Government Operations Committee on Nov. 1st, 2018

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

You're quite right that the monthly updates do not show a delta from one month to the next. That's something we'd be happy to look at, to show what the difference is.

The key advance, from our perspective here, is in the quantity and the quality of the updates. In fact, there have been seven updates for this committee and for Canadians since the original posting on April 16.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I appreciate that, but just opening it up.... I can't imagine that anyone across the table has actually looked at it, but if they were to look at it today, they would not know how much was spent last month or how much was rolled out a month ago.

Mr. MacGregor brought up the fact that vote 40 was supposed to replace, basically, a supplementary estimate, and yet less than 60% of that has actually gone out. Canadians actually can't tell. Parliamentarians can't tell.

I appreciate that you're going to look at it. Maybe we can get a commitment that you can just add a simple line showing how much is going out every month so that we can actually see.

[Brian Pagan]

I'd welcome the suggestion, Mr. McCauley. That's something we'd be glad to look at.

I would simply caution that the estimates are intended to provide information about the authorities available to departments, and so we have focused on how we have made allocations from that vote. Making the allocation is a different kind of fish from the money being spent.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Unless I'm wrong, I heard Minister Brison very clearly saying that Canadians and parliamentarians could actually follow the funds with this. Again, it's a simple change. I hope you can fix it. You understand that you can't follow it unless you print it every single month and spend the time making your own Excel spreadsheet.

I'm going to move on.

Once the vote 40 budget initiatives are approved, some go across to our government departments. Are these considered horizontal items, or are they all individual initiatives for each individual department?

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you.

That's a very good question, Mr. McCauley, because, in some instances, an item in the budget implementation vote is in fact a horizontal item.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

[Brian Pagan]

An example would be Phoenix and the work that TBS and PSPC are doing to support the existing systems.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

So vote 40 will go across as a....

Is it considered horizontal like the rest of the estimates?

[Brian Pagan]

No. I will just be very clear here. Allocations from vote 40 can be horizontal items if we are advancing money for the same budget item to a number of different departments.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Let me ask you about central vote 5. There's a $1.1-million contingency emergency fund to enable ESDC as grant payments for support for labour market information.

I'm just curious. It's an $800-million-a-year department. Why is there an emergency $1 million? They couldn't find it.... They use it for labour market opinions. What's the big rush for it? Is that $1 million linked in any way to the Stats Canada issue going on right now with the deep dive StatsCan is doing into banking accounts?

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Vote 5 exists, as the committee knows, to allocate funding to departments in advance of supply. In those cases where departments have existing cash authorities, they won't need the vote—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is it linked in any way to the Stats Canada issue?

[Brian Pagan]

—but when it comes to making a grant payment, they need the authority to do that. In this case, it is the allocation—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think Ms. Santiago is shaking her head.

[Marcia Santiago, Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat]

No, we don't believe it's at all related to the Stats Canada issue.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Perfect. Thanks.

I want to go quickly because I'm running out of time.

On the departmental plans that Minister Brison spoke about, we have discussed them recently, and there is a framework that sets out very clear policy objectives and very clear requirements. If Treasury Board is supposed to be the oversight of the departmental plans, I'd like to know just how much oversight you give.

I want to give you some statistics. There are something like 1,600 targets set out in the various departmental plans. We've read through them all and counted them all. Fully one fifth have no actual measurable targets set. It's odd that we're spending $300 billion a year and there are no targets set. Twelve per cent, or one out of every eight, have no date set for the target. Fully 48% have no target compared to.... It's left as “not applicable” for the 2016-17 numbers.

I have to ask Treasury Board, are you satisfied with what I think is a complete failure of the departmental plans? What is Treasury Board's role in ensuring that this is addressed and doesn't continue? We have massive spending and ministers signing off on plans that are completely unacceptable and do not set out any direction as the framework requires them to do.

[Brian Pagan]

Mr. McCauley, I think this is one area where in fact we would share a common interest. Treasury Board certainly has a role in terms of the results policy, and we work with departments to clarify—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We heard from the parliamentary secretary that it's okay because it's a learning process and government is complicated. Do you share that view, that 48% is acceptable and one fifth of all goals...?

[Brian Pagan]

I agree that government is complicated, and I do believe that this is a journey and that suggestions from this committee in terms of improving results indicators would be very helpful to departments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacGregor, you have seven minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Mr. Pagan, I too want to revisit vote 40. I understand, going through the different departments, that these are just the monies that have been allocated, not necessarily spent.

[Brian Pagan]

That's correct.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay. I want to revisit the issue of parliamentary oversight, because one of the most important roles we have is that Her Majesty cannot spend any funds that Parliament does not first approve.

Now, I appreciate that the Government of Canada is listing these items. The problem I have is that vote 40 has already been approved by Parliament. The $7 billion was approved, so even as we see these items come up, our ability to talk about where the money is actually going is a moot point because the funds have already been approved.

When I go through the list, I see $9.5 million allocated for aquaculture growth. Well, on the west coast, we have huge problems with fish farms and their impact on wild salmon.

I see $10 million allocated for rural broadband. Do you know how big this country is? Is $10 million even enough to cover that? At the agriculture committee, we were hearing a lot that this is necessary.

Again, my ability to influence or to have any say in the oversight of this spending is limited because the funds have already been approved.

There's $22 million going to protect the southern resident killer whale. Again, it's an issue that my constituents have great concern about.

In terms of my ability to oversee these funds, they have already been approved by Parliament. Do you see where my particular problem is here? The money has already been approved.

At that time, we had no idea of where it was being allocated. That's the issue I have. I'm wondering if you can comment on that.

[Brian Pagan]

Mr. MacGregor, this is a tremendously important issue. There was a great deal of debate, within this committee and elsewhere, in the spring. I don't know that a short answer will do it justice.

The starting point is about improving transparency so that parliamentarians understand how the estimates process supports the budget. In the minister's own parlance, we had it completely backwards before. We submitted the estimates. Then we followed up with a budget. Then we brought budget items, a piece at a time, over many years. In some cases, it was five or six years from a budget announcement until the time it showed up in the estimates.

The intention of vote 40 this year was to essentially serve as a report card. The government said in budget 2018 that they expect to spend $7 billion on a cash basis, so we put that in the estimates. We are reporting, every month, about how that money is being allocated and how it's being used. At the end of the year, we will see how the government has done in terms of allocating money to its priorities as announced in budget 2018.

I think that's a tremendous step forward in terms of transparency and just making the process understandable. Parliament approved the budget, and therefore I don't think it's illogical that Parliament would approve the appropriations to implement the budget. What we are doing through our reporting is providing a level of detail and a pace of detail that have simply never existed before. We're supporting that with additional online material, including on InfoBase.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

My next question, then, is this. At the time of vote 40, were departmental plans detailed enough to indicate that they had a future need for these funds, or are departmental plans coming into greater clarity now that they know the funding is available?