Government Operations Committee on Nov. 8th, 2018

[Matthew Shea]

Absolutely. One of the things that is unique about PCO is that its exact mandate changes as time goes on. At this point, it has four different ministers who are supported, and the Prime Minister is also the minister of youth. This funding is really to recognize that fact. We recently added an additional minister.

The way it works is that departments are not funded for ministers. Typically for a large department, absorbing one minister's office is not a large problem for us. Absorbing four ministers becomes a bit of a challenge from a program integrity perspective, so a portion of that is for the actual ministers' offices themselves in recognition of the costs, and then a portion is for the support that coincides with that in light of those broad mandates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Shea, I want to go to your departmental plan. The departmental plan that was released shows a decrease in funding for the next year because of sunsetting of the missing and murdered women and also a decrease in funding for a GIC appointment process. Of course, now we see in the supplementary estimates that the money is back in.

Walk me through what changed in those estimates. Why wasn't it in the main estimates, but it's showing up in the supplementary estimates?

[Matthew Shea]

It wasn't in the main estimates because we didn't have funding approval at that point. We put a funding proposal in place for a number of items, including for the ministers' offices.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

When did it come out? When the departmental plan came out, it came out at the same time as the main estimates and the budget. At that time you were predicting a decrease in funding for 2018-19.

[Matthew Shea]

The departmental plan is based on approved levels from Treasury Board.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Was this before the extension was planned or announced for the missing and murdered women?

[Matthew Shea]

Are you speaking specifically of the commission or for all of the different pieces?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I mean the funding for the missing and murdered women that's in—

[Matthew Shea]

The funding for that was, again, originally $53 million over three fiscal years. At the time at which the departmental plan and the main estimates were tabled, a decision had not yet been made as to an extension. In addition to that reality, we had not quantified what that dollar amount would be, so it was impossible to put anything in.

Following that, we received a request for the extension, and the extension was granted.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Therefore when the plan came out, you were expecting the money just to sunset and the plan to be done at the time?

[Matthew Shea]

That was the plan as of that moment.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

For the GIC appointment process, it was the same thing. You were expecting to wind down, because you were saying that year over year there would be a decrease for this year, but now there's almost $4 million in the supplementary estimates for the GIC appointment process.

I'm trying to wrap my head around what's changed from when the plan came out. Were you expecting to be further along in the GIC process, or—?

[Matthew Shea]

No. I would say for the ministers' offices and for the GICs, the story is very similar in that it was identified that we had a funding pressure, that it was costing more than what our budget was for those areas. Then the process for the GIC funding was changed several years ago, and a best estimate was made as to what that would cost. In the end, the workload has been greater than what was anticipated. It is a vast set of positions that we're doing in a open and transparent way—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

For the $4 million in the supplementary estimates, are you able to give a ballpark breakdown of how much is for judges, how much is for Senate, how much is for this or that, or is it just too wide a range?

[Matthew Shea]

What it's for is salaries, to pay our employees who do this work.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

[Matthew Shea]

It's for that combination of the different pieces. It's for all of the positions done under the open and transparent process that we now have for GIC appointments.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What I'm getting at is that the government has been very heavily criticized for the slow appointment process for judges. We're actually debating Bill C-75 in the House right now. Murderers are being set free, etc., because we don't have enough judges. The plan that came out just six months ago said there would be a decrease in funding, which is obviously because there was going to be less of a need for the GIC process. Now we see an uptick. Is that—

[Matthew Shea]

It wasn't about less need. Again, I'll take you back to—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Was it about just not having the planning ready at the time?

[Matthew Shea]

I will just explain. Generally, from a budgeting perspective, what's in the departmental plan is approved funding. We can't say that we think we need more money and then go ahead and put that in the departmental plan. That's just not the process. We knew—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I realize that, but you've identified in the plan that you knew there was going to be a decrease.

[Matthew Shea]

Yes, because that's what was approved, and so we worked on a funding request to identify the fact that we needed more funding to do these 1,300 positions that fall under this open and transparent—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think that gets back to my question about—