Government Operations Committee on Nov. 1st, 2018

[Brian Pagan]

In the estimates document, at the front end, you'll see that we break out spending by budgetary voted and statutory, and non-budgetary voted and statutory. Non-budgetary items are those items that go to the bottom line of the Government of Canada. They affect the underlying composition of our assets—loans, recoveries, investments and advances.

In this case, there is no appropriation authority. We don't need the cash to make this purchase. It is a loan from one Crown corporation to another Crown corporation. It's recorded on the books of the Government of Canada as an asset with an offsetting liability for the amount of that loan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

[Brian Pagan]

When it is sold, we will either make money or lose money on that transaction, and that will be recorded in the underlying statements of the Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Minister, we thank you again for being here today.

I have just one quick comment, an observation from the chair, if I may. We as a committee have invited you to appear before this committee to discuss specifically the whistle-blower protection act and the report that this committee worked very hard to develop and present in Parliament. We have yet to hear back from your office. I'm not going to try to put you on the spot, but certainly, sir, I hope you would take it under your most serious consideration to attend the next time you're invited to this committee to discuss that specific issue.

[Scott Brison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee. I was pleased to be able to refer to some of the changes we've made in terms of that regime, which were informed by the work of this committee. Thank you for the interest of some of the members in the supplementary estimates as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you on behalf of the committee.

Colleagues, we will suspend while the minister departs the room, and we'll resume in about three minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, I'll call the meeting back to order.

Before we begin with a brief opening statement by Mr. Pagan, I want to address my remarks directly to him, hopefully on behalf of all of our committee members, to underscore what Minister Brison was saying.

Thank you so much, sir, for all your years of service. It is a thankless job many times to do what you do, and to do what public servants do.

I want to publicly thank you, since we are televised, for your many years of service, and wish you a great future. I hope retirement treats you well, and I hope we have an opportunity sometime in the future to see you back here on Parliament Hill.

Once again, thank you for everything you've done on behalf of Canadians coast to coast.

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's been my pleasure to represent Treasury Board and to serve this committee.

I very much look forward to presenting my final supplementary estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's a nice segue, Mr. Pagan.

I understand that you have a brief opening statement, and following that we'll go directly into questions.

Colleagues, I think we will not have enough time for an entire first round, but we will have about 40 minutes. That should give us enough time for at least one or one and a half rounds of questions.

Mr. Pagan, the floor is yours.

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you, again.

The president, in his opening remarks, provided a broad overview of the supplementary estimates and the major items therein. There has been a PowerPoint presentation circulated to committee members. I simply want to take a very few minutes to speak to where we are in the supply process.

What we see in front of us, on slide 3, is the supply calendar. As the committee will know, the House calendar is broken into three supply periods. This period here, for supplementary (A)s, ends on December 10, then to March 26 in the fiscal year, and then from the start of the next fiscal year to June 30.

What we see in this period—September to December of the supply period ending December 10—is that we have the conclusion of last fiscal year. We have the annual financial report and the public accounts for the Government of Canada. We're tabling our first supplementary estimates of the year, and we look forward in the next few weeks to a fall economic statement, which may result in additional priorities. We would bring those to Parliament in subsequent supply periods. So that is the supply period.

Slide 4 is just a reminder that we have the tabled document in the House that provides a summary of the supplementary estimates seeking $7.5 billion in voted authorities. We have details on a large number of horizontal items this year in these supplementaries. We have 21 horizontal items. We have detail by each and every organization—the 76 organizations seeking money—through the supplementary estimates (A), and then the proposed schedule to the appropriation bill that will be introduced in December. That's all part of the tabled document.

In addition to that, there is a wealth of information available online. This information has been generated, in large part, by interactions with this committee over the years. They have asked for additional details on statutory expenditures, breaking out the estimates by program or by purpose, and breaking out the details by standard objects of expenditure: salaries, professional services, travel, etc. We have a detailed listing of all of our central votes. We have a detailed listing of transfers between organizations.

Then, most importantly, there is InfoBase. I've said in the past that as we continue to make improvements to InfoBase, it's my expressed hope that some day we'll become irrelevant and everything you would want to know about the estimates will be available online.

Mr. Chair, that's the overview of where we're at. There were a number of questions in the previous round. I'd be happy to follow up on any of those, or any new questions that the committee may have.

