Government Operations Committee on May 22nd, 2018

[Brian Pagan]

Every department will have enabling legislation, and that enabling legislation has been approved by Parliament.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

And it is sometimes the case that new programs require new kinds of statutory authority.

[Brian Pagan]

Where there are separate statutory authorities required, there would be enabling legislation for that purpose, but in the voted expenditures that we're presenting in budget 2018, the $7.04 billion, there are no new programs created through that funding that have not previously been approved by Treasury Board.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

How are we supposed to evaluate that claim as parliamentarians because for the lion's share of items in vote 40, they don't appear in the departmental plan? There's not actually any real information about those grants or potential programs in the estimates. I can take your word for it, but if I'm interested in doing my due diligence and performing my oversight role on government, then how do I do that? If I want to look for just about any item in that vote 40 column, if there's no information about what the program envisions.... I can get a glimpse of some of that if I look at the budget document, but the budget document isn't part of the estimates, so it's not part of the set of documents. The estimates are meant to provide parliamentarians with the information they need in order to approve funding, and to know whether that's appropriate or not. If that information is in the budget document, and incidentally, it's still not even really in the budget document because the budget document is vague, that's fine. It's not the job of the budget document to provide detailed information to provide authority. We're in an awkward position where that's actually the document we're being referred to. If you look at the estimates, you'll see that none of that information is there.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

If Ms. Mendès wants you to, you can answer both questions at that time.

Madam Mendès, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you all for being here.

Yes, I would like you to answer that because I do think it's an important question. It's important that we clarify this, hopefully once and for all. We keep getting these questions about what vote 40 really means, and about how we as parliamentarians can have oversight over those expenditures.

Mr. Pagan.

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, Madam Mendès.

Mr. McCauley and Mr. Blaikie, there's been much discussion and no shortage of confusion over the government's efforts to align the estimates with the budget and over the use of TB vote 40, the budget implementation vote, to help achieve that.

I do take the point that the items in budget 2018 and represented in TB vote 40, the budget implementation act, are not included in departmental plans. That's a truism.

In the same vein, in years past where we've had the main estimates, then the budget, and then a series of supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C), Parliament has voted in supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C) for new spending and, in some cases, new programs that were not foreseen in the main estimates and were not part of the departmental plan that was tabled by the department on or before March 31.

If the question is “how do we know what we're voting on because it's not in the departmental plan?”, I would simple point out that this has always been a weakness of our system. It's a weakness that—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

[Inaudible—Editor] and the voting sucks.

[Brian Pagan]

—we're trying to address.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Blaikie, it's not your turn.

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

I was quiet while you were asking your questions. I would really appreciate the same favour.

[Brian Pagan]

On March 31, 2016, we received royal assent for supplementary estimates C. That was the last day of the fiscal year. Royal assent came at 6:30 p.m. Parliament exercised its responsibility by calling officials to explain what was in supplementary estimates C. Very few of those items would have been in departmental plans because they were coming from the budget tabled the preceding February. Parliament gave its approval. Departments had, effectively, no time to spend the money because the day was over. The year was over.

That speaks to this challenge that we have where departments have to manage programs, deliver services, and achieve results. Parliament needs a mechanism to be able to ensure that there is oversight and transparency so that they understand what's going on. The government is obligated to provide real and meaningful information so that we can present this information.

The results policy seeks to look at some of these tensions by better sequencing the process. The president's reform agenda in the results policy is part of that. Now you can effectively ensure oversight of the main estimates because you know the departments are going to spend $7 billion as set out in the budget.

In many cases, those plans have not yet been approved, so they may not be in a position to tell you how much is in vote 1 and how much is in vote 5. But in many other cases, they have a very clear idea of the type of work that they're going to do.

With regard to Fisheries and Oceans, there's $150 million in the budget for small craft harbours. The department, if asked, I'm sure would be in a position to identify some of the locales in which it is looking to make investments to improve small craft harbours. That information was provided to us—

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

I understand what you're trying to say. I hope that they got their answers because you were very clear.

However, I do have a question that I'd like to ask before I finish my time. It has to do with something that the Auditor General has repeatedly come up with in the past year or so when he comes out with his reports: how our programs and our measures, as government, impact citizens. When we do the evaluations of performance and so on in departments, we often look much more at processes than necessarily the outcomes that they bring to Canadians.

