends the day before the date of the next general election.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Does that mean that you can continue to do analysis throughout the election campaign period?

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

It is an exception to the act. That is why I said that it posed an extremely high risk for an office like ours that is independent, yet neutral and non-partisan.

If, during the election campaign, you say that your measure will cost $500 million, but we say that it will cost $2 billion instead, you can see how this is a risky approach. Given everything that has been going on with the manipulation of information, it's not only a risk, but also the reason why we stay in the information environment of the House of Commons. That recommendation was made to ensure we are extremely well protected, and to protect your information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Kelly for five minutes, please.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

Before I begin my questions, there was something in Madam Mendès's preamble that I just thought couldn't go without comment. If I understood her correctly, she said that the government is not accountable to the opposition; it's accountable to Canadians.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

I said we are accountable.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Opposition members are a part of that accountability through Parliament, and the government is accountable to Parliament. In any event, perhaps I misunderstood what you said. I can look at the transcript, but I'll move on to my questions.

I want to express my respect for the work you do. I'm sure that nobody at this table would disagree that you do tremendous work on behalf of Canadians and are very helpful to us as parliamentarians in your work.

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that the President of the Treasury Board promised to include the language and the dollar figures from table A2.11 in his eventual supply bill. I understand from your answer to the other question that you've had that conversation with him.

Last Thursday, I asked him why he chose that particular moment to share with Canadians and to announce that he actually intended to do what you had suggested would be an improvement to his bill. I was particularly disappointed that his answer to that was to begin to spin a yarn about his twin four-year-old children, how they sometimes behave irrationally, and how we, as parents, sometimes placate our children who have irrational concerns.

How do you feel about that characterization? It was in fact you, among other experts, who had pointed out the shortcomings and the challenges to accountability that are presented by vote 40. He has characterized those critics as irrational and said that perhaps they could be placated by putting the language in.

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

Thank you for the question. I had a journalist ask me that question, so I will quote myself. I used a French expression that has been translated as “I will not throw a tantrum about that.”

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You're not a four-year-old.

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

In French, it's “doing a bacon strip on the floor”— which is for the interpreters.

I cannot comment more than that, but the point we raised, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, was that it is the legislative mandate of the PBO to raise these kinds of issues. I was clear that we reported what we saw in the wording, and what we saw in the process.

I agree that maybe some department people are not really happy about it, but it is our legislative mandate to report that to parliamentarians, because, as you mentioned, parliamentarians vote. It's a democratic vote. Parliament votes on these budgets. Yes, with a majority, the majority will win most of the time, but it is the responsibility of the PBO to tell parliamentarians what we see in these kinds of processes.

Again, I think there was a disconnect between what the executive wanted to do—aligning the budget and the main estimates, which is a good thing—and the procedure. I think there was something they missed at some point in terms of making it happen in the procedural approach, in the parliamentary approach to that vote.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Okay.

Could you explain the process of how that $7 billion will be reported and show up in public accounts? Part of the concern some people have raised is that we won't actually be able to judge whether this $7 billion was spent according to the table until after the next election, if at all. Can you comment on the reporting back through public accounts?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

If you can do so in 30 seconds or less, I would appreciate it.

[Jason Stanton]

The current reporting that they will be updating monthly is just on the allocations, based on what has been approved by the Treasury Board. In previous public accounts, there hasn't been a specific breakdown of the dollar amounts that were actually spent based on the budget measures. I'm not aware of any specific commitments to changing how it is reported in the public accounts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Peterson, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Fréchette, for being here with us today.

I just have a couple of questions on the vote 40 framework, and maybe more generally on the estimates, the timing, and the alignment.

The minister indicated on Thursday, when he was with us, that Australia is the gold standard on how to get it right. Do you agree with that?

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

Absolutely.

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

What is it about Australia? What features make it the right way, and what do we need to do to get closer to that gold standard?

[Mostafa Askari]

What they have done is integrate their estimate process with their budget process. The spending measures that are going to be in the budget have already been seen by their treasury board, and they are doing their due diligence ahead of the budget. Once a measure is announced in the budget, it's also part of the main estimates. That's the full alignment that one wants to see.

Similar things happen in some of the provinces in Canada. They do the same thing. That coordination between their treasury boards and the finance departments is there, so they can do that.

That does not happen in our case. The Treasury Board in fact starts the due diligence process after the budget is tabled, so that's where the delay comes from.

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

There is room for improvement, clearly.

You talked about due diligence. You're reserving judgment, and even the minister is. The money won't flow until the due diligence is satisfactorily completed. That due diligence process, I assume, takes place on all the other expenditures.

[Mostafa Askari]

It takes place on all the expenditures that have to be approved by the Treasury Board, yes.

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

Obviously, there are time constraints and resource constraints related to that due diligence.

I just don't know how we can make more time between budget and estimates to allow for all the processes that need to run their course and ensure that parliamentarians are making decisions with the full information in front of them.

[Mostafa Askari]

Well, that's what I was mentioning. If that process starts earlier, the Treasury Board is aware of the spending measures in the budget and can coordinate that with the Department of Finance, and they can then finish the due diligence process earlier so we can see those in the budget.

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

I understand what you're saying now. Thank you.

I want to talk just a bit about the office itself. I know I have only a couple of minutes left. Specifically, with the new rule you're planning, as a sort of arbiter of campaign promises, do you see this as needing more resources than you already have? Are there going to be enough human and administrative resources? I know it's impossible to predict the future, but is there any way of estimating the new workload or caseload that your office may see under this new power?

[Jean-Denis Fréchette]

Well, we can have more people immediately. We are already hiring this year to be ready for next year, and after that it's going to be ongoing. The more money we will have every election year is really not in terms of human resources, but more in terms of additional support for translation, formatting, and access to information, because that's going to be key. If we don't have access to information, if we cannot buy data for whatever costing we will have, we won't be able to provide that service to political parties.

Will it be enough? It's going to be new for the new PBO to go through this process, and nobody knows. As I mentioned before, we don't know if political parties will submit one, two, or all the proposals in a platform. The legislation is not that clear about it. It just says “proposals”, so they may come with 10 or with the two major ones in their political platform. We don't know.

However, I would say that we are 100% sure that the office of the PBO will be able to meet all the requirements and demands of political parties.

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

In closing, I want to thank you and all of your team for your service to the Parliament of Canada. We appreciate it.