I should mention that I'm joined at the table by executive director Marcia Santiago; our new CFO at the Treasury Board, Karen Cahill; and Mr. Glenn Purves, who is taking on the responsibilities of secretariat expenditure management.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much for your statement.

We'll go directly to seven-minute rounds now, starting with Madame Yip, please.

[Jean Yip, Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.]

Thank you very much for coming.

How do the estimates help provide a better infrastructure for Canadians?

[Brian Pagan]

Madam Yip, that's a very interesting question because it's one of the challenges that we're grappling with now with regard to InfoBase. Government is organized vertically, so we have departments. We have the Department of Infrastructure. We have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We have the Department of Environment, etc. The estimates presented to you, for the most part, present that information according to those departmental structures.

Over the years, we've come to realize that the departments, in and of themselves, are often not able to address all of the policy and programming goals of government, and that to achieve the objectives of the government, they need to work together. At the very front end of the document, we have a listing of all of the horizontal items, and I mentioned there are some 21 items in this document. That's an example of how we have interacted with the committee to present information in a new way.

In addition, through InfoBase, people are looking.... They don't know how government is organized, and they may not use the term “infrastructure”. They may use “construction” or some other term, so we are using data tags to allow for searchable online access to spending. You can use InfoBase to query—as you could query in Google—seniors, aboriginals, youth or infrastructure, and you'll see all of the different programs and spending of government. This is something that is iterative, and we will make it better year in and year out.

Specifically, with respect to infrastructure, I mentioned horizontal initiatives. The very first horizontal initiative is funding for infrastructure projects in indigenous communities. What we see through that very first initiative is that we have three departments joining up to address infrastructure in indigenous communities: the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Department of Indigenous Services Canada and the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Each is doing its part to address infrastructure needs in aboriginal communities.

Specifically, with respect to major infrastructure, we had questions in the previous round about the Champlain Bridge, about money being sought by the Office of Infrastructure of Canada for that large project. The Gordie Howe international bridge—the Detroit bridge crossing—is another major item in these supplementary estimates.

Then there is federal infrastructure: labs and property of individual departments. We see major investments in departments, most notably the Department of National Defence and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the Coast Guard ships that we spoke of.

[Jean Yip]

What kind of property is part of the Department of National Defence that you just mentioned?

[Brian Pagan]

To my recollection, the Department of National Defence is the largest property owner in Canada. It has testing facilities, bases and depots across the country. The funds being sought in these supplementary estimates—some $282 million—cover a range of capital projects in the department.

A capital project can be a major equipment system—such as a ship, tank or airplane—but it also encompasses the department's real property. The $282 million for DND through these supplementary estimates includes funding for some of its facilities across the country: upgrades to barracks, training facilities, and bases.

[Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Shared Services Canada has requested $14.6 million of funding for the 2018-2020 immigration levels plan. What is Shared Services' role in the immigration levels plan, and what will the $14.6 million of funding be used for?

[Brian Pagan]

Thank you. I'm just checking my notes on this one.

Shared Services Canada, as we know, provides the physical infrastructure backbone for government departments. In this particular case, it's seeking operating and capital expenditures to provide core IT services, including systems overseas. So, a large part of the request for Shared Services Canada includes working with departments to install infrastructure overseas.

[Jean Yip]

With respect to the Border Services job classification comparability study, there's $500,000 put towards that. Can you explain what this study is about, how it will help Border Services, and whether it is on schedule?

I'm referring to the Treasury Board Secretariat on page 2-105.

[Brian Pagan]

Right. I'll defer to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

If you could find it in under a minute, I'd appreciate it.

[Karen Cahill, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Normally we do studies to be able to compare jobs between different classifications. As the core public service administration employer, we are undertaking a study to ensure that the job wages are comparable for both the border services and the correctional services officers. The study has not yet started, but we will commission the study in the upcoming months.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

[Jean Yip]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll now go to Mr. McCauley for seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Ms. Santiago, welcome back.

Minister Brison referenced the sources and uses of the budget implementation vote by department on the website. I'm just wondering—you cannot track month by month any new spending. You update the total spent but not by month.

How are Canadians and parliamentarians supposed to actually follow the money? We can only do it because we actually printed the very first one that came out in April, so we can actually compare. We print it every month, but the month-by-month new money that comes out is not reflected or shown separately.