Would you have a comment on that or a way to address that issue? You told us about the whole new evaluation measures that you're putting forth. How would we address this issue? How are we going to measure outcomes for Canadians?

[Brian Pagan]

The Auditor General is not alone in identifying some criticisms of past efforts to improve performance measurements and the delivery of programs. There have been a number of stakeholders, including some academics—and I'm thinking of Donald Savoie in New Brunswick—who have been very critical of feeding the beast: doing things, generating reports for the sake of generating reports, conducting an evaluation for the sake of conducting an evaluation.

That is part of the discourse that we considered when we reset our policy with the new policy on results in July 2016. We've tried to make this simpler and more intuitive so the core responsibilities...using CRA as an example, it's tax, it's benefits administration, it's their ombudsman role. That's what they do. Then underneath that they've got some clear results expectations, and some of them are quite specific in terms of service standards, etc.

That, for us, is the objective: to make the results clear, understandable, and something that can be objectively measured—wait times, turnaround times to issue permits and licences, tax returns, and this sort of thing. There are some transactional areas that lend themselves very well to that sort of results approach. There are others that are a work in process, and we need to account for that.

Clearly what's motivating us here is to be more specific about why a department exists, what it's trying to achieve, and how it's going to measure success.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Now we go to the five-minute round.

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes.

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

How are these items in vote 40 going to be reported in the public accounts, through their respective department's or through Treasury Board's?

[Brian Pagan]

Upon approval from Treasury Board and allocation of the money out to the department, the funds will be allocated to specific votes within a department, and then to specific programs within those votes.

Again, to be clear, Parliament approves and controls at the level of the vote. The program infrastructure underneath that is a construct, but it's not a control mechanism. Now this is something I'm going to come back to in a couple of weeks, because the president has also talked about purpose-based votes and maybe presenting our information in a different way other than vote 1 operating, vote 5 capital, etc.

Simply allocated out to departments by vote and then within the public accounts, information is presented by vote, and then the underlying program. As we'll see when we get to the InfoBase demo, we're going to be able to paint you a picture, using our budget implementation tracker, of the initiative and where it will be going within the department.

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

Okay.

In the absence of a change in the way the bill is presented, there won't be a line-by-line list in the public accounts the way that other programs are. Is that correct?

[Brian Pagan]

First of all, the president, in his appearance here, has committed to working with the House to introduce some clarifications to the vote wording so that there is specific reference to the annex A1 and the budget initiatives therein.

In terms of the public accounts reporting, we're starting with $7 billion in our vote. If we allocate out $6 billion, that $6 billion will be reported in the public accounts in the departments to which it's been allocated.

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

Okay, but—

[Brian Pagan]

What we're left with is the unallocated money, and that is something that we would bring back to this committee in the winter supps, and we would present that as something that is frozen and is likely to lapse. We've committed that it doesn't get reprofiled, doesn't get rolled over into next year.

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

Okay, but in a letter to the committee from the parliamentary budget office, they have stated their concern over the difference in the level of detail that will be reported to public accounts. The public accounts will not have the same level of detail. Am I not correct on this, under this—

[Brian Pagan]

I'm not responsible for the public accounts. Obviously, I'm somewhat knowledgeable about them, but I'm not familiar with the PBO's letter, and I don't know what concern he has about reporting in the public accounts.

This vote will be reported on in the public accounts in the same way as every other vote that is approved by Parliament. There will be no difference between reporting on this vote or reporting on any other vote, and the monies that are added to existing departmental votes will clearly reflect that allocation.

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

The PBO said:

Currently, the Ministry Summaries in Volume 2 of the Public Accounts provide dollar amounts for the total authorities that have been transferred from each TB central vote to the respective department or agency. However, the Public Accounts do not provide the same detail in terms of the actual dollars spent by the department or agency from the TB central votes. This spending data is rolled up and provided for total operating, capital, and grants and contributions.

If I understand that correctly, when this is all complete the concern is that we will not have the same level of accountability through public accounts over the monies that are approved in this vote and then disbursed.